A critical view of morality in Words of Radiance

[happyman he/him]

I believe ultimately all concepts of morality are based in the notion of law/lawgiver.  However I think that there is a hierarchy to the multiple levels of law.

 

1. First, we have the Divine Law, rooted in the nature of the Ultimate Being.  Dalinar strikes me as a character in the book who would be most willing to admit moral and right action to be ultimately based on this level of law.

2. From thence would derive the Natural Law, which would be the created participation in the Divine Law by virtue of being created/made as a certain kind of being.  Certain people -- atheists such as Jasnah for instance -- might hold to this level of law while denying the existence of Divine law.  Others (Kaladin for instance) might hold to this level without outright denial of the Divine, but with an inchoate or incomplete view of the Divine.

3. Creatures with intelligence can then use their reason to issue edicts and structures that then have the force of law (this level of law would be known as human positive law, i.e. law as originating from the decrees of human agents).  At this level, we can run into conflicts between human laws and the natural law and/or Divine laws, and two categories of response are possible:  to uphold human positive law above and/or in contradiction to Divine/natural law concepts [which is commonly seen to be Nalan's general view, although I think there is something different going on there], or to uphold the priority of natural and/or Divine laws above human positive law [the Sylphrena view].

 

Sanderson gives multiple views of morality throughout the book, but no evidence that such multiplicity of views was foundational to the KR system.  I could certainly see Truthwatchers or Lightweavers or Edgedancers for instance to have individual members with quite varying view of the relationship/existence of the three level of law.  Others (those bonded to Honorspren) would seem to have an intrinsic self-selection towards one view, e.g. upholding the primacy of natural law above human positive law.  So while I do think there might be some general form of self-selection into a few KR orders based on one's view of the relationship of human positive law to natural/Divine law, I don't see the KR orders as a whole being based upon the notion that there is no perfect morality system.

 

I suspect that this has a strong part on it.  I personally suspect that there is somewhere in the cognitive realm the idea of honor (or more likely, the overlapping set of concepts known as honor).  This objectively exists in his world.  The different spren are actual manifestations of these ideas.  However, aspects of it may well be influenced by the other cognitive entities present.  In this case, Windrunners would have to adhere to not only their own sense of honor, but also how the rest of the world views it, on a deep subconscious level.  This would then be an analogue to the Natural Law concept; unconscious moral democracy.

 

In other words, Kaladin is becoming not only the person he wants to be, but the person a lot of other people deep down want to be as well, although it is far from the only ideal version people can imagine (that's what the other orders are).  Or maybe he is only becoming the person many people want to believe in.

 

If this is true, then the Windrunners would not be nearly as chaotic as some people in this thread suggest.  They wouldn't be holding themselves only to their own sense of morality, but to some sort of Cosmere-wide "consensus" of one particular brand of morality.  One specific ideal, as it were.

 

That others are possible is a fascinating study, by the way.