The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be hard to place philosophically. Is it intrinsically modern and American or is it traditional or even reactionary? This challenge is compounded because there are relatively few philosophers working on Mormonism. Here, I look at an unusually Mormon understanding of ethics.

The Mormon ethical system is distinct from modern ethical theories like utilitarianism and deontology – and also from ancient ethical theories like virtue ethics and natural law. Although there is significant overlap with other ethical theories, the emphasis on covenants is unusual. Here, I describe this covenant system of ethics.

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Prerequisites: Some knowledge of different theories of ethics would be helpful, but not necessary.

Originally Written: July 2018.

Confidence Level: Core religious belief.

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Let’s begin with an story. This story is taken from the Book of Mormon:

And now behold, I have somewhat to say concerning the people of Ammon, who, in the beginning, were Lamanites [bad guys]; but by Ammon and his brethren, or rather by the power and word of God, they had been converted unto the Lord; and they had been brought down into the land of Zarahemla, and had ever since been protected by the Nephites [good guys]. And because of their oath they had been kept from taking up arms against their brethren; for they had taken an oath that they never would shed blood more; and according to their oath they would have perished; yea, they would have suffered themselves to have fallen into the hands of their brethren, had it not been for the pity and the exceeding love which Ammon and his brethren had had for them. And for this cause they were brought down into the land of Zarahemla; and they ever had been protected by the Nephites.

But it came to pass that when they saw the danger, and the many afflictions and tribulations which the Nephites bore for them, they were moved with compassion and were desirous to take up arms in the defence of their country. But behold, as they were about to take their weapons of war, they were overpowered by the persuasions of Helaman and his brethren, for they were about to break the oath which they had made. And Helaman feared lest by so doing they should lose their souls; therefore all those who had entered into this covenant were compelled to behold their brethren wade through their afflictions, in their dangerous circumstances at this time.

But behold, it came to pass they had many sons, who had not entered into a covenant that they would not take their weapons of war to defend themselves against their enemies; therefore they did assemble themselves together at this time, as many as were able to take up arms, and they called themselves Nephites. And they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives; yea, even they covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage.

Alma 53:10-17

Looking at this story, we can ask: Is it ethically acceptable to use violence in self-defense?

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There are several ways we can answer this question.^[1]I will be critical of all of them. I am aware that debates over which ethical system is best are ancient. All of them include some flaws and some advantages. I will not try to include the subtlety of … Continue reading

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We could consider the costs and benefits of submission and self-defense. The Nephites expected that the Lamanites would show no mercy to them. Many of the people of Ammon had been killed earlier when they refused to fight back against the Lamanites.^[2]See Alma 24:21-22. The worst thing that might happen to them if they defended themselves was guaranteed to happen if they did not. This suggests that self-defense is the right choice.

However, are we truly being ethical if we only consider the costs and benefits to ourselves and our people? Shouldn’t we also consider the costs we impose on others? Perhaps the question should be phrased: Do the benefits we gain through self-defense outweigh the harm we cause our enemies? This answer is much less clear, especially since the Nephites were capable of defeating much larger armies of Lamanites.

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Instead of looking at costs and benefits, we could ask the question: “What if everyone does this?” We can know what is right because, if everyone made the right choice, then everyone would be better off. Wrong choices are those that make everyone worse off if everyone does them.

Suppose everyone were willing to use self-defense. The danger for this society is that there is no way to end a cycle of violence. Once a war started, both sides could be justified in continuing the war. An ethical system which allows unending wars is not one that we would prefer.

Suppose everyone were a pacifist. This solves the problem of how to end wars – both sides are obligated to stop fighting, even if it not in their interest to do so. However, if a single person, or a small group of people, rejects pacifism, they could dominate everyone else. This society might be peaceful, but it is dangerously unstable.

Perhaps it is best for some people in a society to be willing to use violence and for some people to advocate pacifism. This renders the question “What if everyone does this?” less useful in determining which choice is right.

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We could consider what society expects of them. Perhaps what is right depends primarily on what the people who form the society decide is right and necessary to hold the society together.

I’m not particularly convinced that this is a good way to think about ethics because it makes it impossible to critique the values of the entire society that you live in. Even if it were the right way to think about ethics, it doesn’t help us here. War is a conflict between two societies which disagree on what is right. Appealing to society cannot resolve the disagreement between what the Nephite society thinks is right and what the Lamanite society thinks is right.

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We could consider what rights each person has. If every person has an inalienable right to life, then they can defend that right if necessary.

In a war, people on both sides have the right to life. Unless one side is unambiguously the aggressor, appealing to rights doesn’t tell you how to behave in war.

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We could make this decision by considering first what kind of person we wish to be and then use this to make our choice. What would a courageous person do in this situation? What would a faithful person do in this situation? What would a charitable person do in this situation? What would a longsuffering person do in this situation?

What do we do if different virtues lead to different conclusions about what we should do? How do we determine which is most important?

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So what does the Book of Mormon say we should do? Should we be willing to use violence in self-defense?

The Book of Mormon says sometimes. It is wrong for the people of Ammon to use violence in self-defense, but it is good for the sons of the people of Ammon to use violence in self-defense.

What’s different between the people of Ammon and their sons? They had entered into different covenants. The ethical system described here is based on covenants.

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Let’s start our discussion of covenants with a secular example: the Hippocratic Oath.

It’s truly outrageous what we let doctors do to us. We let them drug us up, cut us open, and fiddle around in there with the hope that things will be better once they’ve finished.

Why do we let doctors (and only doctors) do this?

Skill is certainly necessary, but it can’t be the only explanation. The most skilled kidney harvester could have a better anesthesiologist than many surgeons.

The reason why we trust our doctors is because they’ve sworn an oath to “above all else, do no harm”. This covenant gives them the capability to do more good and to do more evil than a normal person. In order to gain access to this greater power, their actions are constrained by their oath.

The good that doctors can do, both for individuals and for societies, is obvious. The potential evil that doctors can do extends far beyond harvesting kidneys. In 1979, doctors eradicated smallpox, a disease that had killed tens of millions of people. Instead of completely destroying the virus, small samples of it were kept at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and ??? in Russia. (Don’t worry about it.) We trust that the doctors at the CDC will keep the virus secure and will use it only if we need it to make vaccines. We trust that they will not release it anywhere out of neglect or malice.

Doctors are bound by this great oath. Who do they swear to? Certainly not Hippocrates. He’s been dead for far too long and most of his medical practices have since been seen to be harmful.

The Hippocratic Oath is a covenant between doctors and society.

Doctors promise to devote their lives to healing the sick and afflicted, to remember the humanity of their patients despite their diseases, to prevent sickness whenever possible, and “above all else, to do no harm”. In return, society promises to trust the doctors’ judgment in matters of health and to let them do outrageous things to our bodies.

What would happen if the Hippocratic Oath were broken?

If it is broken in isolated incidents, we revoke that individual’s medical license without disrupting the rest of the relationship between doctors and society.

Unfortunately, we have an example of a much worse breach of the oath. A few years ago, a certain “doctor” decided to violate his oath. Instead of just poisoning a few of his patients, he decided to poison the oath itself by claiming that doctors were willing to sometimes, possibly harm children in their care – using vaccines. Part of society decided that they not longer have to trust doctors and so they refuse to vaccine their children. The “doctor” has since been shown to be a liar and has been permanently expelled from the medical profession. But it is much harder to restore the other side of the covenant. Although only a small fraction of society, anti-vaxxers can destroy successes of medicine. Many childhood diseases that were almost entirely eradicated have reappeared. Without the oath, we cannot coordinate our efforts to fight the enemies of all mankind. ^[3]Secretly, this post is actually about vaccinating your children. ^[4]But really though, vaccinate your kids.

This was written before our current pandemic, so I was thinking about measles outbreaks. Getting vaccinated to help end a pandemic is even more important.

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What is the nature of the covenants we make with God?

The most familiar covenants are the First Triumvirate: baptism, confirming you a member of the church, and receiving the Holy Ghost.^[5]This is not standard terminology, but I always look for opportunities to use the word “Triumvirate”. Since confirmation and receiving the Holy Ghost occur together, people often this of … Continue reading These certainly do not exhaust the list of covenants we can make with God, but we’ll use them for examples. The promises made on both sides are explicitly stated in the sacrament prayers.^[6]“Sacrament” in Mormonism specifically refers to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Other sacraments are referred to as “Ordinances”. Many ordinances also involve … Continue reading^[7]The prayers can be found in D&C 20:76-79.

There is one obvious way that these covenants are different from the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is made between the person entering the covenant and the rest of society. God is not explicitly involved in the covenant. ^[8]The original Hippocratic Oath explicitly involved multiple gods, but we don’t do that anymore.

The baptismal covenant is made between the person entering the covenant and God.

There is a role for society in the baptismal covenant as well. God doesn’t come down and sign your baptismal certificate after your baptism.^[9]At least He didn’t at mine. That’s normal, right? Instead, the explicit recognition of the covenant is done by the church. After someone is confirmed a member of the church, there is a sustaining vote where she is welcomed to Christ’s church and the ward where she was baptized.

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If we keep our covenants, we can be more good than we could have been without them.

We are promised that we will always have His Spirit to be with us. The Spirit provides guidance, allowing us to know who to serve and how to serve them. It helps us develop our talents and Gifts of the Spirit so we can use them to help others.

As we keep these and later covenants, we can gain access to the power of God to use for His purposes. Eventually, we will be able to live eternally with our Heavenly Father.

Much like the Hippocratic Oath, we also gain the capability of doing greater evil.

After making covenants, whatever evil we do is worse for ourself. People who have never received a covenant cannot be condemned by it. This is especially true for children or anyone else incapable of understanding right and wrong.^[10]See Moroni 8:22. Even if someone has never made an explicit covenant, they will still be held accountable for the right and wrong that they do understand. Making an explicit covenant makes the consequences of sin worse.

He who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.

D&C 82:3

After making a covenant with God, we take upon ourselves His name. The wrongs that we do not only damage ourselves, they can also damage the reputation of His name. This makes people less receptive to the Gospel and can drive souls away from Christ. All of actions reflect on the Church as well as ourselves.

Every member a missionary, whether he wants to be or not.

Our actions may also directly damage the church. The more influence we have in the church, the worse the consequences can be. The most dramatic example of this is Judas Iscariot. It is only because he was one of the closest followers of Christ that he was able to find, identify, and betray Him.

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What do we promise at baptism?

We promise to improve ourselves. We learn more about the gospel. Our body is a temple because of the Spirit dwells within us, so we take care of it. We develop our talents and our virtues. We covenant to ultimately be perfect, “even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”^[11]See Matthew 5:48.

We promise to be willing to sacrifice for others. We improve ourselves not only for our own sake, but so we can help others. We are willing to give of our material possessions and our time to help our fellow men and the Kingdom of God. We may be called to make the ultimate sacrifice. As John reminds us, “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”^[12]See John 3:15.

We promise that we will be distinctive from the rest of the world. We take Christ’s name upon us not for His sake, for “God is able of these stones to raise up children,”^[13]See Matthew 3:9. but so we can be His “peculiar treasure.”^[14]See Exodus 19:5. Many of the apparently arbitrary commandments can be seen in this way. There are health benefits from not being addicted to coffee, just as there were health benefits to the diet of the Levitical law: not eating roadkill can help prevent the spread of disease.^[15]See Deuteronomy 14:21. However, there is nothing inherently evil about coffee or pork. Eating them becomes wrong because the covenant we made demands that we are distinctive. God wants us to be distinctive so we remember that we are His.

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This starts to show us how covenants can be different for different people and why what is right for one person may be wrong for another.

There are a few essential elements to any covenant with God. We can summarize them, as the Savior did, with the two greatest commandments: love God and love your neighbor.^[16]See Matthew 22:36-40. The details of how we do this can vary.

One reason why covenants are different is because the world in which the covenant people live is different. Different circumstances necessitate different commandments. This is especially true with our distinctiveness from the rest of the world. A commandment to not eat insects will not make us distinctive if the rest of the world already follows it.

Covenants can also be different because the people partaking in the covenant are different. The law of Moses was given to the children of Israel because “they were a stiffnecked people, quick to do iniquity, and slow to remember the Lord their God; Therefore there was a law given them, yea, a law of performances and of ordinances, a law which they were to observe strictly from day to day, to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him.”^[17]See Mosiah 13:29-30.

The early Christian church consisted of people who were quicker to remember God. They were less good at integrating people from different backgrounds into the church, so they received many particular commandments about that. Instead of the old dietary law, they received instruction on whether to eat meat sacrificed to Greek idols.^[18]You don’t have to put in effort to avoid eating it, but if someone offers it to you as idol meat, you should refuse. See 1 Corinthians 8. The covenant they received was different from the old law.^[19]The early Christian church also had a more complete understanding of the nature of God. They were able to live a higher law, with fewer explicit rules and more understanding. In this post, I am … Continue reading

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We can now return to the story we begin with. The people of Ammon had been bloodthirsty warriors before they were converted to the gospel of Christ. They could not return to war without returning to their wicked selves. This is why they received a covenant of peace.

The sons of the people of Ammon did not have the same bloody history. They were able to maintain their righteousness even in war. They were given a covenant which required them to defend themselves and their people.

Both groups acted righteously, according to the covenant which they had been given.