Morality: ennie-minnie-minie-moe

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Morality: ennie-minnie-minie-moe

I cannot remember where I read it but is resonates for me; ‘all decisions, wherein there is a choice, are moral decisions’. One may find quibbles to get around this message but the essence of the matter is that for a person seeking to be moral, all judgments from which decisions are derived warrant careful consideration.

In an attempt to comprehend the nature of ethics/morality one will find a forest of writings but essentially each person must build his or her own model of what ethics/morality means. Somewhere along the way toward becoming an enlightened person regarding this matter we all must settle on that which makes sense for us. That does not mean that we remain static about the matter but it means that we settle on some model that is our personal guide until we decide to change it.

Our community and our family mold our moral sense as we grow up. But at some point we must remold that model to fit our adult self. I am an American and my sense of ethics/morality was codified by the Declaration and the Constitution as I grew up and it is what determines, to a large extent, my adult sense in this matter.

The Declaration declares ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights’. The Constitution sets forth a listing of the rights of all citizens that are to be protected by law. These declarations are part of my heritage and are what I accept as the foundation of my sense of morality.

It appears that the two concepts ‘right’ and ‘good’ form the foundation of any moral system. The ‘good’ is ‘rational desire’ and the ‘right’ has varying meanings. The status of the right seems to be the important variable that determines what one’s ethical/moral model becomes.

I call my model of morality as being a closed system as opposed to an open system. I call my system a closed system because ‘right’ is clearly defined in the Declaration and the Constitution as being prior to the good. That which is right has a fence around it with a big “No Trespassing” sign and is closed to usurpation by the good. A different system could be called an open system when there is no closed area representing rights but that the right is considered as being that which maximizes the good.

I suspect that often we do not have the knowledge and understanding to determine at the time we make our decisions which matters might be amoral as opposed to moral. I think that a moral person needs to have that consideration constantly in mind and thus to form habits that help to keep us on track even though we often act unconsciously. It is all a part of developing character I guess.

Questions for discussion

Would you say that an act can be a moral or immoral without our being conscious of the matter?

Where do these two concepts, right and good, fit into your model of morality and or ethics? I use the term ethics/morality to mean that the two terms are the same for me.

Assume that some young person reads my OP and is inspired by it to study what morality is all about. Then that person goes on to read a response and s/he sees that the responder ridiculed the OP. This then deflates the idea to study morality. Can the ridicule be considered to have been an amoral act?

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“That does not mean that we remain static about the matter but it means that we settle on some model that is our personal guide until we decide to change it.”

“matter”

Should we takes this literally to mean matter,hence morality being a form of biological and inert description

or should we state “matter”- to be of importance,meaning.philosophically speaking this would be something along the lines of a proof of the self,which is meaning less because we must draw from outside sources to find meaning,and therefore are admitting to an existence outside ourself.

ridicule is just a form of reveal your-own self-deceived lies,and therefore the righteousness fails,and your moral paradigm crumbles.

It may just be better to the lie,that something exist outside of ourself

either way both require something else to exist

hence dualism

and in fact it reveals a greater system of morality

that to ridicule you is to ridicule and idea,one that you lied and claimed was you

the ridicule reveals that the idea was not you,and therefore not an idea

instead a state fact of something else

which implies that we have a biological sense of morality

so you should feel happy,because you don’t have to worry about whats outside yourself,because they have already worried about you

and you worry about them in both conditions

therefore morality has nothing to do with you,it is indeed always something or someone else

who decides,and the answer may be something you don’t want to hear

just be comfortable,because you always “are”.

deciding for someone else can make you very uncomfortable

when are “you” comfortable

and thats a “tricky” question

who or what our we talking to

nothing?

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I have a constantly changing attitude toward morality. My views are changing because I am constantly studying subject matter that is related to the problem of morality. In fact as I study these matters I find that the most important concerns of sapiens is morality based.

I have a cartoon figure that my son has crated for me that speaks to my general attitude toward morality. The figure has an Arnold-like upper torso set on two spindle weak veracious veined legs. The upper torso is our ‘man of science’ and the lower body represents our ‘science of man’, i.e. morality. We are rapidly running out the clock on human survival unless we quickly develop a moral code that will allow us to live together.

I suspect that almost all of us would behave uniformly when encountering face-to-face with another person’s misfortune—we would all feel instant sympathy. We are born with ‘sympathetic vibrations’–we often automatically tear-up in all the same situations. However there seems to be two moral concepts that determine many social-political situations.

“The two main concepts of ethics are those of the right and the good; the concept of a morally worthy person is, I believe, derived from them.” This quote and any others are from “A Theory of Justice” by John Rawls.

It appears that both philosophy and common sense distinguish between the concepts ‘right’ and ‘good’. The interrelationship of these two concepts in many minds will determine what is considered to be ethical/moral behavior. Most citizens in a just society consider that rights “are taken for granted and the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.” The Constitution of the United States defines the rights of all citizens, which are considered to be sacrosanct (sacred or holy).

Many consider that the “most rational conception of justice is utilitarian…a society is properly arranged when its institutions maximize the net balance of satisfaction…It is natural to think that rationality is maximizing something and that in morals it must be maximizing the good.”

Some advocates of utilitarianism believe that rights have a secondary validity from the fact that “under the conditions of civilized society there is a great social utility in following them [rights] for the most part and in permitting violations only under exceptional circumstances.” The good, for society, is the satisfaction of rational desire. The right is that which maximizes the good; some advocates of utilitarianism account for rights as being a socially useful consideration.

Captain Dave will under no circumstance torture a prisoner. Captain Jim will torture a prisoner when he considers such action will save the lives of his platoon.

Some utilitarians consider the rights enunciated in the constitution are a useful means to fortify the good. Captain Jim, while recognizing the rights in the Constitution, considers these rights are valid and useful but only because they promote the good. The rights defined in the Constitution can be violated but only in the name of the common good.

Captain Dave may very well be an advocate of utilitarianism but he considers that right is different in kind from good and right cannot be forfeit to good under any condition.

Liberals take the stance that to agree on the fact means to agree on the morality of the situation. Any deviation is indefensible and reflects only selfish rationalization. Liberals find it almost impossible to respect the moral position of conservatives and conservatives find it impossible to judge that liberals are the intellectual equals of conservatives.

The apparent reason for this disjunction is the fact that liberals and conservatives seem to have “their own kind of morality” according to the analysis in ”The Morality of Politics” by W. H. Walsh.

“What we need to observe is that conservatives and liberals are working within different traditions of morality. The morality of the conservative is closed morality; it is the morality of a particular community. The morality of the liberal is an open morality; it is a morality which has nothing to do with any particular human groups, but applies to all men whatever their local affiliations.”

I was raised as a Catholic; I was taught by the nuns the Catholic doctrine regarding sin, punishment, and consciousness. Venial sins were like misdemeanors and mortal sins were like felonies. However, this is not a completely accurate analogy because if a person dies with venial sin on the soul s/he would be punished by having to spend time in purgatory before going to heaven but if a person died with mortal sin on the soul s/he went directly to hell for eternity.

Confession was the standard means for ‘erasing sin from the soul’. A confession was considered to be a ‘good confession’ only if the sinner confessed the sins to a priest and was truly sorry for having committed sin. A very important element of a good confession was an examination of consciousness, which meant the person must become fully conscious of having committed the sin.

Ignorance of the sin was no excuse just as ignorance of the law is no excuse. Herein lays the rub. Knowledge and consciousness of sin were necessary conditions for the erasure of sin from the soul in confession.

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Morality/ethics is one of my favourite philosophical domains. Like you, I change my position a little from time to time, though.

Question - do you think there IS a right thing (or most right thing) to do in every morally challenging instance?

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Yes I do. In many situations when we are required to make a judgment we are pulled toward the rational and the irrational. We have egocentric and sociocentric forces pulling us to make decisions that are not in our best interest. I am claiming that a rational choice is in my best interest and an irrational choice is not in my best interest.

Our ability to make good judgments can be greatly improved if we take the time and effort to learn Critical Thinking. Few adults know anything about CT because our schools never taught us how to think. We were taught what to think, therefore if we wish to make good judments then our first desire should be to learn CT.

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OK. I’m still skeptical. Saying that rationality is better than irrationality (of which I’m still not 100% sure) is a start, but I’m not sure there’s a correct answer to every question… and I’m not sure that Critical Thinking classes give everyone the keys to knowing the right answer all the time.

Truthfully, I’m with Sartre on this one. The only authority who can decide what to do is the decider - there is not other authority or imperative to which one can refer (and therefore transfer responsibility)

But I can still imagine situations where alternatives are equally damning… and, for that matter, rational.

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Of course there is an Absolute Right and Wrong.

Line up every (non mentally damaged) family that has ever existed and kill there loved ones in cold blood without reason and ask all the survivors if that was right or wrong, I’ll bet my life it will be unanimous.

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See, equating “wrong” with “upsetting” might be a fair take on ethics, but it’s not an absolutist one. So even though I agree with your example, I think the logic behind it is poor.

Further, that’s not what I’m saying. Being able to come up with an example that everyone thinks is wrong wasn’t what I’m looking for. I know these things exist - they’re everywhere.

I’m saying that there are situations where we are not equipped to know - things where we are guessing or advancing opinion as fact. They’re called “ethical dillemmas” and I am proposing that some of these don’t necessarily have a right answer.

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We are the decider. The more we know about the science of reason and judgment the better will be our judgments. Rational is always better than irrational.

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Why?

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I have on occasion read a book in which the author refers to reality as being multilayered; like an onion or perhaps a layer cake. I am convinced that this metaphor is apt.

Most people spend most of their life living on the surface of this onion-like reality. On occasion each of us is forced to encounter additional layers of reality often due to some form of suffering; a family with a child with a sever disease often encounters reality at a great depth because of this malady. Many people who become experts in certain domains of knowledge penetrate reality to many levels.

Many people live a small part of their life at an uncommon level. However most of us spend most of our life on the surface giving little regard toward any other form of reality.

It is uncommon for people to seek to understand reality in its many forms. Some time people refer to the “Iron Law of Oligarchy”, which references the fact that societies are controlled by a small oligarchy; the few rule the many. A democracy is considered to be better than many other forms of government because the theory is that the people can choose their ruling oligarchy, and replace them as we see fit.

The common view of government and good citizenship is that the citizen should become informed and vote on Election Day. The uncommon view, in my understanding, is the citizen who recognizes that reality has many levels beyond information and voting. Oligarchies form and decide public policy and if the citizen does not engage uncommon sense and thus understand reality beyond surface appearance that nation loses a good part of the value of democracy.

How would an ideal nation determine public policy regarding this problem we label as Global Warming?

When I try to understand a particular matter I try to start with a model and then modify that model as I gain in understanding. My model represents my understanding at any point in time.

I think that the ideal corporate model might be useful. A nation functioning under such a model would have a board of directors whose responsibility is to set national policy and would have a management team that formulates the means by which those policy goals are most efficiently met.

In this case the board is the citizens, the management team is the elected politicians and the workers are also the citizens. Of course all three functions are the citizens but functioning in different roles. The citizen must ‘wear many different hats’.

How does the citizen as board member function? I would conclude that there are two basic types of citizen roles involved here. One is the expert and the other is the non-expert. In this global warming situation we would have two categories of experts—scientists of the natural sciences and scientists of the human sciences.

The successful functioning of this system is dependent upon the facts available and the capacity of the citizen to make good judgments for each area of responsibility. Most citizens will not accept any responsibility for any role in this model other than being a worker. The roles will however be filled by some citizens and these citizens will, by default, make their judgment about policy goals and tactics for achieving those goals.

The citizen as board member is the role that interests me now. In analyzing how an ideal board member might act I have decided that an ideal journalist might be the best model for speaking about the needs of our board member.

An ideal journalist, in my mind, would have broad learning especially in history and Critical Thinking.

It is commonly recognized that an understanding of the past is essential for an understanding of the present. History teaches us how to analyze and interpret facts and to seek patterns that manifest underlying realities regarding humanity. The journalist, like the historian, must understand matters within a proper context. This context includes tradition and change and the complex relationship between tradition and change.

A journalist is constantly studying new matters and must have the capacity to quickly gain a basic understanding of new and complex situations. A journalist must love the search for understanding of something new and unfamiliar.

The ideal journalist should be expert in the art and science of good judgment and good judgment is vital to every role that the responsible citizen must play. The knowledge and skills of rational thinking can be used in a selfish or a fair-minded way. A fundamental aspect of CT is attainment of a fair-minded intellectual character.

I am not speaking of uncommon sense to mean some sort of high IQ. I mean it as some sort of intellectual achievement available to all normal people who have the curiosity and will to be all they can be.