Who should I be?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

It is not enough to ask the Kantian questions of existence,
‘‘Who am I’’ What should I do’’ ‘‘What should I believe in?’’
“On what should I spend my energy on?”
We must ask questions about “who should I be?”
and by this, I mean, “what kind of person should I be?”

this is an ethical/moral question… when we engage in such ism’s and
ideologies like capitalism, what does it say about us as a human being?
Capitalism built on such principles as greed, lust, hate, anger…
when we engage in capitalism, are we engaging in the best part of us,
or the worst part of being human? the point of capitalism isn’t the moral/ethical
actions we take, the point of capitalism is to make money, regardless
of the morality of our actions…if the point in capitalism is to make money,
then it doesn’t matter if we lie or cheat or steal to make that money,
ethical/ moral considerations aren’t important in capitalism, but making money
any way we can is important…

what if we change that to make ethical/moral considerations
a higher priority than the choice of making money…
what we do as a living, our day to day actions tell us more about who we
are as moral/ethical beings, then our words or our ism’s or ideologies do…

ask yourself the dangerous question of existence,

‘‘Am I a moral/ethical person?’’

then look at your job or what you hope your future job will be,
and that answer tells us if you are a moral/ethical person.

How we spend our days tells us who we are, ethically, morally…
And many will ask themselves, who cares if I am an ethical/moral person?
If you don’t care if you are an ethical/moral person, then you are not.
Simple as that…how do we ‘‘know’’ if we are ethical/moral people?
Do you harm others? The act of lying, stealing, cheating, harm others…
If you have to justify an action or words, you are harming others
for example, those who steal from where I work, a grocery store,
and then try to justify it in their mind with stories like,
they are a big corporation, then they can afford me stealing from
them, that use of a justification, shows us that you know you are
harming someone, but you are trying to justify that immoral/unethical
action… the use of justifications to explain an action, is a way
for us to know that we are being immoral/unethical…if I
act ethically/morally, I don’t need to justify it…
If I find money on the floor and I turn it in, instead of taking it, I
don’t need to justify that action… that is a moral/just/ethical action…

So the question arises, why should I act morally/ethically?

Let us turn this question around… by what right do I have to
harm others? There is no justification I can use or find that
gives me the right to harm others…'and this act of harming others
isn’t defined by us, it is defined by those who are affected by our actions…

Because of my hearing loss, I quite often make mistakes in hearing,
the person may have asked, ''What time is it?" And I mistakenly,
will say, ''The bathroom is down that hall." and I have had many people
yell at me… calling me stupid or other derogatory words… simply
because I misheard their question… Now who determines if those
words are harmful? Because a person can, and does, justify their
harsh words at me because I misheard them, the person who has been harmed,
in this case, me, gets to decide if the derogatory words are in fact,
harmful… it is the victim that decides the nature of what harm
was done… in bigger cases of harm, the state has the role of deciding
what harm has been done and who is to take responsibility/ accountability
for the harm done…

and in these cases, we can see the many attempts at justifications people use
to defend their actions, self-defense, insanity, I was justified, I was in fear for
my life… there are all kinds of justifications that people use to defend their
actions and words… and in every justification lies harm to others…
if your actions are ethical/moral, there is no need to justify that…
you don’t need to defend that action…the action stand for itself
as a moral/ethical action…

“that man was about to kill dozens and so I acted”
and in fact, my killing one to save dozens is moral/ethical due to
the numbers involved… we are a social society… we cannot exist alone,
thus, we must, must think of the many before the one…
and my “defense” of this will come shortly…

but we return to the question, of ‘‘who should I be?’’

the answer is a moral/ethical person… but Kropotkin,
what exactly does that mean?

It means not to harm people… to act in such a way that we
don’t need to justify our actions…to act in such a way,
that the action in question is its own justification…
Helping an old lady across a busy street, is its own justification…
I don’t need to justify that action, to myself or to others…

to be moral/ethical means not having to justify our actions, either
to ourselves or to others…the action explains itself…if I don’t
steal from a store, I have no need to explain or justify my actions…
for I didn’t harm anyone…

This is one possible explanation of the ethical/moral…
and there may be many more…

Kropotkin

2

and to those who wonder if my question is the right question,
I ask, what can be a more important question then,
“Am I a moral/ethical person?”

What question is more important than that?

The Socratic questions of “know thyself” and
“The unexamined life isn’t worth living”

They are moral questions, questions about if we are ethical/moral people…

how does a question about how much money we might make,
is more important than asking about ones ethical/moral understanding?

and once again, people rationalize it, make excuses why making money
is more important than being a moral/ethical person…

money is a fake value, it is not real… we only pretend that money is real…
it is green pieces of paper (at least in America… other countries have
different color paper and that fact alone tells us how unreal money is,
money only has value because we agree to that, if enough people decide
money is not real, it has no value)

but ask yourself, “does acting morally/ethically ever lose its value?”

does harming people, either in words or actions, ever become
an ethical/moral action?

I don’t see how… if we have to rationalize it, justify it to explain
an action or words, then it is not ethical or moral…

Kropotkin

3

so why aren’t ethical/moral considerations
the most important part of our lives?

I would say, laziness, fear, our lack of knowledge as to why moral/ethical
actions and words are the most important part of our lives…how is
engaging in the trinkets of existence, the pursuit of wealth, fame, titles,
power… more important than how should we live our lives?

What does it mean to live an ethical/moral life?
how does making money become more important than that?
How does owning two cars or houses become more important than how
are we to live our lives? Are we ethical/moral people?

what question is more important than that?

Kropotkin

4

have you ever asked yourself, am I a moral/ethical person?

No, of course not… you are to busy trying to “get ahead” or get more money,
or chasing some other worthless trinket like fame or titles… but have you ever
asked yourself, how is that chasing those trinkets important? why engage in
that seeking, instead of seeking the vital questions of existence,
“What am I to do today?” “Who am I?” “Am I a moral/ethical person?”

Few if any, actual question the current paradigms of existence…
to seek wealth or fame or power or titles… to what end do we do those things?
to wake up one day when you are old and see what difference it makes that
you got that title or made 52,000 dollars that year? Once, a long time ago, I
was promoted to Assistant manager…I got a raise and a title… and today,
it means nothing… and it was nothing… just ego stroking myself into thinking
that raise, that title actually meant something… it didn’t… but to be moral/ethical,
that stays with me my whole life… I don’t have to justify it or rationalize it to make it
worth my effort… I can be moral/ethical and hold my head high and not need to
make a bigger thing then it is…I can hold to be an ethical/moral person without
justifying or rationalizing it… it can stand on its own without any
justification or rationalization…

Kropotkin

5

you have heard your whole life, become a “good citizen” or
become a “good worker” or become a “productive member of society”
we cannot… we cannot become “useful” members of society until
we become useful to ourselves…how can I be of value to you or to society,
if I have no value to myself? to chase the values of society like seeking
wealth or fame or power or titles prevents me from seeking that which
lies within the question, “what does it mean to be a moral/ethical person?”

I can become of value to society if I can become a moral/ethical person…
that is where my worth is determined…not in my income level or in taxes
paid or in houses owned, but in my being an ethical/moral person…

but Kropotkin, you are being vague or unclear… I am not…
seeking out what is the right thing to do isn’t being vague or unclear…

Socrates at one point, was instructed to arrest other people by the
newly installed dictatorship of Athens… this was done to create guilt
on all people within Athens, not just the ones who were in charged…
Socrates refused and had not the régime fallen, most likely would
have been executed for failure of obey legally executed laws and orders…

the state/the society/ the entire civilization can be shouting at you to
act unjust or immoral… to illegally arrest people to obey a law that is illegal if
the reason to arrest people is done illegally…it was an immoral/unethical action…
to arrest people illegally is meant to harm them…

in other words, to harm people even if done legally is still immoral
and unethical… thus we see how slavery is wrong, even if legal,
we can see how laws that make blacks slaves and women property is
immoral and unethical… we can see how the Holocaust is immoral
and unethical, even if legal because it harmed people…
we can see how torture and capital punishment is immoral
and unethical… even if legal… one might say, the state has a right
to defend itself… that is a justification, a rationalization of actions
taken…because other actions can be taken besides torture and capital
punishment… imprisonment is one such option for crimes committed…
but the goal isn’t, isn’t punishment… for such actions are meant to harm
people… we imprison to remove a dangerous person… for them to
take accountability and responsibility for actions taken or not taken…
we remove people to, as a parent we did this all the time, to give
a child a time-out to think about their actions…

so say, I am right to harm this person, by lying, stealing cheating or even
hurting them or killing them is using rationalizations to account for an action…
if we have to rationalize an action, it is immoral/unethical…
“I became angry because they made me angry” that is a rationalization of
one’s actions…but the state/society/the culture is bound by those very same
rules that bind an individual… to rationalize the punishment of a person,
is still rationalization of one’s collective actions… to say, “I must protect society/the state
by harming a human being” is still just another rationalization to hide
one’s from making ethical/moral actions…

as a society/state if we punish actions taken, then we are all together
involved in said punishment…actions taken by the state/society in our name,
involves us individually and collectively…if the state/society punishes one
in our name, if a person is tortured in our name, to protect our property
and lives, then we are responsible for those actions, individually and
collectively…thus the so called “War on Terror” done in our name
in 2001-2008, is our collective responsibility, accountability…
the phony lies done to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, those lies
are our responsibility, because we failed to hold those in charge
accountable for their words, their actions… we bear collective
responsibility and accountability for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan…
and the loss of hundreds of thousands if not millions are our
responsibility… we are accountable for them…

I/we do not just bear individual guilt and responsibility for our actions,
we bear collective guilt and responsibility for actions done in our name…
thus, if the state acts illegally or immorally or unjust, we bear equal
accountability/responsibility because we are responsible, accountable
for actions by the state done in our name…

‘‘who should I be’’… can be restated as “Who should we be?”
not just as individuals, but as a society, as a state, as a collective group
of people who are acting together in our collective name…

we must act, collectively as moral/ethical people…
and the beginning of that lies within each of us individually…
we individually accept responsibility/accountability for actions done in
our name and thus we can accept responsibility/accountability for
collective actions done in our name…

to act ethical/morally isn’t just an individual action, it is a collective
acceptance of responsibility for actions taken in our name…

Kropotkin