Recently, a friend asked my opinion about a moral dilemma he was dealing with. Obviously, it would be ethically crappy of me to relate his personal story here, but my conversation with him got me thinking about my whole view of morality now. Have I learned anything since starting this blog? What can I say about the question in the subtitle? How big of a role does religion play in morality?
The gist of my conversation about the dilemma was that, in my opinion, moral obligations are few and far between. To illustrate what I'm talking about, I'll use as an example a situation that happened to me recently. I walked up to a cafe counter with a friend. Ordered a drink. I meandered away from the counter to look at a pastry, and when I came back my friend had already paid and the drinks were being made. I picked up my order, and since no one asked me to pay, I assumed my friend had treated me to a doppio. After we left the cafe, my friend said he hadn't paid for my drink. So the question would be, do I have a moral obligation to go back and pay for the drink?
My example is simple and somewhat trivial, but illustrates a situation where I would actually say, no, I don't have an obligation to go back and pay for my drink. In my view, obligation is a serious concept, and it refers to a very small set of moral rules that we (normal/competent members of human civilization) would all agree on. You are obliged to not murder. You are obliged to not cause gratuitous pain in another human being (or sensate animals). You are obliged to keep your promises (in most cases). There are probably a few more, but the point is, I am not obliged to go back and pay for a drink because the barista made a mistake and forgot to charge me.
What I would say (and did say to my friend) is that this sort of dilemma is actually less about the question of moral obligations and more about making the sort of choices that define you as a person. The question is more like, "What kind of person do I want to be? Do I want to be the kind of person that goes back and pays for a double espresso that I was accidentally given for free?" And in a way, this is more important from an ethical point of view than the simpler moral obligation situations. Should I murder the barista because he put hazelnut instead of vanilla in my latte? [There are actually interesting moral dilemmas about the sort of situations I would say reach the obligation level--the trolley problem being the most famous.]
And this is how I would sum up my over-all view at this point, as a result of reading the books I've catalogued in Goodreads and writing this blog:
Morality has evolved as a useful set of rules about interactions between members of a social species that uses language to communicate. I'm pretty much on board with the story of how morality evolved that Richard Joyce tells in The Evolution of Morality, although I don't draw the same conclusions that he does.
As a result of our evolutionary history, our brains are hardwired to have these very few moral-obligation-type beliefs about what is acceptable behavior. The rest of the moral rules that an individual holds is usually the product of the culture that the individual grows up in. Marc Hauser explains how this works in Moral Minds.
These non-obligation-level rules actually come into play more often than the obligation-level rules. As a result, when we talk about morality and ethical choices, they are usually culturally-dependant opinions that often conflict with each other. This gives the sense that all of morality is relative. So, to be clear, I'm saying that most moral beliefs are basically relative in this sense but not all of them. The most important ones are not relative (in the way relative is commonly used).
The history of ethical theory, as told by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, is a story of philosophers trying to come up with one way of explaining how morality works. Plato says the Good, Aristotle says virtue and the mean, Hume says emotivism, Kant says the categorical imperative, Mill says the utilitarianism. My opinion is that most of these theories are useful ways of understanding and talking about the different aspects of what I've been calling obligation-level and non-obligation level morality. Kant's categorical imperative would be about moral obligations. Plato's The Good too, but in a less precise and a somewhat weird way (although I think reading Plato is one of the best ways to spend your time--that and baking a pizza from scratch with fresh mozzarella...gotta use fresh mozzarella). Aristotle's virtue and the mean can help us try to make sense of the non-obligation-level minutia that we deal with every day, where the choice we make isn't so much the one clearly "right" choice, but our best attempt at making a choice among several possible "good" options. Mill's utilitarianism is also helpful in this way.
And I think reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations has provided me with a helpful way of looking at the big picture here. These conflicting ways of looking at morality could be seen as different "language games" where ultimately the conflict is more about different ways of talking about morality and ethics and virtue, and not so much an issue about getting at the true nature of morality. Aristotelian virtue ethics might lead you to a different conclusion than Mill's utilitarianism, but that's because the two are different games with different goals and different rules, et cetera.
So where does religion fit into all of this? Well this post is already too long, so I'll have to try a short summary, and maybe spell it out more in another post. Basically, as I understand it, morality evolved prior to religion, so religion is not the historical source of morality. And since I don't believe in the existence of a god, I obviously don't believe that morality has some kind of metaphysical origin in a god or religion. I won't try to say how or why religion exists and evolved in the way it did (I was pretty underwhelmed with Robert Wright's attempt at this in The Evolution of God), but it seems that religion has often turned out to be, or provide, the culturally specific moral precepts for many (perhaps even most) human societies over the past several thousand years, at least. But since religion does not always fill this moral law-giving role (we know of examples of this from anthropologists) there's no reason to think that living your life today, in 21st century western culture, requires religion if you want to live a decent, meaningful life.
However, I would say that the study of religions provides us with many examples of different ways to live a decent, meaningful life. Religion just isn't a necessity for that.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Roles We Play
Let's assume we're going to bootstrap ourselves into some kind of improved moral shape. Then I think Franklin's virtues are admirable enough. But I'm not sure that's the best way to go about it. Some of them are a little abstract. For instance, his virtue of Order: "Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time." I actually do understand the sentiment, and I used to view my life in that way. Maybe I'll get there again some day. (It also reminds me of that Radiohead song "Everything In Its Right Place"--yesterday, I woke up su-cking-a-le-mon...) But it seems like there could be a more practical way to come up with something that specifies certain actions to perform and certain actions to avoid.
What I think might work better is to identify the different roles we play in life that are important to us. It matters to us that we do these things well. Here's the list that I would have for myself:
Husband
Father
Son
Brother
Friend
Employee
Compassionate Person (volunteering, donating money, etc.)
Approaching it this way, I could fill out a chart (if I was into charts--yes, ok, I'm into charts) for each of the roles. I could consider each role and ask myself, "What are my own criteria for doing this well?" And honestly, it would probably look very similar to what a Christian would consider to be a good Husband, Father, etc.. Except maybe a Christian dad would write down "Pray for family" and church related things. So just subtract that stuff, and you have my list for Husband and Father and all the rest. Then I could use it in a Franklinesque way. Every day going to the list and finding out how well I'm doing.
This idea of roles brings to mind Confucius. I recently read The Analects, which is a record of his sayings. Confucius was big on roles and each person's responsibility to fulfill them. To be a good person, to live an honorable life, was to play the part(s) you were supposed to play.
Here's my attempt at the Chinese character for husband:
And since I'm writing about Chinese characters, this is one of my favorites:
What I think might work better is to identify the different roles we play in life that are important to us. It matters to us that we do these things well. Here's the list that I would have for myself:
Husband
Father
Son
Brother
Friend
Employee
Compassionate Person (volunteering, donating money, etc.)
Approaching it this way, I could fill out a chart (if I was into charts--yes, ok, I'm into charts) for each of the roles. I could consider each role and ask myself, "What are my own criteria for doing this well?" And honestly, it would probably look very similar to what a Christian would consider to be a good Husband, Father, etc.. Except maybe a Christian dad would write down "Pray for family" and church related things. So just subtract that stuff, and you have my list for Husband and Father and all the rest. Then I could use it in a Franklinesque way. Every day going to the list and finding out how well I'm doing.
This idea of roles brings to mind Confucius. I recently read The Analects, which is a record of his sayings. Confucius was big on roles and each person's responsibility to fulfill them. To be a good person, to live an honorable life, was to play the part(s) you were supposed to play.
Here's my attempt at the Chinese character for husband:
Here's the one for father:
And since I'm writing about Chinese characters, this is one of my favorites:
It's sometimes translated as "faith", but it has more of a connotation of trust in someone. As opposed to religious faith. The character is supposed to be a person (on the left) speaking words (horizontal lines on the right). It's also translated as "standing by words." You can trust people who stand by their words.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Transformation
It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog, but from time to time I go back and read some of the entries and comments. About two years ago, Martilou posted on "Moral transformation vs spiritual transformation." I'm still interested in looking at the nature of morality and at the history of religious traditions, but right now I'm thinking that this would be a good time to delve into the transformation phenomenon.
How do we change? I mean assuming you want to change. Assuming you've gotten to a point in your life where you realize you don't want to be this way. You want to act differently. You want to be a different person. And I think that's one way to look at the distinction Martilou was trying make in her post: the difference between trying to act differently and trying to be a person who acts differently.
If you're bottoming out, or at least you want this to be the bottom, the low point, and you know your life needs to be different, what do you do? Do you try to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, or do you attempt to give yourself over to some kind of higher power with the hopes that something "spiritual" will happen?
When I think of bootstrapping it, what comes to mind is Benjamin Franklin. There's a famous part in his autobiography where he talks about how, at the age of 20, he decided to make an attempt at moral improvement. He focused on developing 13 virtues:
1.Temperance: Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to Elevation.
2.Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation.
3.Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
4.Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5.Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. Waste nothing.
6.Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
7.Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8.Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9.Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10.Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes or Habitation.
11.Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12.Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.
13.Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
What he did was he made a chart, with each virtue being a row and each day of the week being a column. At the end of every day, he would look at the chart and make a mark on the appropriate box if he transgressed the virtue. He claims in his autobiography that he slowly made progress, checking off fewer and fewer boxes every day. But over the years he used the chart less and less. Once a week, then once a month, then once a year as a sort of ritual to remind himself of what he wanted to accomplish.
Franklin claimed that the chart worked for him when he used it often, but he slid back into old habits, as we all do. In his old age he felt that he ended up only slightly better, slightly more virtuous than when he started. (Of course Franklin was a notorious drunk and whoremonger, but we shouldn't necessarily doubt the effectiveness of the chart because of that. I mean, he might have drank and visited prostitutes less often with the aid of his chart.)
Now when it comes to surrender, I think of my teens and early twenties, when I would periodically go through some spiritual crisis. A dark night of the soul. And I would "give myself to Jesus". Actually, the pastor at the church my wife and I attend recently gave a sermon that reminded me of those experiences. It was on Mathew 11:20and30. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I knew exactly what the pastor was talking about. I've done that, found rest in yoking myself to Jesus. That's my experience with surrender.
And after the surrender comes the transformation. But it can't just be a one time surrender, a one time come-to-Jesus-breakdown at the end of a sermon. There has to be a consistent mental awareness, or at least a very periodic mental awareness, of what you want to happen. You want to let go of things. You want to let this larger power outside of yourself take things over. Take over the inside. That's how I remember it anyway. And I changed.
So I guess I'm just throwing this out there to see if anyone has any thoughts. For the atheist, bootstrapping is the most obvious route. But I'm wondering if there's still some option in the way of surrender.
How do we change? I mean assuming you want to change. Assuming you've gotten to a point in your life where you realize you don't want to be this way. You want to act differently. You want to be a different person. And I think that's one way to look at the distinction Martilou was trying make in her post: the difference between trying to act differently and trying to be a person who acts differently.
If you're bottoming out, or at least you want this to be the bottom, the low point, and you know your life needs to be different, what do you do? Do you try to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, or do you attempt to give yourself over to some kind of higher power with the hopes that something "spiritual" will happen?
When I think of bootstrapping it, what comes to mind is Benjamin Franklin. There's a famous part in his autobiography where he talks about how, at the age of 20, he decided to make an attempt at moral improvement. He focused on developing 13 virtues:
1.Temperance: Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to Elevation.
2.Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation.
3.Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
4.Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5.Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. Waste nothing.
6.Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
7.Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8.Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9.Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10.Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes or Habitation.
11.Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12.Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.
13.Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
What he did was he made a chart, with each virtue being a row and each day of the week being a column. At the end of every day, he would look at the chart and make a mark on the appropriate box if he transgressed the virtue. He claims in his autobiography that he slowly made progress, checking off fewer and fewer boxes every day. But over the years he used the chart less and less. Once a week, then once a month, then once a year as a sort of ritual to remind himself of what he wanted to accomplish.
Franklin claimed that the chart worked for him when he used it often, but he slid back into old habits, as we all do. In his old age he felt that he ended up only slightly better, slightly more virtuous than when he started. (Of course Franklin was a notorious drunk and whoremonger, but we shouldn't necessarily doubt the effectiveness of the chart because of that. I mean, he might have drank and visited prostitutes less often with the aid of his chart.)
Now when it comes to surrender, I think of my teens and early twenties, when I would periodically go through some spiritual crisis. A dark night of the soul. And I would "give myself to Jesus". Actually, the pastor at the church my wife and I attend recently gave a sermon that reminded me of those experiences. It was on Mathew 11:20and30. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I knew exactly what the pastor was talking about. I've done that, found rest in yoking myself to Jesus. That's my experience with surrender.
And after the surrender comes the transformation. But it can't just be a one time surrender, a one time come-to-Jesus-breakdown at the end of a sermon. There has to be a consistent mental awareness, or at least a very periodic mental awareness, of what you want to happen. You want to let go of things. You want to let this larger power outside of yourself take things over. Take over the inside. That's how I remember it anyway. And I changed.
So I guess I'm just throwing this out there to see if anyone has any thoughts. For the atheist, bootstrapping is the most obvious route. But I'm wondering if there's still some option in the way of surrender.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Science and Morality
There are some interesting videos over at The Science Network on what science can tell us about right and wrong.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
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