Morality Musings. This rambles...rather a lot.

So... Morals.

What I think morals are, I've tried to state:

Morals are a cultural codification of taboos and rules, made in attempt to mitigate and curtail the destructive potential of our instinctive behaviours.

It's not great, but it's as close as I can get to the gist in one sentence.

Whether there is a 'right and wrong' that exists outside ourselves or whether we are born to innate goodness or wickedness is not something I am prepared to guess at.

Moral codes can be viewed dispassionately in abstract discussions about society. It is far easier to make judgements about behaviours from a distance, and in the cold, hard light of day. Individuals, faced with a difficult moral dilemma will be prone to feel that they are the exception. That the rules do not apply to them, in their specific circumstances. The same can be said about the idea of utilitarianism. What is good for the individual will not necessarily be good for the group. Case-by-case administration of fairness is fraught with difficulty and often contradicts the values of the meta-code.

Bloody Humans

Humans are complex creatures. We need to believe in our own higher meaning, so feel that we are special - better than mere animals who lack our intelligence. It would not do for us to be getting around thinking that we are as unimportant as our food. (Can't go feeling compassion for our food. It's depressing and makes the food less tasty.) I believe that our perception that we are special, and so destinct from and somehow 'above' animals, is much a clever Jedi mind trick that helps us to survive our sapience.

We are clever and good at justifying our behaviour. We can make up good reasons for almost anything we do, whether it is something that is necessary to our survival or advancing toward less imperative ambitions. "Reason is just the endless paperwork of the mind." is a random quote that drifts past... must track that down, I like it.

We kill animals. We kill humans. We destroy vast swathes of the landscape. Species are being lost at an horrific rate, yet one argument for not eliminating the last smallpox specimens is that it would be wrong to wantonly reduce biodiversity in that way. Nothing to do with developing our own potential to inflict hideous and unthinkable plague on 'not us'. No. Nononono.

Evildoers and Fakes

Yes - a perfectly structured society could exist, if everyone were to obey the rules. But as long as there are advantages to breaking the rules, and it is possible to do so without getting caught, rules will be broken.

When a group of humans detects a wrongdoer, our impulse is to punish them, not only punatively for the harm that they have done, but out of frustrated outrage that they have broken a rule that we suffer to observe. Not getting caught is an important part of breaking the rules, and a conscience serves as an excellent way for us to be aware that we are doing something it is better remain undiscovered. Shame is a defence-mechanism as well as a deterrent and self-punishment. Humans who are, or at least show outward signs of being, averse to doing harm are more likely to be able to continue to survive and reap the benifits of living in a community.

Tests and Balance

There are conflicting paradigms I've identified.

When driving along dirt roads, I've learned to watch for 'wise tracks', which are the tyre tracks of cars that have navigated the road before me. Even if I can't see any pot-holes or debris on the road ahead, tracks that swerve to one side indicate that there is a hazard that needs to be negotiated. I can decide to trust my senses and take the more efficient route straight ahead, or I can follow the wise-tracks, trusting that they know something I don't. Borrowing the wisdom of the drivers who have preceeded me down the road allows me to travel with more safety and confidence than otherwise.

This is balanced by the "Grandmother's Roasting Pot" story. Story goes that a woman was laboriously sawing the boney end off the leg of lamb she was preparing. Her teenage daughter asked her why she was doing it. The woman thought about it, but couldn't think of a reason, except that it was the way her mother had done it. She asked her mother about the roast preparation, and she similarly could not recall exactly why the end had to be cut off the roast, but it was a technique she had learned from her mother. She asked her elderly mother who told her that she had had to saw the bone end off the roast in order to fit it into her tiny roasting pot.

Artefacts of acquired wisdom without explanation can provide guidelines for people who follow them. But anachronisms and misperceptions can become embedded, so re-testing is necessary - both to maintain the viability of the code, and so that it can be broken, for good or ill.

Morality....

Working out what we believe we have a right to....

Working out what is fair to others....

Working out how to respond to other people....

My grandfather used to quote:
"Life is mostly froth and bubble
But two things stand like stone
Kindness in another's trouble
Courage in your own"

Compassion. Courage. The antidote to callousness and fear. I feel that these are key.

The hard Part

Where does the line lie between defining what I believe to be right fro my own self, and imposing it on another person who by nature of not being me, is in a different situation? At what point do I, who believe that forcing my belief on someone else is wrong - at what point am I imposing my beliefs on another person? When I judge them? When I advise them? How can I? One person cannot feel themselves to be in a better position to make judgements about another person's life than that person themself unless they consider themself to be far superior in intellect, wisdom or sanity. When do I decide that my personal moral code and moral judgement is superior to that of someone I respect?

At what point, indeed, do people- societies- draw the line between a person's right over themselves and our desire to protect them from what we percieve to be destructive behaviour? Is it unforgivably hubristic to medicate to insensibility someone who cuts themselves, to prevent them from doing so? Where is that line? Engaging in risky behaviour that only endangers themself? How about preventing them from hurting others? How about to prevent them from killing themselves?

Culturally, this problem stands between the US/West and Islamic Countries. Fundamentalist Islam reduces freedoms to an extent that the West finds intollerable - yet by fighting for individual freedoms of teenage rape victims not to be executed for being unchaste, the West is forcing Western ideals onto other cultures, no? I get very tangled up in this. Where is that elusive line?

Morality....

Wisdom is valuable not only because of what it can saves us, but because of what it costs us. Wisdom is too valuable to lose to the rebelliousness or incredulity of less experienced people. Each generation will question the rules, and where the rules are not perfectly understood by the elders - or where the explanation is not likely to be well recieved, walls of obfuscation go up. A buffer of mystery between the rules and the people relieves us of the obligation to think out every detail of our behaviour. In some belief systems, and in some mind-sets, this is not seen as optional, and questioning is actively discouraged.

We can be conservative and follow the wise tracks, or we can take risks and hope to find a more efficient and/or enjoyable path of our own. The more dense the buffer, the less it can be examined and tested, the less likely it is to maintain robust applicability. An overprotected moral code will cause people to encounter 'grandmother's roast' instances, and that engenders skepticism about the rules.

Morality is how cultures try to crystalise the accumulated wisdom of ages into advice for the inexperienced. Rules are designed to prevent people reinventing the wheel. The reason that these rules are so often presented scarily and mysteriously without clear explanation is because there is no explanation that can be made to the naive that they will be able to understand or believe will ever apply to them. We are all immune.

Invincible and harmless in our own minds, until we find that we are not.