It appears to me that there is a growing interest in ‘ethics.’ It also seems as if many of us have our own ideas about what is right and what is wrong AND in how we can really, truly tell the difference. For example, philosophers and clerics/rabbis/imams etc are in some agreement about the following: ‘Our country is in a state of moral decline and there is no respect for authority anymore.’ ‘We must get back to basics.’ ‘Postmodern relativism has led us into a nightmare of uncertainty and moral chaos.’ In addition to these ‘agreements’ they also disagree when it comes to their understanding of ethics. Of course, all of this is not new. There have always been ‘moral panics’ and disagreements about what constitutes ethics and ethical behavior. For example, Plato thought that 4th century B.C.E. Athens was doomed because of the wicked ethical skepticism of the Sophist philosophers and the gullibility of his fellow citizens. So, journey with me a while, gentle reader, as we seek to understand ethics.
Let’s see, where to begin…well, actually…where to continue. We are social beings. We are ‘products’ of our particular societies. We do not ‘make ourselves.’ We owe much of what we consider to be our ‘identity’ and ‘personal opinions’ to the community in which we lived — especially for the first decade or so of our lives. For Aristotle, this made perfect sense for the primary function of the state was to enable human beings to have philosophical discussions and eventually come to an agreement regarding a shared code of ethics. Now, as soon as we are ‘formed,’ many of us begin to question the society that has made us, and do so in a way that seems unique to us. Socrates, another old Greek, stressed that it was in fact our duty and he pushed young Athenians to ask questions about accepted moral opinions and NEVER stop doing so [As one ten year old said to me: ‘Plato was an old Greek who asked lots of questions and then they killed him.’]. Now, the State has the power and authority to decide what is legally right and wrong AND yet ‘law’ and ‘morality’ are not the same thing.
Ethics is complicated and seeking to understand ethics is challenging if not daunting. Why? For one reason, our morality is a mixture of received and integrated tradition and personal opinion. It is, in short, a combination of the communal and the personal. Some philosophers (a philosopher is a seeker of wisdom) have stressed the importance of the ‘Community’ and see individual ethics as derivative. Other philosophers stress the importance of the authentic, autonomous ‘Individual.’ Some claim, for example, that society is merely a convenient arrangement which must be subservient to the goals and ambitions of individuals. Both communitarians and individualists want to legitimize either communal ethics or the need for an individual morality by appealing to some kind of ‘neutral’ set of ideals. Do these ‘neutral sets of ideas’ really exist? How do we know?
Let’s continue, as a philosopher might, by asking some questions — these questions are important even if clear and concise answers to them are few (which indeed they are). We are reminded by the great German poet, Rilke, ‘to love the questions themselves’ and ‘to live the questions’ and someday we might live our way into the answers. These, of course, are not the only questions, but they are questions that philosophers have been asking for more than two thousand years — Socrates, for example had ‘six questions’ he thought were key questions (this gives us some sense of their staying power and of the challenge one has in answering them). So, gentle, reader, I invite you to spend some time holding these questions and I invite you to reflect upon them and perhaps respond to them in writing or, more powerfully, to engage another person or two in a deep searching conversation about them.
THE QUESTIONS:
Are there differences between moral laws and society’s law? If there are, what are they?
What are human beings really like: are they inherently selfish and greedy or generous and kind?
Are some of us ‘better’ at morality than others OR is everyone equally capable of being good?
Are there ‘good’ ways of teaching children to behave morally?
Does anyone have the right — perhaps the ‘obligation’ — to tell anyone else what goodness and wickedness are?
Are there certain kinds of acts (like torturing children) that are always wrong? If so, what are they?
What is the best answer to this question: ‘Why should I be a good person?’
Is ethics a special kind of knowledge? If so, what sort of knowledge is it and how do we get hold of it?
Is morality about obeying a set of rules or is it about thinking carefully about consequences?
When people say ‘I know murder is wrong,’ do they KNOW it is wrong or just believe it very strongly?
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