12/4/99 I've been thinking at least a little bit about morality recently. It's not a topic I feel particularly comfortable with, but it keeps on coming up in different contexts and it's kind of interesting to see how those are beginning to firm up my inchoate beliefs on the matter. So this is a vague attempt to try to codify at least some of what I currently think I think. I saw an episode of Politically Incorrect, which had this conservative pundit as one of the guests. While talking about acceptable peccadilloes for politicians, she made the comment that she felt that knowing whether a candidate cheated in college was more relevant to their suitability for office than whether they had taken drugs like heroin: cheating is not something that will change, whereas you can recover from heroin. I burst out laughing in disbelief when she made this statement (as did the other guests, and the host for that matter, who commented "Being a heroin junkie is better than lying?!"). In fact, it was so ludicrous that I repeated it to several friends over the next few days, and their reaction surprised me in siding towards her point of view. I expected differently as my friends towards the massively liberal, and this woman was clearly raising the the Republicans' "family values and character" banner. But they made some good points and I think I may actually agree with her statement now, with reservations about how the Republicans have applied their "character" test. One friend pointed out that the people she knew who had survived heroin addiction were some of the most amazing people she knew. The strength of character they had had to have to break free of their addiction had carried them onward to great feats. Admittedly, this probably isn't what the pundit meant when she used that comparison, but it does make a lot of sense. Another friend pointed out that things like cheating _are_ a function of how you're raised - and if you're raised to believe it's no big deal, then that will not change later in life. He pointed out that he had never considered cheating when in college, and that he thought it was from having been brought up with a strong sense of morality. And when I thought about it, I realized he was right; despite struggling in college occasionally, it had never even occurred to me that cheating would be an option. But I'm sure there were people who thought nothing of it, who would do whatever they needed to get what they wanted. And I have to agree that I'm not sure I want somebody like that in power. So I came to believe that maybe this pundit's statement was correct, but for several different reasons than the reasons she may have believed. I think my instinctual distaste for her statement comes from the Republicans' use of "character" tests to selectively weed out anybody they don't consider appropriate. If you look hard enough, you can find dirt on _anybody_, so it's just a matter of looking. "Character" is just the codeword they use to disqualify anybody they don't like. This is a tangent, but what the heck. In the novel Interface, by Stephen Bury (pen name of Neal Stephenson), a political consultant notes this witch hunt mentality in the political process. He characterizes American politics as having gone through several stages in its history: ideas (exemplified by Jefferson, and the other founding fathers), character (exemplified by Lincoln), charisma (JFK, Reagan), and we have now arrived in the Age of Scrutiny. To quote, "A public figure must withstand the scrutiny of the media. The President is the ultimate public figure and must stand up under ultimate scrutiny; he is like a man stretched out on a rack in the public square in some medieval shithole of a town, undergoing the rigors of the Inquisition. Like the medieval trial by ordeal, the Age of Scrutiny sneers at rational inquiry and debate, and presumes that mere oaths and protestations are deceptions and lies. The only way to discover the real truth is by the rite of the ordeal, which exposes the subject to such inhuman strain that any defect in his character will cause him to crack wide open, like a flawed diamond. It is a mystical procedure that skirts rationality, which is seen as the work of the Devil, instead drawing down a higher, ineffable power." This doesn't actually have anything to do with the rest of this discussion, but I love that description of the modern political process and think it's disturbingly accurate which may explain my political apathy. Anyway. Another incident which has made me think a lot recently was talking with a liberal-minded friend who could not understand this political apathy. I made some comment about being a suburban white boy, and she leaped on that and said (paraphrased) "But you're not! You're not white! In many parts of this country, you would be discriminated against because you're not white!", with the implication that it was wrong for me not to care about this discrimination happening to other people like myself. I think. I'm not entirely sure actually what it was I supposed to be outraged about. But it started me thinking. Is it wrong for me to only care about myself and those I care about? (Is that a tautology? "only care...those I care about". Um. Anyway...) I will do pretty much anything that needs to be done for my friends and family. But I do not feel compelled to go out and help people I don't know. Is this wrong? I don't think so. But I would like to be able to defend this position, which is part of the reason I'm writing this. I was trying to explain this to another liberal friend of mine, who made the comment that I was sounding just like a conservative Republican, which isn't at all the image I want to convey, so I clearly need to be able to articulate myself better. I admire those that can extend their circle of empathy to include all human beings. I think they are _necessary_ people - these are the people who fight for the environment, for worker's rights, etc. - things that benefit everybody, including me. They care passionately about people they've never met, and issues halfway around the world. In a lot of ways, I envy them; I can't work up that level of passion even on things that affect me on a daily basis. But does that make them "better" people than me? It's a hard question. One that I'm struggling with. Since the obvious extension is, if they are, then what can I do to make myself a better person? How do I make myself care more? While I was thinking about this, I dug up my copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert Heinlein. Yes, I get a lot of my ideas from sci-fi books. Weird, eh? Anyway, one of the main characters in Moon is Professor Bernardo de la Paz, who articulates a philosophy of "rational anarchy" which appeals to me in a lot of ways. To quote, "_I_ am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that _I_alone_ am morally responsible for everything I do." I think this position is a good starting point. The corollary I would add is that I am therefore _not_ morally responsible for what other people do. They are responsible for their actions. If I find those actions distasteful, I can try to convince them to stop, but it is not my moral duty to _make_ them stop. It is not up to me to run their life, and it is not my right to tell them what to do. More on this later. One last incident that has played into my thinking was having dinner with yet another friend. We were talking about some issue that concerns her closely, and she made the statement that it "was just wrong". It actually surprised me that she was so vehement about it. But it was a matter of right and wrong to her, and that was that. I guess it surprised me because I tend to live in a state of moral ambiguity, where I don't really feel strongly about such issues. But the thing that struck me was that I knew other people who would feel just as strongly on the opposite side of that issue as her. They would both be convinced they were completely morally right. How is one to decide which of them is "correct"? Back at MIT, I took a class in Ethics which was a great disappointment to me at the time. One of the reasons was that the TA had a very different view of morality than I did, and graded accordingly. He espoused the view that the way to judge a code of morality was by comparing it to your instinctual feelings of right and wrong. At the time, I couldn't articulate why this sounded so ludicrous to me, but I think I can make a better case now. Each person's "instinctual" feelings on morality are a function of how they were raised. They are not inborn or genetic - I think it's safe to say that they are completely "nurture" (Okay, one can make an argument for evolutionary morality where it _has_ been bred into us, for instance, to protect our family because it is protecting our genetic heritage, but that's a whole 'nother discussion which I don't want to get into). We can not compare codes of morality if we are using gut reactions that are a result of our childhood, because then which code is "better" depends completely on the evaluator. This doesn't sound useful to me, being more inclined towards objective, observer-independent measurements. But this doesn't answer the question. How can we judge two systems of morality? Heck, if I knew that, I'd be a philosophy professor someplace. Or a televangelist :) I don't feel competent to judge morality. There are always too many variables at play. Sure, child labor is wrong, but if a family will otherwise starve because they need the income that the child provides, how can it be right to keep that child from working without providing other help? Burning down trees harms the environment, but if it's the choice between that and not having somewhere to plant food, who is right? There aren't any easy answers obviously. At least to me. I grew up in a town with a fairly narrow view of morality. Some might even call it Bible-thumper territory. Since then, I've been exposed to a whole array of behavior which would be shockingly immoral in Wheaton. But I often think highly of the people involved. Nobody's getting hurt, everybody is happy - how can such behavior be wrong? So I don't fully trust the morality I was raised with, and I don't have easy answers. So what _do_ I believe, then? I think it comes back to feeling morally responsible only for myself. Other people do not have the right to tell me how to behave morally; conversely, I do not have the right to tell them either. The pagans (?) believe all morality stems from "An it harm none, do as ye will." If it doesn't hurt anyone, you may do what you want. That rings true to me. I have the right to do whatever I feel, so long as my behavior does not infringe other people's right to the same freedom of action. I think this is the one limit that I feel comfortable placing on others as well as myself. If everyone were only responsible to themselves, and themselves alone, then people would have the freedom to murder, extort, and otherwise force others to their will. I think it's a necessary limit to give everyone the freedom to find their own destiny. It's certainly one I find compelling. You can do anything you want, you can believe anything you want, you can say anything you want, and that's fine with me. But the minute you start messing with my life, or the lives of my friends and family, you have given up your right to live your life free of my interference. I don't care what you believe on your own time - if I find it distasteful, I may try to persuade you otherwise (and have made such attempts with pretty much zero success), but I do not feel I have the right to force you to my way of thinking. Unless your beliefs lead to actions against me. It's interesting, though. Part of the difference in morality between myself and my more liberal friends is the difference in what counts as "me and mine". For them, it can include the whole world, which is why their empathy extends to people across the world, and they fight for the environment, since harming the environment harms everybody. For me, it only includes my close friends and family. I barely feel capable of handling that much responsibility. There's all sorts of tangents that I need to explore more at some point. But I think I got the main thrust of what I've been thinking down here, as well as the incidents and sources that influence my thinking. Which is all I really wanted to do.