Posted on 07/27/2010 12:05:32 AM PDT by Maelstorm
Moral* principles do more harm than good. We apply them self-servingly and selectively. They operate at the wrong level of abstraction, distracting us from the right level. I'm deeply committed to morality but I've never met a moral principle I could trust.
I can illustrate this best by example. Consider these two moral principles:
Don't cling. Show commitment.
What's the difference between clinging and commitment? From what I can tell, they are indistinguishable except that clinging is bad and should never occur and commitment is good and should always occur.
Clinging and commitment both describe a preference for keeping something (a law, a policy, a belief, a system, a relationship, a habity etc.) the same rather than changing it. So far I've never found any way to objectively distinguish between an act of clinging and an act of commitment. I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something so please challenge me: We'd need some litmus test by which observing a preference for keeping something the same, one could reliably sort out the bad (clinging) from the good (commitment).
A Buddhist friend suggested that the difference is that clinging is desperate and commitment isn't. This proposed litmus test pivots on the intensity (desperateness) of desire for something to stay the same, where the more intense, the more clingy, and the more bad, and the less intense, the less clingy, and the more good.
The way to kick the tires on a litmus test is by looking for counter-examples. If they come readily it can't be a reliable litmus test. Think of the parents who desperately want to save their child from a tyrannical government's death squad. The parents' desperation feels neither clingy nor bad. The powerful tyrants on the other hand, could intend to kill the child while experiencing a state of calm resolve, no desperation, but not a virtuous "commitment" to the assassination either. The desperation litmus test for distinguishing clinging from commitment doesn't hold up.
The distinctions we draw between clinging and commitment are based on subjective assessments. When we believe that keeping something is bad or will turn out bad, we call it clinging (or any of a number of other pejorative terms-attachment, stubbornness, pigheadedness, etc.) and when we believe that keeping something is good or will turn out good, we call it commitment (or any of a number of other terms with positive connotations-sticking to principle, steadfastness, tradition, etc.).
Though in practice, clinging and staying committed amount to the same thing, their connotations are absolute opposites. Since clinging is supposedly always bad and showing commitment is supposedly always good, together they amount to the self-contradictory statement that you should never and always keep things the same.
You've been in a partnership a long time but lately it's not feeling good anymore. You wonder whether you should stay in the partnership. One friend says, "Leave. Trying to make it work is just clinging to the past." Another friend says, "Stay. Just demonstrate commitment."
Both friends imply that they're reading the situation objectively in a way that dictates a morally principled response. The word "just," as in "just clinging" or "just demonstrate commitment." is a powerful word. It means, "ignore all other possibilities." "Just" implies that the decision is a no-brainer, a decision as easy to make as "should I call this spade a spade?"
When I want you to let go of something I can say "don't cling." When I want you to hold onto to something, I can say, "stay committed." I can convincingly cloak my subjective opinion in the garb of objectivity. I can give my confidence levels (my assessment of the probability that I'm right about something) a high dose of steroids.
I have yet to meet anyone who isn't swayed at least a little by the morality implied in words like clinging and commitment. And I have yet to meet anyone who can tell me how to distinguish them other than that we hate clinging and love commitment. As a moral principle "don't cling but do demonstrate commitment" is hollow, yet influential nonsense.
It's also nonsense because as things change around us, it is impossible to have a pure policy of never clinging or always staying committed. Our options each entail a combination of changing some things a keeping other things the same. Change and constancy are reflexive, like triceps and biceps--to exercise one; we necessarily contract the other.
Think of how this works in warm-bloodedness (or any equilibrium seeking system). An animal's metabolic rate changes to maintain a constant temperature in the face of changing ambient temperatures. It's either change metabolism to keep body temperature constant or keep metabolism the same resulting in changing body temperature. Are either of those options purely pro-change or anti-change?
We only ever wonder whether to stay committed when our commitments begin to yield different consequences. We wonder whether to stay in a relationship because the relationship is leaving us less satisfied than it used to. We wonder whether to keep burning coal because it is now causing climate change.
If, for example, in relationship, you notice that "the thrill is gone," then keeping the relationship the same necessarily means changing your thrill level. If instead, you decide to change the relationship, it is because you are committed to maintaining thrill levels even if by other means.
If as a conservative you argue from the moral principle of commitment to tradition that we should continue burning coal, by necessity you are also arguing in favor of a break from traditional weather. If you've ever wondered why political conservatives and environmental conservation have such divergent goals, this explains it. Conservatives want to keep certain things the same and allow changes in others, environmental conservationists want to keep and allow changes in different things.
The principle of conservatism is therefore nonsense. Saying "I hold to the moral principle of keeping everything the same" is like saying, "When it comes to breathing, I'm for the moral principle of always exhaling." In a changing world you can't any more keep everything the same than in the act of breathing you can always exhale."
And the same goes for progressivism. The moral principle that change (transformation, evolution, etc.) is good and that keeping things the same (clinging, attachment, etc.) is bad is nonsense for the same reason. It's like saying "When it comes to breathing, I'm for the moral principle of always inhaling."
The moral virtue of commitment or change is, in practice just a rationale selectively applied after the fact. If I'm a conservative, I first decide what I want and then rationalize my decision by focusing on the things I prefer to keep the same and call it a "commitment to tradition" and ignoring all the things I'm changing in the process. If I'm a progressive I decide what I want and then rationalize my preference by focusing on what I want changed and call it "not clinging to the past," while ignoring all the things I hold constant in the process. Applying these moral principles is at best stupid, and at worst disingenuous.
These moral principles to keep things the same or change them are red herrings, irrelevancies, impotencies masquerading as potent guides and distracting us from the real questions. They're as bad as the such moral principles as "always give...," or "never allow..." Give what? Allow what? Change what? Keep what the same? Those are the real questions.
I said this was an example that illustrates the larger point that moral principles do more harm than good. I'll expand beyond the example in another article. This is an important example though. The question of what to change and what to keep the same is about as fundamental as it gets. Life adapts to an environment in which the past is usually, but not always the best guide to the future, in which, contrary to the saying that "the only constant is change," the only real constant is an incompletely predictable mix of constancy and change. The serenity prayer captures it: what can change and what to try to change and what to let change.
There’s also an obvious correlation between moral decay and loss of liberty.
2 Cor 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Psalm 119:32
I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.
Psalm 119:45
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Neither of these are moral principles in themselves, they are just aspects of behavior. It is when you apply real moral principles to the acts of clinging/commitment that you have behavior which is either ethical or unethical. This Ph.D's analysis never gets off first base because of a flawed initial premise.
Since when are “don’t cling” and “show commitment” moral principles? The problem seems more like self-impressed miseducated types who doubt absolute truths promoting “appropriate advice in specific circumstances” to morality.
Anyone who says that “Don’t cling. Show commitment.” are moral principles is nuts, like most liberals.
“Moral* principles do more harm than good.”
Hitler and his fascist leaders believed the same. Many speeches were delivered by Nazi Party members belittling morality and rational thought. Hitler used a stock phrase in a number of speeches calling for Germans to “think in blood.” He derided reasoning and urged Germans to think emotionally. Think in blood was an admonition to throw away reasoning and intellectual thought. Get rid of those two and there’s no morality, only animals hunting victims.
This idiot fascist hack is telling people to become beasts
Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach, administrate.
You’re asserting your point from a (rightful) assumption of moral absolutes, that moral right and wrong exist beyond human creation and definition.
If you want to understand his point, (temporarily) suspend that assumption of objective (God defined) morality.
My hat is off to you, Maelstorm. In first and said it all. Nail has met hammer.
GMTA. That’s where I stopped also, for the same reason.
Funny thing is, my pretty neighbor hits on me too. Odd.
LOL...I admit, my advisor was Ann Coulter...:)
That is because, like most liberals, he believes we not only are no better than beasts, we ARE beasts.
We can be beastly, that is certain. Your commentary was excellent, and spot on.
But to do that you must suspend all reason and attempt to argue from a position of absurdity. Once you eliminate God the concept of "morality" is meaningless and consists of nothing more than personal preference or social convenience - neither of which has any necessary claim to my allegience.
Yep. At first, I wondered why he posted this, then I saw why.
It pissed me off reading it. To be honest, it pissed me off from this very first sentence: “Moral principles do more harm than good...”
I have said this about liberals and their message for a long time: If you understand how they speak, you don’t need to read a five page bloviating dissertation. You can often tell in the first several words exactly what they are going to say.
This has added years to my life that I otherwise would have never got back. Granted this approach had two drawbacks: It fails in about 5% of the time because the writer is clever enough not to give themselves away too quickly, and it makes one susceptible to falling for satire (See John Semmons...)
But once you recognize their patterns...it makes life easy...:)
Yep. At first, I wondered why he posted this, then I saw why.
It pissed me off reading it. To be honest, it pissed me off from this very first sentence: “Moral principles do more harm than good...”
I have said this about liberals and their message for a long time: If you understand how they speak, you don’t need to read a five page bloviating dissertation. You can often tell in the first several words exactly what they are going to say.
This has added years to my life that I otherwise would have never got back. Granted this approach had two drawbacks: It fails in about 5% of the time because the writer is clever enough not to give themselves away too quickly, and it makes one susceptible to falling for satire (See John Semmons...)
But once you recognize their patterns...it makes life easy...:)
that there IS an objective standard that everyone, including atheists, attempt to argue from, and, ironically, against the existance of such a standard.
To befuddle an atheist, make him apply his strict standard to his own argument. You can't argue that your point is "logical" or "reasonable" when you are attempting to prove that logica and reason are the result of random blind processes.
“plus the pretty neighbor next door keeps hitting on me”
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For some strange reason that kind of thing happens less and less often lately, in fact is seems to have downright ceased! It must have something to do with global warming, or maybe it is BUSH’S FAULT.
I think the author of this piece has too many of his own moral principles cause he sure doesn’t sound very smart.
“Don’t cling” is a moral principle????
“Moral principles do more harm than good.”
Classic college level crapola.
What kind of ridiculous strawman is he setting up? I've never heard anyone suggest such a formulation until just a few moments ago. We should use the most efficient and practical energy sources available, it's good for humanity (and incidentally, good for the environment). "Moral principles of commitment to tradition" never at any point enter into the equation.
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