Noah's Blog: Part II

It goes without saying that these are odd times we find ourselves in. The economy is in a historically bad place, most adults can’t go to work, and students across the nation are unable to go to school in person. While most agree that this is for the best, some are of the opposite stance, and for a variety of reasons. Some opposers of the social distancing order are simple being selfish, and are eager to get back outside no matter the danger. Other opponents of the idea say that staying inside has the potential to do more damage in the long term, and that the longer we have the economy closed, the more jobs we will find are gone forever.

There are many approaches to this modern day moral dilemma, but for the most part, all roads lead to a decision which favors the stay at home order.

The Utilitarian approach says that the least harm is in the option which costs the fewest amount of lives: a quarantine

The Rights approach says that while people may have the right to, for the most part, go anywhere they want and do anything they want, they also have the right to not die of a virus.

The Fairness approach attempts to put every person on an equal pedestal and decision-make that way. Since some people are more vulnerable than others, the only fair thing to do is make everyone take the same precautions those people would.

The Common Good approach seeks to make society good as a whole; while many benefit from an active economy, there have to be people alive to take part in it.

The Virtue Approach urges people to make the decisions for themselves with regards to what makes them virtuous people. By most accounts, the virtuous thing to do is to stay home and avoid putting others in harm’s way.

This is the approach which resonates with me the most. The Virtue Approach prompts people to take matters into their own hands not only for the common good, but in a way that practices self-improvement and patience. The Virtue Approach understands that many of the current circumstances mat be out of our hands, but if we do the virtuous thing and stay home, we seek to benefit from it in the long-term.

In the “My Roomate’s Boyfriend…” article, the Ethicist makes the point that social distancing is an altruistic practice in nature, because:

“We do it for the sake of our community and, especially, for the sake of those who, owing to their age or underlying health conditions, face particular peril“

or in other words, it is a selfless practice which allows you, as an individual, to make the world a better place, and by doing nothing.

The Ethicist then presents an analogy which says that going outside right now is like “driving with your eyes closed.” If you drive with your eyes closed for just a few seconds, it might not be that dangerous to you or those around you. If, however, you this a number of times, for long durations in each instance, it becomes much more likely that you are going to put someone in danger. The analogy here is clearly meant to be likened to the practice of going outside and spreading the virus.

Utilitarian J.S. Mill’s “harm principle states that:

“…autonomy reaches its limits when an action is a threat to others.“

What this means is that we are free to do whatever we please as individuals until we reach the point that our actions put others in danger.

What the Ethicist ultimately suggests is that the two roommates separate their living spaces for the time being whether or not the roommate’s boyfriend should decide to move in. I think this is a fair conclusion granted the circumstances. I think in a perfectly safe world, the roommates boyfriend would stay home, but if the roommate insists on having him over, then she should be willing to compromise some of her living spaces so that her other roommate can live safely and comfortably.

“Nicomachean Ethics” is a surviving collection of notes taken by Aristotle’s pupils on what it means to live the best, most well rounded life one can. Aristotle’s approach is heavily practical, and as such, the first two books are spent discussing the nature of eudaimonia, or loosely translated, “goodness,” and how one is meant to pursue it.

In book I, Aristotle claims that the nature of everything individuals do is in the pursuit of good as an end, and that lower order ends exist to act as a means to the higher order ends. Even if everyone agrees that goodness is the greatest end, there is distinction to be made in how people classify happiness. Nonetheless, individuals should focus on the practical pursuit of happiness rather than the idea of good in itself.

Aristotle considered happiness to be the highest good for this reason. Strangely, he considered virtue not to be good in and of itself, but rather good as a means to happiness.

Additionally, Aristotle describes the soul as something which can be defined as equally rational and irrational. The irrational side of the soul develops impulses, and the rational side keeps those impulses in check. As such, a rational individual is one who can keep these impulses in check the best.

In book II, Aristotle identifies intellectual and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are virtues which can be taught by an instructor and learned as a student. Moral virtues are virtues which are practiced and cultivated in hopes of forming them into a habit.

With so many different people in so many different places, it would be hard to establish a common set of rules to follow in order to achieve virtue. This being said, Aristotle suggests that somewhat subjectively, virtue exists between deficiency of some trait and excess of the same trait. In his own words:

“…both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it.”

For example. Honesty is a virtuous moral to have. An excess of honesty though will cause one to be rude, and a lack of honesty will make someone a liar.

Also important to Aristotle is that those who behave virtuously are doing it on purpose. In other words, one cannot be truly virtuous by accident. In order to be virtuous on purpose, one must:

1. be aware that they are acting virtuously
2. be choosing to behave virtuously
3. be virtuous by disposition.

When Aristotle says that virtue is a state of character, he is implying that rather than it being a character trait, virtue is a character in itself. When someone is tired, they are tired in the moment, not tired as a state of being. Oppositely, when someone is strong or intelligent, they are these things as states of being. Being virtuous works in a same or similar way. One is virtuous in themself rather than virtuous as a trait.

The Dalai Lama, much like many others, recognizes the flaws in the current system. He understands the nationalist mindset that America has, but recognizes that because “everything is interconnected today,” this is a bad sentiment to hold. With every nation on the planet being dependent upon every other, there is no place for nationalism.

The Dalai Lama continues by reminding the reader that historically, when people have pursued their own interests, it has caused war and strife, and that while religion can help with these issues, they would be much better solved with a global, secular set of ethics.

What he is hoping to achieve is a world in which the school system teaches students not only intelligence of the mind but intelligence of the heart, in areas including “love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, mindfulness, tolerance and peace,” because cultivating these skills allow us to come to reason much better than simply knowing how to understand.

He believes that the teaching and nurturing of these virtues is what will allow people to solve conflicts through dialogue rather than violence. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama believes that well being is more dependent on human nature than religion, because even beyond religion, every individual has an understanding of human kindness.

When you hear his case, it is difficult to disagree with him. His commitments are to use the school system to create more well rounded individuals out of students. The benefits of this, if it were to work, would be more individuals having the ability to reason emotionally and act with compassion and humility.

(Notable are the similarities that the Dalai Lama’s thinking shares with the Eightfold Path discussed in the last blog, likely because of the Dalai Lama being the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. One could even think of the Dalai Lama’s suggestion of global, secular ethics as a modernization of the Eightfold Path).

I do share commitments with the Dalai Lama. I, much like him, see the value in allowing the school system to give lessons in areas such as morality, and would welcome a greater emphasis on the pursuit of virtue in the name of making the world a better place for every individual.

Living is no simple task. No matter what you mat do, unavoidably, life has its ups and downs. Many credit this school of thought to the stoics of places and times like ancient Greece and ancient Rome. While this is a reasonable assumption, this is a common misunderstanding. The first person to popularize this idea wasn’t even from the west: it was the Buddha.

“The four noble truths” refers to the four ideas which Buddha saw as axioms of human nature, and it was in the first of these four axioms that he put it most plainly yet most effectively: “Life is suffering.” He goes on to support his claim by explaining that suffering takes place in all five aggregates that make up the human: the physical form, the feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

The second noble truth is that suffering is a product of having desires. Because all things are impermanent, they are unattainable, and therefore lead to suffering.

The third and fourth noble truths deal with the ending of suffering. The Buddha posits in the third noble truth that it is possible for one to bring their suffering to an end if one is able to cast away the cause. The fourth noble truth then acts as a guide for how to do so via what the Buddha calls “the Eightfold Path”

The Eightfold Path identifies 8 “steps” or practices by which one can remove suffering from their lives. Those practices being:

1. Right understanding: “seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label”
2. Right thought: state of mind characterized by thoughts of love, nonviolence, and the welfare of those around you
3. Right speech: the use of one’s power of speech to say constructive, meaningful things
4. Right action: the maintenance of a good moral conduct
5. Right livelihood: making one’s living through ethical practices which do not harm anyone or anything else
6. Right effort: the ability to cultivate a good state of mind
7. Right mindfulness: the ability to be constantly aware of everything happening with respect to one’s own body and mind
8. Right concentration: the ability to put oneself into a state of trance in which all that remain are “equanimity and awareness”

Out of these eight practices, the one which comes least easily to me is likely right effort. Often times I feel as though I have trouble maintaining a clear, level headed mindset, and as consequence, my decision making skills are inhibited and I suffer. For example, sometimes I wake up in a bad mood, and that bad mood stays with me for the entire day. Not due to a lack of trying, it proves to be very hard to maintain good spirits on these days, and it is even harder to try to cultivate a good mindset.

Right action would, in theory, lead to less suffering. Conceptually, if everyone were to look out for one another and promote what is considered to be morally correct conduct, then every individual, even society as a whole, would likely feel the positive effects.

You are an individual who has been dealt a bad hand in life. Impoverished from birth, you never knew what it was like to eat three meals a day. This persists into your adulthood, and on one particularly famished day, you are presented with a choice. The farmer’s market is today, and someone not far from where you are is selling apples. The apples are in abundance, hundreds, and even better for you, the owners are away from their stand. Do you take one?

Mill says yes. You’re hungry, and you stand to benefit from it more than the shopkeeps do. After all, there’s hundreds of apples. How much do they really stand to lost from one less? Not much. Right?

Kant disagrees. Kant operates on what he calls the “Categorical Imperative” which prompts individuals to “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.” What this means is to, as a rule of thumb, assume with each decision you make, that it would be appropriate for others to make decisions in the same way.

For example, refer back to the example found at the beginning of the blog. Before stealing the apple, Kant wants the individual to take into consideration how the world would be should stealing be normalized. Safe to say, things might be much worse if no one’s property was safe from anyone else who had the means and the opportunity to steal it. On the other hand, if you consider how the world would be should theft be universally frowned upon, things seem much better. Everyone could know at all times that their belongings are safe.

What Kant encourages individuals not to do is act under the motivation of sympathy. Kantian philosophy says that a “good” action is determined by its intention rather than by its consequences, and for an action to have “good” intention, it has to be rooted in the rationally good will of the individual. So, in order to do something of true moral worth, it has to be motivated by truly good will rather than by sympathy. Sympathy also has the side effect of not allowing an individual to approach a situation with unbiased logic, rather with an inclination in one direction or the other.

Sympathy gives people an end goal rather than acting as an end goal in itself. This is the difference between a categorical imperative and a hypothetical imperative. The Categorical Imperative provides instructions on what to do in any and all situations, whereas hypothetical imperatives, like those explored in utilitarian philosophy, refer to actions taken in search of a particular goal.

Mill avoids the paradox of hedonism by identifying the difference between short term happiness and long-term happiness. He acknowledges that a life spent chasing short-term happiness is unfulfilling and avoids this paradox by offering that utilitarianism prompts the individual not to do this, but to instead live in the pursuit of long-term happiness.

Self-sacrifice is not so much a virtue within utilitarianism as much as it is a practice which should be first nature to the individual. It is not seen as glorified so much as it is seen as the normal thing for one to do.

Mill takes the idea of impartial decision making to the next level. He insists that any one individual’s happiness is worth as much as any others, which is fair and agreeable, but where he might lose people is in the idea that any one life is worth as much as the next. For example, when having to decide between saving the life of a stranger or, say, your mother, you should not give your mother any more sentimental value than you would give the stranger. For Mill, impartiality is critical to utilitarian decision making because it allows for an objective calculation of greatest happiness.

Assume that a choice is presented to you. It is a weekday morning and you were up late last night. You have a class to get to in a few hours and you know the material being covered is of a fair amount of importance. As your alarm is going off you think to yourself, “is it worth it? To get up, get ready and make the commute? I can probably miss today and just get the notes from someone tomorrow.” All the while, part of you knows you shouldn’t choose to miss class if you’re perfectly capable of going. What do you do?

You might choose to miss the class. Perfectly acceptable. We’ve all been there. No one can honestly say that they’ve never done this or something similar as far as trading a long term happiness for short-term pleasure. It happens.

John Stuart Mill would call this a mistake though.

In “Utilitarianism,” Mill concerns himself with that it means to be truly happy, and by extension, how one should act to behave as such. The conclusion he reaches is that happiness is pleasure, and that one should always pursue the outcome which provides the greatest amount of it. As such, the happiness of the individual comes from doing the thing which is correct by moral standards. It is the moral imperative of the individual to maximize pleasure.

Mill proposes what is called the “greatest happiness principle,” which reflects what he considers to be one’s duty to produce the greatest amount of happiness.

Mill goes on to refute the idea that utilitarianism is a “pig philosophy,” or rather, a philosophy which prompts individuals to find satisfaction in a kind of ignorance. He says that this interpretation of his ideas “confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content,” meaning that this interpretation is a narrow-minded simplification of utilitarianism, and that happiness and content are two radically different states of being. Happiness stems from long term, maximized pleasure, whereas contentedness comes from having a low-threshold understanding of what it means to be happy.

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”

All this being said, why would one choose to miss class? If happiness comes from long-term pleasure, why skip a class to begin with? Well for Mill, there is no reason to do so. He explains that the reason for which one chooses a short-term pleasure in favor of a long term pleasure is the instant gratification which a short-term pleasure provides. It’s a much better feeling to stay at home and sleep in than it is to go to a lecture, especially when you suspend from your mind the possible repercussions of missing a lecture.

So next time you think about skipping your ethics class, try thinking long-term about it. Consider which option produces the greatest happiness.

In “A Defense of Ethical Relativism,” anthropologist Ruth Benedict makes the case that there are hundreds of cultures in the world, and within them, an even larger number of socially appropriate ways to live one’s life. For example, homosexuality is a majoritally accepted way of living in most first-world countries, but in other parts of the world, homosexuality is frowned upon, sometimes even punishable by death.

It is a well established fact that what is acceptable in one place may not be acceptable in the other, and Benedict uses this fact to make the assertion that there is no ethical right or wrong, only ethical difference, because after all, who are we to say that the way another society of individuals behaves is wrong?

Empiricists are who we are. At least some of the time.

In her essay “Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation and Ethical Relativism,” Loretta M. Kopelman responds to Ruth Benedict’s idea of ethical relativism by arguing that there are some cultures which engage in practices which are objectively harmful for little to no rational reason and therefore could be subject to judgement. Her primary example in this case: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Kopelman explains that in Northern Africa and parts of Arabia, “many girls undergo ritual surgery involving removal of parts of their external genitalia,” and that “about 80 million living women have had this surgery, and an additional 4 or 5 million girls undergo it each year.”

The reasons for these procedures range from religious to medical to sexual to traditional, but Kopelman promptly debunks each one.

1. Practitioners claim that this is a practice which is required religiously by the Quran. However, nowhere in the Quran is this named explicitly as something which must be done.
2. Practitioners claim that this practice creates a sense of group identity among the culture. While this may hold true for some amount of people, there is a large amount of disagreement within both the culture and the region with regards to the ethicality of the surgery.
3. Practitioners say that, similarly to male circumcision, female genital mutilation promotes cleanliness and health in the recipients body. This could not be less of the case however, as the practice has been found to cause infertility, infection, and incontinence among other problems.
4. Practitioners claim that the surgery preserves virginity and prevents immorality in the form of pre-marital sex or infidelity. However, no form of the surgery is known to diminish female libido in any way.
5. The final argument made by those in support of female genital mutilation is that it preserves the goal of marriage such that it makes women more appealing to men as marriage partners. While this might be true, it is not true in 100% of cases. Some men within these cultures either don’t look for it or simply don’t care.

What she suggests we do instead of write something off as ethically relative is view the situation from an empirical standpoint, using logic to evaluate and explain. We know from scientific and medical evidence that this is not a harmless practice, and even if it were, it is not being gone about in a harmless way. This, coupled with the fact that these procedures do not do what they claim to, give anyone all the reason in the world to call them unacceptable in the most objective sense of the word.

With this, Kopelman seems largely to shut down or at least provide reasonable doubt for any kind of ethical relativism, because in reality, many things are not as relative as they may at first seem.

It should go without saying that we as individuals live in a very, very large world. Large not only in size but in population; somewhere around 7 billion to be exact. Maybe the most interesting thing about this is that even with such a large number of individuals, almost unavoidably, each person lives in some kind of society, and with some kind of cultural identity.

In this world exists hundreds, if not thousands of cultural identities, all of which possess their own customs, rules, and ideas. The ideas that Ruth Benedict focuses on in A Defense of Ethical Relativism are the things which any individual society deems normal or not normal.

“Ethical Relativism” refers to the idea that there are inherent differences between peoples and cultures concerning what one or another might deem acceptable. One of the examples that Benedict cites is homosexuality, noting that while there are places in the 21st century world where homosexuality is seen as grounds for institutionalization, there are other places and there have been other times where it is/has been considered essential. Benedict says that the reason for this is “Every society… carries its preference farther and farther, integrating itself more and mole completely upon its chosen basis, and discarding those type of behavior that are uncongenial.” This is an argument that is hard to discard when it is so visible in the real world.

Where ethical relativism begins to become questionable is in how society decides what is right. For example, if the majority favor capital punishment and oppose abortion, then capital punishment is right and abortion is wrong. While the argument could be made that this is ethical because the majority decided so, is it logically inconsistent to concern oneself with the preservation of life in one scenario and not in the other.

Childhood is a fragile time for any individual. It goes without saying that the first years of an individual’s time on Earth can, and often do, lay the groundwork for the rest of that person’s life. That being said, most agree that it is incumbent of the adults in present in a child’s life to act as good examples of how to behave; more specifically, how to behave fairly.

“Justice” is a broad idea with an even broader set of definitions. Ask a hundred people how they define justice and you’ll likely receive an equal number of answers. These answers though, would likely be based in a common idea though, that idea being fairness.

The opposite of something which is fair is something which is unfair. Since fairness tends to act as the status quo and therefore goes largely unnoticed, let us attempt to understand it through it’s opposite: unfairness.

Even today, I’ve always gotten very lucky with the teachers I’ve been given. High school, college, and most of elementary all provided me with good instructors. The reason I say “most of elementary” is because the exception to this occurred in the third grade.

I was a good student as a kid. As good as a typical third grader could be at least. I did my work, read my books and went to recess. I guess my teacher didn’t see it the same way though. Regularly she would go out of her way to make my time at school as poor as it could be. She would withhold me from activities like the spelling bee, single me out in the middle of class, and on at least a couple of occasions, speak negatively about me, one time telling my mom that she “had the weird kid in class.”

I think the reason she used to behave in this manner towards me was because she couldn’t get under my skin. I never cried over it, I never complained, I took it as it came. I don’t have any hard feelings about the my experience in third grade. I acknowledge that there was likely some external force causing my teacher to act the way she did and can only hope that things took a turn for the better for her.

What happened to me was, by most standards, a series of injustices. Why though? What characteristics of the situation qualify it to be considered an unjust scenario?

Most notable about the situation is the disparity of authority, or the disparity of ability. My teacher had all the authority in the world to do things like not allow me to go to recesses or not participate in school events. What was I going to do in response? Say no? Tell the principal? Somehow I feel like if it had been my word against my teachers, they would have taken hers. The only equalizer I did have that I eventually did turn to was my mom. My mom, like myself, was passive about it for the majority of the school year until she had finally had enough toward the end of the year and wrote a “strongly worded” e-mail to my teacher. All this being said, it can be concluded that injustice involves a disparity of power between the performer and the receiver.

Less notable but still important in the broader scope of the situation are the consequences of an unjust action. On my end, the consequences were few and far between to be fair, but the whole situation did leave my young self with a a fear of receiving a bad teacher ever again. I was lucky enough to not have the incident affect me academically, but I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if I would have won that spelling bee.

1. Injustice involves a relationship between an authority-holding performer and a less powerful recipient.
2. An act of injustice results in a short or long-term outcome considered negative or unfair by the recipient

C: Injustice is a treatment between an often authority-holding performer and a less powerful recipient which results in a short or long-term outcome considered negative or unfair by the recipient.