Some time ago I wrote an entry about make it a law. I don't remember what the law was about or the entry, just that it was extolling the powerful effects making laws have on us. At the time I didn't have much to say about why that might be, just that it could be a very good think, and so we should think about stop thinking about things and just make nice laws to follow.
The post never quite sat right with me, but perhaps I have muddled out why. It is this question of moral ambiguity. Laws eliminate moral ambiguity. In many ways. They set out what we should think, do, how we should and shouldn't act etc. They take away the doubt that our actions are morally dubious. Law is affirmation of our discomfort with moral ambiguity.
Recently there was a court ruling in the UK, or rather an upholding of current law, regarding assisted suicide. The case I'm fuzzy about, but for me it has raised curious questions about the moral ambiguity of life.
Isn't life a morally ambiguous thing? This must be why we want so many laws to help us sort through these various ambiguities--to help us cope with the ambiguities. And this comes just over a month before the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. An important milestone, as many different parties are trying to use it to add new and expand existing human rights. The call is for the UN to declare and add to the Declaration the moment of the beginning and end of human life.
Of course the implication of stating in perhaps scientific or legal ways will end the debate and the ambiguity in questions of euthanasia and abortion. At least so many people believe. If we can finally legal decide life and therefore human rights begin at x and ends with F then F(x) would be the duration of life, the time during which an entity has UN charter rights. Therefore during that time no measures can be taken to end or stop that life. It would be a violation of human right.
But this is a bit of a call for moral ambiguity. It is from ambiguity that we find freedom. That we find creativity. And that we enjoy life. From trying to sort out for ourselves each of us individuals where our internal moralities fit into the complex web that is a moral philosophy of humanity. If we end that ambiguity we face the danger that we will stop asking certain essential questions about our being. There are some who will not wonder what am I...they will see according to law from F(x) they are human with certain inalienable rights. Rights they have legal recourse to enforce justice when violated.
It is difficult to say it is okay to end a life or prevent a life...and I don't think that is what I am saying. (at least that isn't the intention of this post) rather that each time we are uncertain about the moral position we should have the freedom to assess and examine it. to consider and dissuade the particulars of each situation. (dissuade is the wrong word....hmm...it's something like dissuade)...that life itself is different in every case, that the point of being human is more than a mathematical start and end point. [i hope]. and that moral ambiguity, while creating mostly all of the conflict in our world, is necessarily good for our continuation, our growth and development.
So i guess this is my request, not to end ambiguity. Embrace it, even though it is confusing and difficult. Cherish and nurture it, even if you are repulsed by it. It is a great source of inspiration and creativity. Be generated in it. I know I am.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Moral Progress
I am currently wondering about the growing lethality of hatred. I had a strange dream last night about being trapped in some situation and the only way I could think to get out of it was through violence. It was a very impotent dream as well, in that in not wanting to act violently I continued to be stuck in the situation I didn't want to be in. Which is fine seeing I wasn't actually aware of what the situation was, I just knew I didn't want to be in it.
For me this is nice, it comforts me that, in my dreams at least, I won't go nuts and kill a bunch of people. Well in the case of this dream. Dreams are funny things. Even that we call them dreams is funny, considering some of the other connotations of the word dream. Anyway... lethality as I was wondering.
Thinking about moral progress, that move over that past several thousand years--I don't really know time wise how long it took so i just throw out a large amount of time--the move from when someone not in my family wasn't human, to when everyone from my city state was human but someone not from my city state wasn't (as we might consider the case between Sparta and Athens); to the time when someone not from my country is not fully human, to maybe blacks or Jews or midgets weren't fully human, to our (i think) current condition where more or less we pretty much agree that every person is human. Maybe the nuances of that statement are somewhat problematic...what is a person? but whatever it is I will take it to be human...at least I can say for sure that every human is a person and more or less you will agree.
What does that mean? That somehow we have evolved morally to recognize that those people around us in some way deserve to live as we do. That in the same way we don't much want to be murdered, tortured, raped, abused, outcast or neglected we can see they don't either.
This is big progress! But now what has gone along with this moral progress? At every step, war, and increasingly more lethal war...but perhaps even as war has become more lethal it has become less violent.
Demographically more people are involved in war than ever before. This is necessary there are just more people around nowadays. Perhaps if we looked at the total percent of the global population involved in war, we could get a better idea of the comparison. Although even then it is difficult to say, the very definitions of, motivation for, and practice of war has fundamentally changed. I don't know I have never experience war. But it seems setting lookouts for the Mongol Hoard only to be overrun by fire arrows, raped and butchered as they sweep past is more violent than silently huddling in houses as bomb fall about like rain drops.
The aggressor in the first act is enacting far greater violence against another human than the latter aggressor. Even though the latter aggressor may be more effective and more lethal, maybe cause greater trauma in her actions that the case of the Mongol aggressor. She doesn't act in violence, she is calculated, strategic, planned, and approved through a complex chain of authority in her act.
I think the Mongols considered their opponents to be human, they must have because of their acts of colonialism. You wouldn't ask non-humans to join your human kingdom. And I know soldiers today try to dehumanize targets but always struggle with the knowledge that they are enacting aggression again other morally human entities like themselves. So we can make the comparison.
How is the latter act less violent? I think in increasing efficiency in warfare the need for individual aggression has far diminished. Lately I have been reading a fair amount of novels from the Forgotten Realms. In these stories often individuals with less efficient weapons are forced to dig deeper into themselves to find the will, the strength and the ability to continue enacting violent acts against those who threaten their existence.
As was has become less violent though it has increased in the weight of moral responsibility it thrusts on those involved. That is knowing that war is more lethal we are (or should be) more hesitant to engage in it. Our moral positioning in the world should stay our fingers and force us to look for other ways to resolve our conflicts. And don't we? internationally we work to help countries resolve conflict, to force countries to desist hostilities and to help other nations grow up survive and eventually thrive.
War may be more lethal, but we now strive to avoid it. It is when hatred enters the scene that we now need to progress our morality. With violent acts so efficient and lethal as they have become can we justify this hatred. Can we find no otherway to sublimate its effects? We must try. As we work into Humanity 2.0 we must continue ou progress, and expand our ever growing morality.
For me this is nice, it comforts me that, in my dreams at least, I won't go nuts and kill a bunch of people. Well in the case of this dream. Dreams are funny things. Even that we call them dreams is funny, considering some of the other connotations of the word dream. Anyway... lethality as I was wondering.
Thinking about moral progress, that move over that past several thousand years--I don't really know time wise how long it took so i just throw out a large amount of time--the move from when someone not in my family wasn't human, to when everyone from my city state was human but someone not from my city state wasn't (as we might consider the case between Sparta and Athens); to the time when someone not from my country is not fully human, to maybe blacks or Jews or midgets weren't fully human, to our (i think) current condition where more or less we pretty much agree that every person is human. Maybe the nuances of that statement are somewhat problematic...what is a person? but whatever it is I will take it to be human...at least I can say for sure that every human is a person and more or less you will agree.
What does that mean? That somehow we have evolved morally to recognize that those people around us in some way deserve to live as we do. That in the same way we don't much want to be murdered, tortured, raped, abused, outcast or neglected we can see they don't either.
This is big progress! But now what has gone along with this moral progress? At every step, war, and increasingly more lethal war...but perhaps even as war has become more lethal it has become less violent.
Demographically more people are involved in war than ever before. This is necessary there are just more people around nowadays. Perhaps if we looked at the total percent of the global population involved in war, we could get a better idea of the comparison. Although even then it is difficult to say, the very definitions of, motivation for, and practice of war has fundamentally changed. I don't know I have never experience war. But it seems setting lookouts for the Mongol Hoard only to be overrun by fire arrows, raped and butchered as they sweep past is more violent than silently huddling in houses as bomb fall about like rain drops.
The aggressor in the first act is enacting far greater violence against another human than the latter aggressor. Even though the latter aggressor may be more effective and more lethal, maybe cause greater trauma in her actions that the case of the Mongol aggressor. She doesn't act in violence, she is calculated, strategic, planned, and approved through a complex chain of authority in her act.
I think the Mongols considered their opponents to be human, they must have because of their acts of colonialism. You wouldn't ask non-humans to join your human kingdom. And I know soldiers today try to dehumanize targets but always struggle with the knowledge that they are enacting aggression again other morally human entities like themselves. So we can make the comparison.
How is the latter act less violent? I think in increasing efficiency in warfare the need for individual aggression has far diminished. Lately I have been reading a fair amount of novels from the Forgotten Realms. In these stories often individuals with less efficient weapons are forced to dig deeper into themselves to find the will, the strength and the ability to continue enacting violent acts against those who threaten their existence.
As was has become less violent though it has increased in the weight of moral responsibility it thrusts on those involved. That is knowing that war is more lethal we are (or should be) more hesitant to engage in it. Our moral positioning in the world should stay our fingers and force us to look for other ways to resolve our conflicts. And don't we? internationally we work to help countries resolve conflict, to force countries to desist hostilities and to help other nations grow up survive and eventually thrive.
War may be more lethal, but we now strive to avoid it. It is when hatred enters the scene that we now need to progress our morality. With violent acts so efficient and lethal as they have become can we justify this hatred. Can we find no otherway to sublimate its effects? We must try. As we work into Humanity 2.0 we must continue ou progress, and expand our ever growing morality.
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