Tag: morality

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It Ain’t Easy Being Good: Living Well in Exhausting Times

Fresno Bee, March 17, 2024

It is not easy to live a good life. In fact, the difficulty of the task is what makes goodness worth pursuing. If you think it is easy to live well, you’ve misunderstood the nature of morality and the world. The anxiety of virtue is a fundamental feature of the project of living well.

A recent essay by Professor Travis Rieder in Time describes the present age as “morally exhausting.” Rieder says, “Modern life is morally exhausting. And confusing. Everything we do seems to matter. But simultaneously: nothing we do seems to matter.”

Rieder frets about whether drinking almond milk or driving an electric car does enough for the environment. He worries about whether it does any good to “boycott” artists by not watching them on Netflix. I don’t doubt that some people worry about such things. But we Americans are lucky that this is all we have to worry about. In Russia these days, moral courage can get you sent to Siberia or poisoned by the state.

At any rate, moral exhaustion and confusion are not bugs of modernity. Rather, this is a perennial feature of the pursuit of goodness. New technologies and new knowledge must be integrated into our moral lives. But it has always been difficult to be good.

Imagine, for example, the moral confusion of the followers of Socrates or Jesus, beloved leaders who were executed by the state. Or imagine the moral exhaustion of life in Nazi Germany or Cold War Eastern Europe. For that matter, imagine life today in Gaza, Haiti, or Russia. There are places on this earth where violence, deprivation and oppression threaten moral integrity as well as life itself.

From a historical vantage point, Professor Rieder’s worries about almond milk are quaintly bourgeois. The moral struggles of the American present pale in comparison to the struggles of our past. This continent has seen violent conflicts between colonizers and indigenous people. The American revolutionaries made a difficult moral choice to break away from their British cousins. And during the Civil War, neighboring states went to war over the morality of slavery and the identity of the Union.

Rieder uses his examples to point out that it often seems that individual choices have little impact on huge problems. This is true. Your individual dietary choices won’t stop climate change or change Hollywood. Nor will your single vote change the political dynamic of our country.

The fact of our smallness can lead to an existential crisis. It seems that nothing individuals do has much of an impact on the great big world. Recognizing your smallness can provoke anxiety and despair. It can also lead you to give up trying. If nothing you do will change things, then why bother?

But nihilism and neglect are forms of complicity. You should feel guilty if you stop trying to make things better. Your moral effort matters. You may not change the course of history. But your individual commitments are significant for you and for those who know you. History won’t remember your choices. But you have to live with them. Your friends will remember your words and deeds. Your life establishes a model for your colleagues and loved ones.

It can be tough to constantly worry about the morality of what you choose to eat, drive, watch and buy. It is also draining to worry about who gets elected, whether the wars we fund and fight are justified, and the daunting challenges of racism and climate change.

But the moral life is not supposed to be easy. It helps to develop good habits of ethical hygiene. You must practice kindness, gratitude, and truth-telling. It also helps to have good friends and mentors who keep you on the right path. But at the end of the day, each one of us has to choose what kind of life we want to live.

Luckily, most Americans are free to make these choices in a relatively stable environment. Even then, we all confront despair and anxiety. But morality requires tenacity and zest. It is hard work to live well. If you want to succeed in living well, it’s up to you to rise to the challenge.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article286716915.html#storylink=cpy

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Moral Vision and Transcendence

Moral vision sees the suffering of others. It also requires you to extend your gaze beyond the present and into the future. To see the world morally you must look at things clearly, fairly, and compassionately. Morality also requires you to balance the needs of the near-at-hand with the demands of a distant horizon. That distant horizon offers a transcendent perspective on your life and your legacy.

Last week I wrote a column about speed, and our culture’s emphasis on quickness. Some things must be done quickly. But many good things—love, grief, and happiness—require us to slow down. The key is moderation, and knowing when to go quickly and when to go slow. Wisdom also requires us to balance short-term and long-term points of view.

It is common to distinguish between short-term and long-term thinking, goals, and ambitions. Ethical decision-making procedures typically emphasize this as part of cost-benefit analysis. This seems obvious. But what do we mean by short-term and long-term? How short is too short? And how long should long-term be? We are often confused about this. And quite a few things go wrong when we are not careful about how we judge the relative value of what’s close-at-hand and what’s far away.

We also tend to confuse long-term concerns with medium-term goals. We tend to ignore the really long-term. We can describe this as part of our general “moral myopia.” We are near-sighted about morality and the good life. This occurs most obviously, when our moral gaze does not extend beyond our own self-interest. Morality asks us to direct our attention and care to the suffering of others.

But which others should we focus on: those nearest, or those farther away? A balance is needed. This is true with regard to significant social and political issues such as climate change, or war and peace. We ought to focus on the costs and benefits in the near- and medium-term. But really long-term goals also matter. We should care about those who suffer from storms and floods today. But we should also take long-term steps to prevent catastrophic climate change. Compassion must be extended to those suffering from war today. But we must also work to create the conditions for lasting world peace.

And in our own lives, we must balance short-term and long-term needs and interests. Short-term thinking breeds corruption. It causes people to lie and cheat. It also explains why people fail to prepare for retirement, and why we struggle to correct destructive health habits. The intense pleasures of the moment can overwhelm our desire to do well in the long-run.

The utilitarian philosophers created a process called “the hedonic calculus” (sometimes called the felicific calculus) that helps balance short-term and long-term goals. The utilitarians tell us to consider the “intensity” of pleasures, their “propinquity” (nearness), their “fecundity” (the tendency of a pleasure to produce other pleasures), and the general social utility of our policies and choices.

The utilitarian calculus is useful for thinking about short- and medium-term goods. It reminds us that it is prudent to save for retirement and to eat healthily. It also shows that honesty and fidelity pay off. And the idea of general utility asks us to factor in the happiness of others both near and far.

But what about really long-term goods? We should add to the calculus the transcendent value of your entire life. Moral vision should consider the legacy you hope to leave behind. Transcendent goods extend beyond the simple trade-offs of cost-benefit analysis. When you view your life as a whole that even transcends your death, things begin to look differently. The transcendent vantage point asks you to imagine your entire biography, and the impact your life will have on your friends, family, and the world as a whole.

The transcendent long-term is important when thinking about the legacy of the present generation. We ought to ask ourselves how our lives will affect the next several generations. We ought to work to create a world for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, that is decent, healthy, peaceful, and free.

Ours is a short- and medium-term culture. The intense concerns of the moment encourages moral myopia. We’re often so busy with a, b, and c that we forget to look toward x, y, and z. But at some point, you will reach your last moment. And when you are gone, you ought to hope that those who come after will be grateful for who you were, what you created, and what you left behind.

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Love and the Golden Rule: An Ethical Valentine

Fresno Bee, February 13, 2022

Valentine’s Day is a great time to reflect on the beauty of the golden rule. This principle tells us that love is the key to morality. But love and ethics are complicated.

Morality often involves lists of do’s and don’ts. The golden rule seems to tell us how to construct such a list. It says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A negative version says, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.”

But ethics is not only about do’s and don’ts. Ethics also involves a transformation of the heart. It includes character and disposition, emotion and relationship.

That’s why the most inspiring version of the golden rule focuses on love. It says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This links altruism and egoism. It demands that we transform self-love into love of the other. It also suggests that ethics is not only about complying with a set of rules. Attitude and orientation also matter.

It is possible, for example, to do the right thing, but with a grudge. A person who is angry or resentful about doing good is less praiseworthy than someone who is benevolent, kind, and generous. Someone who tells the truth in order to avoid a penalty for lying is less admirable than someone who is fundamentally honest.

In reality, these things are complicated. Sometimes truth can be cold and biting. And sometimes a white lie can be kind. There is a difference between lying for malicious purposes and lying for the sake of the other person.

Love demands that we consider those complexities. The golden rule orients us toward the well-being of those we love. This goes beyond obedience to a list of commandments.

Rule-following is easier than loving. And strict compliance can betray the spirit of love. Consider fidelity and adultery. A grumpy lover whose faithfulness is stubbornly obedient is less praiseworthy than a lover who is happily faithful. The loyalty of love is not supposed to be a grim duty. There should be joy in fidelity.

Or consider the duties of parenthood. There are long lists of things that parents should do (or not do) for their children. But we wouldn’t really use the word “good” to describe a parent who obeys the rules of parenting without actually loving their children.

Some critics will say that love is too weak and mushy to be a reliable guide for ethics. Erotic love is a mercurial emotion that overwhelms rational thought. Romeo and Juliet were swept away by love. But (spoiler alert!) that story does not end well.

Ethical love is more mature than adolescent infatuation. It is supposed to be steady and enduring.

Christian texts provide us with a clue. The famous account in First Corinthians tells us that love is patient, kind, trusting, and hopeful. Love should not be proud or boastful, angry or resentful.

This account of mature and stable love can be traced back to Plato, who wrote several dialogues about love. Plato thought that love should be oriented toward higher goods. Erotic love focuses on the fleeting pleasures of the body. But platonic love is spiritual. It directs us toward enduring and essential goods.

Consider again, parental love. Loving parents do not love their children because the kids are useful or fun. A parent’s love is not about the parent’s happiness or pleasure. Rather, loving parents should want their children to thrive for their own sake.

The same is true of mature romantic love. It is not merely about pleasure and desire. Nor is it about financial partnership or some other pragmatic concern. Rather, romantic love ought to be focused on the spiritual well-being of the other person.

Of course, it is easy to misunderstand love. And we often love poorly. Poetry and literature are full of tarnished love. But the golden rule encourages us to polish up the way we love.

Love is not merely about feeding the fires of selfishness and sensuous pleasure. Rather, the beauty of love is found in the way it leads us beyond ourselves. True love is for the sake of the other. It ought to make us happy and also better and wiser.

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Curing Viciousness by Climbing the Moral Ladder

Fresno Bee, September 20, 2020

At a recent rally in Reno, President Trump said, “Now I can be really vicious.” “I don’t have to be nice anymore.” Trump said, “the Republican party doesn’t play it rough and tough.” “We play it so nice,” he said. “In the end it’s not right.”

Trump’s viciousness can be seen in the way the president applauded the killing of Michael Reinoehl by U.S. Marshals. Reinoehl was suspected of killing a right-wing protester in Portland, Ore. After the marshals killed him, the president said, “that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.” Of course, in the U.S., police are not justified in delivering retribution.

We are on a slippery slope lubricated by viciousness. To avoid that slope we need to hold fast to what I call the moral ladder. The rungs of the ladder tell us to be nice and kind, to seek justice, to limit power, and to develop mercy.

Morality begins with niceness. Parents tell kids, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” We quote Aesop’s fables and teach children that “Kindness is never wasted.” These nuggets of proverbial wisdom create a foundation for morality.

Niceness is about manners. Manners provide a psychological and social root for moral development. In learning to be nice, children develop decorum and self-control. Niceness can be superficial and deceptive. A con-man can be nice while he picks your pocket. But that behavior is an exception. Niceness is the first rung on the moral ladder.

Kindness is also essential. Kindness is empathy and benevolence. Sometimes this can be phony or done for show. But genuine kindness opens the heart. It is the source of charity and compassion. The next rung on the moral ladder involves extending kindness to friends and even to strangers.

Beyond this, ethical maturity requires that we develop a sense of justice and responsibility. The Roman philosopher Cicero said that kindness is optional but justice is necessary. Kindness is a gift. If you withhold charity, no one would blame you or be angry. It is not nice to be unkind, but it is not evil.

Justice, on the other hand, is required. If you fail to be just, you are blameworthy. Failures of justice— from lying and promise-breaking to outright violations of human rights — create outrage and righteous indignation. Injustice is not simply unkind. It is evil. Justice is another step on the moral ladder.

Here is where retribution is found, offering payback that holds criminals responsible for their misdeeds. A traditional scheme requires eye for eye, life for life. But a complex system has developed in order to administer justice. Among the most important features of our system is the presumption of innocence.

Accused criminals in the United States have a right to defend themselves in a court of law. American police are not authorized to deliver retribution. The state’s power to punish is awesome. That’s why we limit it and make certain that those we punish are actually guilty. Recognition of the necessary limitation of the state’s power to punish takes us higher up the ladder. This is the vantage point of democratic political theory, which is committed to basic human rights and the rule of law.

It is possible to climb still higher. Many moral systems teach that forgiveness and mercy are higher than retribution. Mercy asks us to be kind, even to those who deserve punishment. The last rung on the ladder takes us beyond law toward something transcendent.

This moral ladder represents the basic common sense of our civilization. Common sense teaches that when viciousness is praised, virtue gets trampled. When niceness is kicked aside, kindness becomes impossible. When police take retribution into their own hands, democracy is in danger.

It’s time to get off of this slippery slope and climb back up the moral ladder. We do that by adhering to justice and the rule of law. We do that by teaching our children to be nice and kind, fair and forgiving. Our children are watching. They will eventually take control of this vicious country. If we teach them well, they may be kind enough to show a little mercy on us.

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The Tough and the Tender-Hearted: Trump, Jesus, and Socrates

Fresno Bee, December 22, 2020

President Trump has a steely spine. He is feisty and pugnacious. Some people admire him for his toughness. But toughness is not the only thing that matters. There is also a need for a more tender-hearted morality.

Trump is a paradigmatic tough guy. The title of Trump’s 2011 book is “Time to Get Tough.” He explained that to fix America “we’ve got to be smart and get tough.” Earlier this year Trump bragged that all of the tough guys are on his side: the police, the military, and the bikers. And in a famous tweet from 2105 he said, “When somebody challenges you unfairly, fight back, be brutal, be tough, don’t take it. It is always important to WIN!”

Trump’s recent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a great example of how tough guys operate. A softer man would have apologized, resigned, or attempted to negotiate a compromise. But Trump expressed no remorse or interest in reconciliation. Indeed, he touted his toughness in the letter, saying “I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.”

The letter is scathing and belligerent. He accuses the Democrats of staging a partisan coup. He says the Democrats view democracy as their enemy and are “declaring open war on American Democracy.” He even suggests that Pelosi has weaponized religion, suggesting that she prays for his demise.

Some people admire truculent tough guys. Pop culture is full of them. Americans love movies about cowboys, soldiers, gangsters and cops. We like Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood and Samuel L. Jackson.

History is also full of tough guys. Plato described a tough guy named Thrasymachus, whose name literally means “bold fighter.” Thrasymachus defined morality simply as helping friends and harming enemies.

That’s how tough guys view the world: divided between friends and enemies. They reward loyalty and show no mercy to their rivals. For tough guys, the essence of morality is power, since power allows you to help your friends and punish your enemies.

The tough world view is self-reinforcing. You assume that your enemies are waiting to pounce and that your allies may sell you out. The solution is to be relentless toward friends and enemies alike. But that causes friction and animosity, which increases the need for further toughness.

In a tough world, even loyal comrades are temporary. The assumption is that people only do favors looking for something in return. This is a world of cronies and accomplices, vendettas and possible violence. It is the world we see in Shakespeare and Sophocles, as well as in Hollywood.

Philosophy and religion provide a critique of toughness. A more tender-hearted morality is espoused by Socrates, who argued against Thrasymachus’s hard-hearted worldview. Socrates said, “we ought not retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone.”

Jesus said something similar. But Jesus went a step further in his advocacy of love. Not only are we to love our neighbors, we are even supposed to love our enemies.

Tender-hearted morality looks beyond the distinction between friend and enemy. It judges things impartially. It sees dignity and worth in all persons. It respects everyone equally. It forgives and shows mercy. It wants to transform enmity into community.

Tender-hearted morality elevates love above power. It thinks that gentle kindness is superior to tough-minded ferocity. Instead of seeking favors, soft hearts give without expectation of payback. Instead of a loyalty and revenge, tenderness calls for hospitality and compassion.

Tough guys will see tenderness as foolish. Softness shows weakness and vulnerability. In a tough world, enemies will exploit weakness. Those enemies must be defeated. And the cronies and accomplices must be kept loyal. The tough cannot yield. They cannot admit wrongdoing. They cannot offer mercy or seek forgiveness.

The logic of toughness is understandable. But unyielding Scrooges and gritty Grinches inhabit a dark and lonely place. The antidote is to soften up your spine and open up your heart. The Christmas message calls us toward charity and joy. Instead of winning and fighting back, this is a time of giving and forgiving. It is a season that encourages us to set aside the love of power and recall the power of love.