working on this bit
still working on the future , will get round to doing this bit some time 11 June 2013
Goodies and Baddies
"Are they the goodies or baddies dad"? Asks my exuberant nine-year old as he burst in to the room. With the film reaching its denouement I tell him to sit down and be quiet. Undeterred by my protestations, he persists in his pursuit of knowledge. I try stalling him, "well, it's not that simple". But eventually I capitulate, and resign myself to an explanation of ethical philosophy suitable for a nine year-old. Goodies and baddies, good and bad, right and wrong, morality, I scratch my head and wonder how do I explain the complexities of morality to someone whose view of life still retains the innocent naivety of instinctively reacting to his environment; - If it feels good do it – if it requires effort (with out immediate reward) or is painful don’t do it.
Oh yes he knows that some thing are right and some things are wrong but only because mum or dad say they are. This knowledge hardly constitutes a true sense of morality, (even my dog knows that some thing are right and urinating in-doors is wrong). I can condition my dog or even my son for that matter through positive or negative training, but neither would be any the wiser about morality. I suppose that, in the same way as the adage “You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach how to fish and feed him for life” goes, I must give my son an understanding of what makes something right or wrong and thus give him the skills to discern for himself. (I take a quick mental resume of my latest edicts to see how morally based they are…hmm). I decide that I better start by recognising where my son is at and give him (and myself) an understanding of his present sense of what makes something good or bad.
The influence of TV
I justify allowing my son to watch what I would other wise regard as rubbishy children's programmes, by telling myself they at least carry a moral message of good triumphing over evil. However I suspect that for my nine-year old son any moral message is lost, the important issue for him, is not what makes a "goody" good but that goodies happen (in his television programs) to be the winners, he wants to emulate.
He is forever acting out what may be his instinctual fears of survival, in play battles with imaginary foes, mimicking his heroes from a plethora of television shows, who always manage to survive the dastardliest out numbering baddies. So the question of goodies and baddies is not so much one of inquiring as to the morality of the characters but one of, “who are going to be the winners, the survivors”?
If the events of September 11th, as seen on my television, had (as people a likened it to) been the opening it to a disaster movie, by now my son might well have asked, "Who are the goodies and baddies dad". To my son’s scene of logic the answer would have a simplistic clarity, whichever way round you put it; the goodies are the ones who are winning, or whoever is winning are the goodies, and from an instinctual point of view his logic is impeccable. Intellectually speaking surviving is winning, ergo winning is good. The fact is that as humans we share with all living things an instinctual nature, of which the primary objective is that of surviving to procreate. The events, of September 11th must have threatened our instinctual senses of survival. The fear of immediate danger, producing the instinctual response, “to fight or flight.”(*1) Although only as a spectators, I certainly felt empathetically threatened by the events.
I make it sound as if the employment of our instincts is some thing that we take out of the cupboard in times of adversity. I think we sometimes forget or are unaware that the totality of our lives is being motivated by instinct. We are, whether we like it or not, like all other animals, driven and motivated in our daily living by some thing with which we have very little control over.(*2) We are perhaps reminded of our instinctual nature when situations arise that make us aware of bestial qualities. We perhaps feel uncomfortable with the idea of being little more than automatons, operating to a predetermined set of responses, but perhaps the degree to which we have or don’t have “free will” should be left to another time.
Man certainly, likes to consider himself civilised, as opposed to savage. But what do we mean by this and where might it have come from? Certainly, with in the western culture, the Christian religion has given man a sense of what we call morality and as with most religions it usually comprised of a legalistic set of do and don’ts. But I suspect that what we are looking for started long before this.
Where Morality
Man feels he has the ability to discern the influences of his instincts and be able to curb the desires and impulses they produce. To some extent I believe this to be true. He undoubtedly has a sense of some things being right and some things being wrong, which unlike my son are not based on his instincts. So the concept of what we call morality has not come from his instincts. To appreciate where he may have acquired this discernment, we must consider a mechanism that would allow him to conceive of it. What I need is some form of logical rationale; an objectivity basis out side of his instincts with which to measure those things one might call “good”.
We humans are unique, in the living world by having what I call the “human condition.” The reason we have this condition is the fact that we have a well-developed intellect, capable of complexes abstract thought. As a result of our ability to think in intellectual abstract terms, we can conceive of the notions of “good” in abstract terms, as in “food is "good for me"”. This is not saying that the food is good, in fact the food could taste disgusting, it is the relationship of the food to oneself, as being good. From there, man, in perceiving that “food is good for him” (as an individual) can further abstract that notion to “food is good for every individual”. He now has a realisation of the needs of others, and that those need are the same as his.
I think it is fair to say that from this abstracted view, good has taken on a different perspective, that has its own criteria which relates to the truth of what it refers to and not of its self. If I say that "my living is good", referring to the fact that (from my perspective) my being alive is good, (not referring to the quality of living)
Within this hypothesis we have the basis for a non-self-centred, non-instinctually driven code of discernment, logically determined by man’s own intellect. This realisation gives man the vision to see beyond his instinctual self-centred nature to formulate a selfless concept that we may come to call morality.
So, I said we have what I called "the human condition" and I have given “the awareness of good for” as the reason we have it, so what is it? Quite simply, with this new realisation, by following our instincts we can do “bad” to others. We have truly eaten of the tree of knowledge! "The human condition" is the recognising that our instinct nature may be at odds with what we consider to be a morally good and with it come the uniquely human qualities (amongst others) of guilt, revenge, hatred and love.
So, if one is looking for a crude approximation for morality one could do worse than applying the “ Good for” test, particularly if one takes each consideration on a stand alone basis; - that is, it would not be dependant on what has gone before or what will come next, the effect of which is to say that a good thing is not conditional (restricted to those who are deserving) and a bad thing is not justifiable (an end being justified by a means).
woking on this bit when i get the time
(Notional in the sense that it may not be practical or even possible but can exist as an imagined concept, heavenly if you like not of this world.) That is to say, that if in all ones dealing one was to apply a good for test one might have a crude form of morality,
From this interpretation of morality the events of 11 September are clearly amoral but then so too would be the bombing of Afghanistan. As actions, that must stand-alone, (are not justifiable by that which has gone before or are excusable as the means to an end) both these events are wrong. But that of course is not the whole story. The problem with such a simplistic, legalistic view of morality is that it fails to appreciate the human condition. Lets face it the human condition is not only a no win situation but, if we allow it, will tie us in knots. Without compromising its essence we must apply it with an understanding of our predicament physically speaking. What on earth am I talking about?
Catching the butter fly in the spirit
The problem with all rule type things is that they are the easy way around not having the right attitude. We try to contrive attitudes by recipe without having the true understand of the situations that would naturally produce that attitude. Take for instance the example of the recipe for Irish theism pubs. We have all seen the attractiveness of the traditional Irish pub. Lots of people making music have fun and we are envious, so brewery companies try to bottle it (sorry) and export it to places where the indigenous people do not have the skills or the attitude that would produce it naturally.
Or as an other example the business gurus who sell a particular stile of management in a package say from a far eastern origin to find that it dose not wok or is corrupted in to a harmful experience because the ethos that lay behind it was intrinsically raped up in a different culture.
one cannot catch the butterfly attitudes set the the system not a system seting an attitude that is why prescribing a code for morality is flored to over come its flors we need to understand and in our understanding give a totality to the consept of morality and not just as a tool of conveyance and one must start with one self at having appling a good for set of attitudes to ones self a stat of paece as a result of being Good to ones self to forgive one self to be patient with onself above all to be aware of our humanty and under stand the complexities that are unicxaly the human experience to be motivated by onse instinks and yet contious of of Good to be awar that we live in this battle ground we call consunce where the pressur tfor self delusion for reasons of selfish gain are imenc but should not be yielded to , no not so much the the selfish gain as the self delosion.
So what attitude should we adopt to our morality, good for and what is the justification for that. We have become aware of good and bad as notional qualities. We therefore can be “good” to some one by giving them, that which is good. We then could be said to be adopting an attitude of “being good to someone” that might well be describe as loving them. In this context I mean exhibiting qualities such as patient, understanding, forgiving (in the light of being in a battle with our instincts). But perhaps to start with we should love ourselves if that means understanding ourselves.
So how dose that change our interpretation of morality via vi 11 September well it dose not change the morality but it must be encumbat on one to try to understand simpatheticaly all the events
The true wrong is not the action but that one might call a bad action good .. moral
The down side to this is that it gives us the ability to manipulate our instinctual impulses, to corrupt what would other wise be a passive self defence mechanism into a proactive aggression. that makes for the terrible side of our “human condition” and has been responsible for all the atrocities of mankind as nations or as individuals.
Using our intellect we can perpetuate the instinctual response that would other wise subside and with that perpetuation respond retrospectively, as it were to a threat.
Indeed in the real world two protagonist would hardly reach a mutual acceptable consensus of what was right, if they only looked at their difficulty from there own perspective.
There may well be occasions where there are apparent conflicts where what would be good for one would be bad for another and visa versa this situation is what I would call the balloon game scenario and should be avoided at all costs
Good for has its limitations in that it is not pro active but either retrospective for analysis on past actions or analytical of future possible action but it dose not investigate the current status quo which might be “better not doing bad for
But of course as a tool of reflective annalisis such a tool may be interesting and allow one to condem anaction but as with all tool it is a trick rather than an attituted of thinking and ferther more it must be used as a guid for one s own reaction in eaqual propotion to the condemnation of an initial action one must apply such a tol eaqualy
must arris if one uses two different criteria for describing a n event
Oh yes he knows that some thing are right and some things are wrong but only because mum or dad say they are. This knowledge hardly constitutes a true sense of morality, (even my dog knows that some thing are right and urinating in-doors is wrong). I can condition my dog or even my son for that matter through positive or negative training, but neither would be any the wiser about morality. I suppose that, in the same way as the adage “You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach how to fish and feed him for life” goes, I must give my son an understanding of what makes something right or wrong and thus give him the skills to discern for himself. (I take a quick mental resume of my latest edicts to see how morally based they are…hmm). I decide that I better start by recognising where my son is at and give him (and myself) an understanding of his present sense of what makes something good or bad.
The influence of TV
I justify allowing my son to watch what I would other wise regard as rubbishy children's programmes, by telling myself they at least carry a moral message of good triumphing over evil. However I suspect that for my nine-year old son any moral message is lost, the important issue for him, is not what makes a "goody" good but that goodies happen (in his television programs) to be the winners, he wants to emulate.
He is forever acting out what may be his instinctual fears of survival, in play battles with imaginary foes, mimicking his heroes from a plethora of television shows, who always manage to survive the dastardliest out numbering baddies. So the question of goodies and baddies is not so much one of inquiring as to the morality of the characters but one of, “who are going to be the winners, the survivors”?
If the events of September 11th, as seen on my television, had (as people a likened it to) been the opening it to a disaster movie, by now my son might well have asked, "Who are the goodies and baddies dad". To my son’s scene of logic the answer would have a simplistic clarity, whichever way round you put it; the goodies are the ones who are winning, or whoever is winning are the goodies, and from an instinctual point of view his logic is impeccable. Intellectually speaking surviving is winning, ergo winning is good. The fact is that as humans we share with all living things an instinctual nature, of which the primary objective is that of surviving to procreate. The events, of September 11th must have threatened our instinctual senses of survival. The fear of immediate danger, producing the instinctual response, “to fight or flight.”(*1) Although only as a spectators, I certainly felt empathetically threatened by the events.
I make it sound as if the employment of our instincts is some thing that we take out of the cupboard in times of adversity. I think we sometimes forget or are unaware that the totality of our lives is being motivated by instinct. We are, whether we like it or not, like all other animals, driven and motivated in our daily living by some thing with which we have very little control over.(*2) We are perhaps reminded of our instinctual nature when situations arise that make us aware of bestial qualities. We perhaps feel uncomfortable with the idea of being little more than automatons, operating to a predetermined set of responses, but perhaps the degree to which we have or don’t have “free will” should be left to another time.
Man certainly, likes to consider himself civilised, as opposed to savage. But what do we mean by this and where might it have come from? Certainly, with in the western culture, the Christian religion has given man a sense of what we call morality and as with most religions it usually comprised of a legalistic set of do and don’ts. But I suspect that what we are looking for started long before this.
Where Morality
Man feels he has the ability to discern the influences of his instincts and be able to curb the desires and impulses they produce. To some extent I believe this to be true. He undoubtedly has a sense of some things being right and some things being wrong, which unlike my son are not based on his instincts. So the concept of what we call morality has not come from his instincts. To appreciate where he may have acquired this discernment, we must consider a mechanism that would allow him to conceive of it. What I need is some form of logical rationale; an objectivity basis out side of his instincts with which to measure those things one might call “good”.
We humans are unique, in the living world by having what I call the “human condition.” The reason we have this condition is the fact that we have a well-developed intellect, capable of complexes abstract thought. As a result of our ability to think in intellectual abstract terms, we can conceive of the notions of “good” in abstract terms, as in “food is "good for me"”. This is not saying that the food is good, in fact the food could taste disgusting, it is the relationship of the food to oneself, as being good. From there, man, in perceiving that “food is good for him” (as an individual) can further abstract that notion to “food is good for every individual”. He now has a realisation of the needs of others, and that those need are the same as his.
I think it is fair to say that from this abstracted view, good has taken on a different perspective, that has its own criteria which relates to the truth of what it refers to and not of its self. If I say that "my living is good", referring to the fact that (from my perspective) my being alive is good, (not referring to the quality of living)
Within this hypothesis we have the basis for a non-self-centred, non-instinctually driven code of discernment, logically determined by man’s own intellect. This realisation gives man the vision to see beyond his instinctual self-centred nature to formulate a selfless concept that we may come to call morality.
So, I said we have what I called "the human condition" and I have given “the awareness of good for” as the reason we have it, so what is it? Quite simply, with this new realisation, by following our instincts we can do “bad” to others. We have truly eaten of the tree of knowledge! "The human condition" is the recognising that our instinct nature may be at odds with what we consider to be a morally good and with it come the uniquely human qualities (amongst others) of guilt, revenge, hatred and love.
So, if one is looking for a crude approximation for morality one could do worse than applying the “ Good for” test, particularly if one takes each consideration on a stand alone basis; - that is, it would not be dependant on what has gone before or what will come next, the effect of which is to say that a good thing is not conditional (restricted to those who are deserving) and a bad thing is not justifiable (an end being justified by a means).
woking on this bit when i get the time
(Notional in the sense that it may not be practical or even possible but can exist as an imagined concept, heavenly if you like not of this world.) That is to say, that if in all ones dealing one was to apply a good for test one might have a crude form of morality,
From this interpretation of morality the events of 11 September are clearly amoral but then so too would be the bombing of Afghanistan. As actions, that must stand-alone, (are not justifiable by that which has gone before or are excusable as the means to an end) both these events are wrong. But that of course is not the whole story. The problem with such a simplistic, legalistic view of morality is that it fails to appreciate the human condition. Lets face it the human condition is not only a no win situation but, if we allow it, will tie us in knots. Without compromising its essence we must apply it with an understanding of our predicament physically speaking. What on earth am I talking about?
Catching the butter fly in the spirit
The problem with all rule type things is that they are the easy way around not having the right attitude. We try to contrive attitudes by recipe without having the true understand of the situations that would naturally produce that attitude. Take for instance the example of the recipe for Irish theism pubs. We have all seen the attractiveness of the traditional Irish pub. Lots of people making music have fun and we are envious, so brewery companies try to bottle it (sorry) and export it to places where the indigenous people do not have the skills or the attitude that would produce it naturally.
Or as an other example the business gurus who sell a particular stile of management in a package say from a far eastern origin to find that it dose not wok or is corrupted in to a harmful experience because the ethos that lay behind it was intrinsically raped up in a different culture.
one cannot catch the butterfly attitudes set the the system not a system seting an attitude that is why prescribing a code for morality is flored to over come its flors we need to understand and in our understanding give a totality to the consept of morality and not just as a tool of conveyance and one must start with one self at having appling a good for set of attitudes to ones self a stat of paece as a result of being Good to ones self to forgive one self to be patient with onself above all to be aware of our humanty and under stand the complexities that are unicxaly the human experience to be motivated by onse instinks and yet contious of of Good to be awar that we live in this battle ground we call consunce where the pressur tfor self delusion for reasons of selfish gain are imenc but should not be yielded to , no not so much the the selfish gain as the self delosion.
So what attitude should we adopt to our morality, good for and what is the justification for that. We have become aware of good and bad as notional qualities. We therefore can be “good” to some one by giving them, that which is good. We then could be said to be adopting an attitude of “being good to someone” that might well be describe as loving them. In this context I mean exhibiting qualities such as patient, understanding, forgiving (in the light of being in a battle with our instincts). But perhaps to start with we should love ourselves if that means understanding ourselves.
So how dose that change our interpretation of morality via vi 11 September well it dose not change the morality but it must be encumbat on one to try to understand simpatheticaly all the events
The true wrong is not the action but that one might call a bad action good .. moral
The down side to this is that it gives us the ability to manipulate our instinctual impulses, to corrupt what would other wise be a passive self defence mechanism into a proactive aggression. that makes for the terrible side of our “human condition” and has been responsible for all the atrocities of mankind as nations or as individuals.
Using our intellect we can perpetuate the instinctual response that would other wise subside and with that perpetuation respond retrospectively, as it were to a threat.
Indeed in the real world two protagonist would hardly reach a mutual acceptable consensus of what was right, if they only looked at their difficulty from there own perspective.
There may well be occasions where there are apparent conflicts where what would be good for one would be bad for another and visa versa this situation is what I would call the balloon game scenario and should be avoided at all costs
Good for has its limitations in that it is not pro active but either retrospective for analysis on past actions or analytical of future possible action but it dose not investigate the current status quo which might be “better not doing bad for
But of course as a tool of reflective annalisis such a tool may be interesting and allow one to condem anaction but as with all tool it is a trick rather than an attituted of thinking and ferther more it must be used as a guid for one s own reaction in eaqual propotion to the condemnation of an initial action one must apply such a tol eaqualy
must arris if one uses two different criteria for describing a n event