The question over whether morality is objective / subjective is itself as tricky to ponder.
I’ve been exploring moral philosophy in both Western and Chinese perspectives for years now, and honestly I don’t feel that I’m any closer to understanding it for myself.
Certainly there is a preponderance of the ‘subjective’ approach within Neo-Confucian thought, which is somewhat of a departure from original Confucian thinking. And whilst I feel that approach makes the most sense, I can still always pose an argument against it.
The central piece of that approach was linked with the idea of one’s true nature, and that one’s personal moral compass is determined by this.
But then, is human nature inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
What if ‘good nature’ is ruined by ‘bad nurture’....? And vice versa?
What if someone’s true nature is to be a murderer, or rapist? How do we as a community deal with the fact that there are those among us who genuinely are not fulfilled unless they behave in such anti-social ways?
That all of course does not presuppose that maybe ‘murder’ is normal and ok, and the rest of us have it wrong....
In short, trying to impose moral order is just so tricky when we as a species and a civilisation haven’t worked it out yet.
However, I think we need to try.
And like everything else in life, we’ll work it out from our mistakes. Hopefully.
This is where there is one concept in Chinese philosophy that maybe holds the key to bringing this all together.
Most folks have probably come across the concept of 無為 wúwéi — or ‘effortless action’.
Linked with this concept is that part of being ‘effortless’ is action that also does not restrict or constrain the capacity for an other to act in such way.
I’ve been trying to use this filter for my own decision-making... and I’m not going to say it’s easy. But it’s been an interesting exercise. It has certainly stayed my hand on several occasions.
So I guess if we want to assume subjective morality... perhaps there is alongside that a great responsibility with how we walk through life and interact with others in a society.
Just some thoughts, thanks for bringing this up.
😊🙏🏽☯️
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i was thinking about ethics again the other day and began toying with this idea: ethical systems would be more effective (and accurate) if built into monetary systems, governments, corporations, school boards etc, than they are when considered to be rules for the conduct of individuals. To put it another way: systems of ethics are not for people, they are for systems. For people there are simply the causes and conditions of wellbeing as experienced subjectively. Wu wei would be one of those causes. Recognizing the psychological act of say making judgments about people (in the sense of "better than and worse than me") as a cause of constantly pendulating emotional discord in ourselves would be another cause of wellbeing.
The subject-object "split" with all it's connotations is rather odd to me, it doesn't seem to have any utility, and has some pernicious side effects. Subjective psychological experiences, qualities, and moods, have observable common causes. For example if i believe something but mistakenly assume that my belief is a fact i am more likely to feel angry or defensive when my belief is challenged than i would be if i had a belief that i knew was a belief. That can be said a couple of ways. In buddhist terms that could be described as ignorance of my own state of belief, and at the same time attachment to my belief. i do not get to choose that such a relationship to my own belief has those effects on my subjective experience of wellbeing. It does have those effects whether i like it or not, whether i think so or not. And as people we are engaged in these kind of errors all the time, even though we don't see it. So in that sense the causes of wellbeing and suffering are objective.
On the note of "what if murderers only experience wellbeing when they're murdering?" to paraphrase you, but i believe retaining your meaning, i think we will find that the fantasizing and following through with such acts of violence is a turning away from the internal turmoil within that person, and the mistaken projection of that turmoil onto others. Those are again observable psychological actions, of suppression or resistance, and projection, attachment, and ignorance of the causes of ones own turmoil. If my skin itches, and i take a histamine blocker instead of identifying the cause of the itch, that cannot solve the fundamental problem, and it will thus crop up again in the future either expressing through more itching or some other expression quite possibly worse than the original problem. Wellbeing just cannot be had going along that way.
If people who understood the causality of wellbeing were building systems that had the promotion of wellbeing as an ethical goal, well i think there is something to that... All our systems could look a lot different if approached that way, but that would be a lot different than telling people what they should do, it would be telling our systems, "Hey system you must be a steward of the causes of individual wellbeing to the extent that such causes exist within your domain."
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How did I miss this?!? Thanks @themillionthings 😊
I love the idea that ethics is a systems thing rather than a personal one.
I wish I could flesh this out further with you. My understanding of wu-wei has built in the concept of causes/consequences. In the texts I’ve read, the ancient Chinese idea of this was that everything in nature (“under Heaven”) live in a wu-wei manner, but humans are bit too clever and our conditioning and learning and intellect and so on get in the way. It’s why the Taoists were so into the idea, and using natural phenomena as a model for living.
EG: A tree can only ‘tree’ as to do otherwise would go against its nature, the consequences of which would affect everything else in the eco-system that it is inter-related to.
If we build systems following natural models (such as in biomimicry) then we could potentially solve this issue, as you say. Even without being a naturalist or biologist, I find ecological systems vital and influence my thinking even in “human” fields such as history, philosophy, politics, technology, etc.
But never considered ethics from this angle... will ponder further 😉🙏🏽☯️.
My criticism about the ancient Chinese / Taoist idea (which is what I was alluding to with my ‘murderer’ example) is the whole question of ‘what is human nature?’ — if a tree ‘trees’, if a bird ‘birds’ and they are expressing their true nature?..... well, how do we ‘human’? Maybe violence is a natural part of our nature? Personal opinion is not.... but I can’t hold that belief without irrefutable evidence (and unfortunately the evidence suggests we are cruel and violent, and the opposite is if anything a mutation ... perhaps a sign of how we will eventually evolve, I hope so...)
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"but I can’t hold that belief without irrefutable evidence "
That's a thought after my own xing. Well considered. And, In the case of having irrefutable evidence, belief is superfluous in a sense, since perception of evidence is prior to belief and sufficient in itself.
The concept of 'human nature' is a rather odd category, also seeming to me to be without utility because anything human beings do could be considered 'human nature'. So that doesn't allow us to understand or distinguish. It doesn't tell us anything new, and it postulates itself as existing prior to observing that their is such a thing. The concept is often used as a sort-of 'wastebasket' category and people throw anything they don't want to consider into it as a way of explaining away certain behaviors. You ever notice that? Though i'm not implying you are doing that here.
"but humans are bit too clever and our conditioning and learning and intellect and so on get in the way."
The nature of believing in the concept of being a separate independent self is to bolster that 'self' by any means necessary, the violence of a psychopath is a tactic to do that. Cleverness is another tactic. Seeking reward, recognition, and attention are other tactics. Most of us use tactics like that for that same purpose in our own ways, whether or not we know we are doing it. We're trying to protect the "little independent me" from the big bad everything else we've assumed is separate from us. Those tactics are covering up the flow of being. Part of the nature of being is acceptance and flow, or 'wu wei'. We don't learn that. We express it on the heels of perceiving and then unlearning the tactics and patterns that prevent it. 'Violence' can be included in that flow, the difference is whether that violence is coming from a conditioned and insecure belief in 'independence', or coming as an expression of the flow of being. And there is plenty of counter evidence to the nature of human beings as violent. Many people have lived their lives bettering themselves, and their neighbors, and ecosystems, never 'taking up arms' for personal gain. It's just that such acts don't as frequently make headlines, or if they do, the dramas of conflict seem to outweigh them because a 'little me' can bolster better in drama than harmony. A little me remembers that better, and creates it more. Whereas a sense of personal harmony stabilizes in absence of that belief.
"My understanding of wu-wei has built in the concept of causes/consequences."
Can you elaborate on that further? i'd like to hear more about what you mean...
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