A Moral Miasma June 24, 2011
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Core Values, Critical Thinking, Fellowship, Personal Reflection, U.S. Culture.Tags: Faith Sharing, Philosophy & Religion
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Disclaimer up front: don’t hold me to the veracity of the terms I am going to use. I am thinking out loud using terms and concepts I think I remember from a Philosophy lecture from my freshman year of college in 1976. I apologize in advance for everything I mis-remember… After two weeks of first, Annual Conference, then a church trial, where multiple arguments centered in “who is right and who is wrong,” I marvelled at the intensity of emotion connected with defending one’s position. Right and wrong, good and bad, winners and losers defines most of our disagreements. And in every case, participants reduce their argument to morality, as if morals are clear-cut. What comes to mind is what I (think I) heard in that lecture back in 1976. The essence of the lecture was this: most of our problems in our culture emerge from reductionism in pursuit of “one right way” that should apply universally to all. How we define how people should act is a “moral code.” But there is not just one moral code. Three equally valid, equally reasonable, equally viable moral codes exist: moral rationalism, moral sentimentalism and moral relativism — doing “right,” doing “good,” and doing “well.”
