What do you know...I'm nuts!
The hitherto fabled response I weakly alluded to one time long ago in a comment to kalab

kalab
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005

"I cannot agree with this because it denies responsibility to the amoral, effectively making them non-entities as far as choice in their actions is concerned. At the same time, people who choose to act morally are not to be commended or emulated in any way as they are not doing anything particularly worthwhile. They are simply acting normally. They get stuck with all the responsibility and free will while the nasty people get off scott-free."

So, it turns out that my innocent-looking, rainbows and kittens take on forgiveness actually logically leads me to this. Thanks, C. for pointing that out. It never occurred to me that I believed what you're saying here -but I do. And I end up taking too much responsibility and not enough credit. This gets me screwed at work all the time. I was so sure it was some problem, some belief I had, that was causing me the problem. I kept getting teamed up with the most heinously irresponsible people. Guess I should have turned off that neon sign that says "Sure, dump your shit here -I feel I have an obligation to clean it up without complaining or even asking for a little credit..."

Huh.

So, does this mean I could use a little moral superiority in my life? Maybe so. I spent a long time dwelling on your post -probably all just because of that one sneaky paragraph. And, subsequently dwelt on morality as well. I'm thinking that morally superiority still doesn't sit well with me -but you are definitely right about the need to pass judgment on the moral value expressed by others. It definitely needs to be incorporated into our reactions to them -if for nothing else than to avoid screwing ourselves out of blind faith in the goodness of others as I have.

I'm thinking maybe I'd like to ditch the notion of superiority in favor of health -or something like it. I think our garden variety classic Nicomacian or Kantian ethic hinges on an authoritarian interpretation of the Good. (I've been reading Nietzsche -and it's about to really start showing here). Good and Bad are obviously more complicated notions than we'd like. They're highly contextual and difficult -if not impossible- to adequately define. We basically require an authority of some sort to identify untimately for us the Good and the Bad. We are not ourselves -as evidenced by our actions en masse- equipped to identify this quality accuratey in time to apply the knowledge to an immanent moral dilemma. In retrospect, we may feel fairly certain we've missed, but how? when? why? Or we're certain we've pegged it, only to hear that others wholly disagree. We require an authority to hand to us a code. That's been the standard escape from this quandry. I think, though, that it's a false security since we're still stuck interepreting the intentions and directions of said authority. I think our notion of moral superiority propagates directly from this. We have a single perfect morality (that of the authority) that we're all trying to achieve. This means we can guage our progress against each other and decide that we are closer to the ideal than others. We've climbed higher on the ladder to perfection than the other guy.

What if, instead, morality -the right, or good action- were indicated to us simply by the presence of consequences? Here we are still, of course, stuck with the job of interpreting and still quite liable to make mistakes, but our mistakes become trials on our world and our needs. Each failure brings us that much closer to getting what we want. When we end up in a moral dilemma maybe we need to ask ourselves which action creates the world we want to live in and which action creates the bed you don't want to lay in. Senseless violence is very upsetting to others and messy. It ruins things and alienates people. You end up alone in a broken place. Not the way to build yourself a healthy and nurturing environment. Really the way to build yourself a little hell on earth. Like Hitler did.

Then again, maybe this is too "Everybody gets what's coming to them...eventually..." But, I'm ok with that for now. In my experience, this is actually quite true. I'll revisit it if it continues to get me screwed :).

So, now I should definitely rush on to prematurely apply my not-quite-fully-formed concept of moral health my favorite moral offender, Dick Cheney. Is it moral to start a war with another soverign nation under false pretenses and pursue it at the cost of lives in order to harvest more wealth out of a slowly failing economic system? Ok, no -we see the negative consequences of that. Obvious question is, Does Cheney? We must assume not for some reason. If we could sort that out, maybe we could convince him his reasons aren't enough to condemn thousands to horrible deaths. Maybe he still goes in blindly -next question is when does he get that monster bite in the ass? He's just rich as sin now...I'd say his bite in the ass is that he has to live for the rest of his life knowing he started a War -for money. That can't make for a healthy psyche. Which of us is right? Is Cheney creating a healthier place for himself than I? I rather think not. But, before I label myself morally superior, I'll label myself healthier. Maybe Cheney is all fat and happy with his situation -thinks he is the picture of health (we'll assume the frequent trips to the hospital are unrelated to his morality and more a factor of his age).

I like this better -I can still feel good about myself about the type and level of health I have achieved. It's not just SOP or what I should be able to do. But, I don't look at people not doing as well and think I have their answers or I'm smarter, better, more moral than them. I just think I have My sitution figured out. How would I handle theirs? Maybe not as well as they've managed. All I can do is offer them a view from outside their perspective and hope another angle will help them sort it out. If they have the comment box out, and I have a comment, I can offer it. Otw, I go about my business and they go about theirs. Where our paths cross it's like dealing with traffic, or rain during your parade. The choices of other people become just one more force of nature in your world. It makes us all responsible for ourselves. No more and no less. Further, our situations are not directly comprable. The closest thing I can do is say I'm doing better with what I got dished than that guy's doing with his. How would we do with each others? There's no point in even asking that question in this system. It's a moot point.

Here's another aspect of moral superiority -Do you think if you are morally superior -like when you make better choices than the rapist- that since you have the info (e.g. you figured out what they obviously haven't), you have an obligation to share that with them? A duty to your community to use your gift of better judgment to the benefit of all? In other words, does moral superiority bind you to in some fashion address the moral shortcomings of others? I feel like it does, but I'm totally basing that on an emotion, not a logical progression.

With Great Power comes Great Responsibility...
-Uncle Ben

What do you think?

I think the concept of moral health needs to percolate a little longer, myself *grin* It's still pretty weak.

*yawn* done, Good Night