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An Inherent Paradox To Evaluating Morality
You get what you pay for.
Give them a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them to
fish and you feed them for the rest of their lives.
Any strength can be a weakness, any weakness can be a
strength...
There are two main problems encountered whenever trying to
evaluate any moral premise. The first problem is complexity.
When a moral premise is examined, it is almost always a
projection of what will happen in the future, based on the
knowlede from the past. Future projections are inherently
difficult. If the examination is of past or existing moralities,
the complexity of moral problems becomes clear. While some moral
lessons are clear in why they work, many have a subtlty that is
amazing.
The second problem is the natural biases of the person doing
the analysis. Everyone grows up in a moral system, no matter how
much of it is missing. Each moral system has solutions to some
problems that are common to all moral systems. Some moral
systems have solutions to problems unique to that particular
moral system. The elements of moral systems are a bit like human
traites. Some can integrate into other systems well and some
cannot. An individual looking for a useful moral system cannot
just freely pick elements from different moral systems and not
get anything that is mutually exclusive. That is why a person
examining another moral system than their own, is confronted with
elements that are not only different, but wrong, from the
perspective of their own moral system.
A qualitatively different idea would be a moral system based
on reason and understanding, rather than presidence and
authority. One of the objectives of this book is to describe a
model of such a system. This model would be useful for
contrasting to existing systems and also for summerizing certain
aspects of moraliy.
Considering the functionality and success of existing
religions as moral systems, it is not suprising that their moral
laws tend to reflect extremely reasonable practices. Existing
moral laws tend to be extremely effective. Unfortunatly though,
they tend to base their statement on authority, not reason.
They say "you shall do this", not "you shall do this because...".
This kind of a knowledge base failed for other fields of
knowledge, because it is not adaptive enough. That is what
has prompted science since Copernicus. That kind of system
has worked for moral knowledge, because morality must be so
inherently conservative. It is not going to always be that way.
At present, change is so great that we require an understanding
of morality that is adaptive to unprecidented circumstances.
This examination method can be formulated somewhat.
In biological terms, a moral analysis is a question of how
will this effect my survival, the survival of my family, the
survival of my community and the survival of my specie. In
biological terms, this is evaluated in terms of genetic survival.
In terms of how humans think, it may be a bit different, but it
still be quite similar.
This is an example of an analysis of the first of these
problems, complexity. The issue produce characteristic trade offs.
Modern medicine. The use of antibiotics can defeat a
disease in an individual.
This may:
a. Save their life.
b. Prevent long term damage.
c. Simply save them from a good deal of inconvenience.
It may also lead to other problems later in time such as:
a. One problem is that the individuals immune system may not
be exercised or developed enough to beat some other nasty
disease that comes along.
b. Another problem is that the individuals immune system is not
as refined by natural selection and evolution.
c. Another problem is that the diseases may get a resistence to
the antibiotics such that they come back in a form that is a
bigger problem than they were in the first place. The
individuals immune system may have been able to usually beat
the original disease, but it may be that now the individuals
immune system can rarely beat the new improved bug.
This description represents patterns that appear in almost
any moral situation. This description replaces each specific
benifit and cost of using antibiotics with a generalized
description of what the implications of any moral decision will
be. The immediate benifits to be desired from any moral
decision are:
a. Save their life. - Morality is about survival. A moral
decision may be about a life or death matter. In any
consideration of a moral issue, its effect on immediate survival
or death must be considered.
b. Prevent long term damage. - Survival, in biological terms
includes many things, including differences in reproductive
success. If a moral decision is not about life or death, it may
still effect the individuals biological survival, meaning
reproduction.
c. Simply save them from a good deal of inconvenience. - If it
does not impact the individuals biological survival, it may
impact resources the individual uses for survival or it may just
be inconvenient. While convenience and comfort may sometimes be
irrelevent to survival, they usually are important to some
degree. Even if they are not, one of the biases of this book is
that it is describing moral systems to come and hopefully they
can be designed to be comfortable.
The characteristic resultant problems catagorize as such:
a. One problem is that the individuals immune system may not
be exercised or developed enough to beat some other nasty
disease that comes along.
This illustrates the effect on the individual. There may be
a large component of luck involved here, but in some cases this
can be quite important. The individuals immune system is weaker
for not paying the price of the disease that was beat by
antibiotics. A goal of a practical morality is to provide some
comfort. In any situation, the cost of comfort in the short term
must be balanced against potential costs that will occur in the
long run.
b. Another problem is that the individuals immune system is not
as refined by natural selection and evolution.
This illustrates the effect on the specie. Removal of the
effect of natural selection may make for weaker descendents.
Again, this is an evaluation that may or may not be very easy to
evaluate, but is part of any analysis of a moral method.
c. Another problem is that the diseases may get a resistence to
the antibiotics such that they come back in a form that is a
bigger problem than they were in the first place. The
individuals immune system may have been able to usually beat
the original disease, but it may be that now the individuals
immune system can rarely beat the new improved bug.
This illustrates an effect that is an attribute of the
system that the individual lives in. It is even more likely to
be unpredictable in its occurence and especially consequence.
After these issues are examined is the ongoing process of
how these various potential benifits can be maximized and the
hazards or drawbacks minimized. These
characteristics are what make moral issues inherently
complicated. It is also why this book is more interested in
describing how to analyze moral problems and some guides for
evaluating them, rather than trying to provide some "best"
solution. Humans are going to have a hard time providing "the
right" solution to most moral problems. It is why systems of law
have a judge. There is no perfect system of law and so a judge
is needed to even make it work. This will be true of any moral
systems as well. They will require human judgement to make them
have a chance of working. This is the judgement section of
the analysis. It is a compilation of testable and non-testable
hypothesis'concerning the consequences of a moral method.
An analysis of any moral method must include the known pros
and cons in relation to:
a. The effect it has on the immediate survival of the individual
b. The effect it has on the long term survival of the individual
c. The effect it has on the of the individuals family
d. The effect it has on the of the individuals specie
e. The effect it has on the comfort of the individual
This is not to describe some orderes heirchy of needs. If
it could could be done that way, we could always rely on rules
instead of needing judgement. Accumulation of this data and
more, will be necessary to making a valid moral analysis.
This book also tries to provide what moral knowledge that
has been accumulated up to this point, mostly to assist in
making judgements..
The second part of an analysis is to examine the moral
biases of the individual. The field of medicine is a useful
example, because there are a number of major medical belief
systems. The western model follows the traditions of Hippacrates
and led to antibiotics. Some eastern systems focus on optimizing
the neuological functions to allow the body to overcome a disease.
Some religious based medical systems, depend on healing without
medical intervention.
All of these systems include a bias against the others.
There may be open minded individual practicioners that use parts
of different systems, but that is only when science and reason
has shown the value of something in the other system.
Moral systems can only be compared in terms of
itseffectiveness and comfort.
Here are some more examples to illustrate this problem and
analysis method, as well as to list some of the bigger problems
that humans will be presented with as time goes on and decisions
are made.
One good example of a moral decision where there is a great
variation in balance is in what age to have children. The
earlier in life that a person has children, the more physical
energy the parent may have and the less risk that some factor
will have killed or maimed the parent. If a person has children
later in life, there is more risk that comes from time, but the
parent may be wiser and have more resources to raise the children.
Example Analysis'
Industry
Physical Height
Religion?
Education is a good one to examine. Educaton is expensive
and difficult, but important and valuable as well. How can this
balance be described in broad terms? Some interesting
illustrations of this can be taken from real life.
A
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