Showing posts with label Morality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morality. Show all posts

Mar 19, 2012

Happiness & Morality



"He is in a sure state of happiness who has a sure prospect that in all parts of his existence he shall have all things he desires."

"All men of reflection, from the age of Socrates, have sufficiently proved that the truest, most constant, and lively pleasure, the happiest enjoyment of life, consists in kind affections to our fellow creatures."

- Frances Hutcheson

I am reading a book called "How the Scots Invented the Modern World", and this section really struck me.  This is how I try and live my life...

Dec 1, 2009

Philosophical Phun - Moral Deliberation :o)

'Which action, of those available to me, would be best?' -- or, in other words, what ought I to do? -- may be considered the basic question of practical moral deliberation. There are of course other questions we may ask -- e.g. 'what sequence of actions, across my remaining lifetime, would be best?' -- but it's important to note that these are different questions.


To begin, note that the standard question 'What ought I to do?' is a question about an individual act. For example, "Should I accept the divine deal or not?" is an important moral question that someone might deliberate over. If they reason correctly, they will reach the conclusion "no, reject it". Morality is action-guiding, and this is the guidance it offers in this case.



Practical reasoning concludes in action (or, to put it more neutrally, let's say implementation) . We can reason about how to act, and then do so. But while we can think about what the best sequence of acts would be, we can't implement this as the conclusion of our reasoning -- at most, we can implement but a part of it. The reasoning instead concludes in mere belief, and so is really theoretical reasoning, albeit about a topic of moral interest.



Morality is supposed to be action-guiding, not action-sequence-guiding. There's a reason for this: we can only implement actions, not whole sequences thereof. 

An individual action is a true, but trivial answer. The fact that it's true explains why 'what should I do?' is the basic question of practical moral deliberation, and why the best-sequence question isn't really 'practical' at all. On the other hand, the fact that it's trivial suggests that, philosophically, we would do better to refocus on the question, 'what can I do?'

For the source of this entry, go to Philosophy, et cetera.

What we commonly do is make moral judgments about individual acts, in the context of a sequence, or against the background of having performed other acts (and omissions).  I think that this is where much of our society breaks down today, there are many that compartmentalize their morality from their actions, not recognizing that their morality should be guiding their actions.