On Moral Difficulty
tl-dr; Who and what and when we surround ourselves with is as important to moral action as our habits.
It is easy to believe that our habits and motivations are what matters most to our moral actions, and while habits matter, this is of comparatively little importance next to the situations we are in. Instead, the attitude of those we are around, the situations we are in, and if we feel the pressure of time matter to how we act. To act correctly, we must find ourselves around the right people, in the right situations, and without pressure of time. Therefore, avoiding individuals who lead us into harmful action, situations we cannot handle, and running late are morally relevant.
Knowing in advance if a situation will be morally dangerous is nigh-impossible, requiring a superhuman degree of prediction and self-knowledge. Instead, when we found ourselves in situations where we will respond immorally, it is best to simply leave the situation. If a bore at a party will lead one to improper behavior, finding someone else to talk to may be the most ethical action. If strong drink leads one to poor behavior, then avoid strong drink. Far from excusing poor action, instead we look towards the decisions an individual made that lead to those actions even if those actions do not appear blameworthy.
Often, we cannot avoid situations in which we will act sub-par. Not all relationships are voluntary, neither are all situations, and certainly we do not control the clock. We are only responsible for how we act to the degree that we could have done otherwise; if we are stuck in a position where we could not possibly act morally, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions. That being said, if we could leave the situation, excuse the ill-mannered guest, or control our lives such that we do not run late and choose not to? Then we are responsible for the poor behaviors that arise as a result.
Instead, we should build our habit of right action. We should use the times when it is easy to act as we see as virtuous to build up the habit for those times and instances when it is not. By learning our likely behaviors, we can learn what situations we will act correctly and which ones we may not. By practice, we can increase the difficulty of situations we expose ourselves to such that we can handle those more difficult situations. That is; we gotta level up.
Moral action is easy when it is habituated, making it automatic is easy situations and easy in morally difficult situations. When we find ourselves in situations that are morally difficult, we should strive for a level of consciousness such that we can either act correctly in the situation, or avoid harm by exiting. While this is not always possible (let me tell you about this boss i had once ... ), we are not responsible for unforeseen or unavoidable lapses that we could not prepare for. While full knowledge of our potential actions is impossible, we can watch our actions to determine if they are the sort of actions our chosen exemplars would take; if not, we should either amend our action or, if possible, simply exit the morally dangerous situation.
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Otherwise known as "Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil."
ReplyDeleteJesse Cox Except the only person we can pray to is our own better nature and ability to plan.
ReplyDeleteRight -- same concept, different paradigm.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a fan of Saint Ig. He said to "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."
There's a whole complicated narrative about how practicing skills changes your perception (for good or ill).
ReplyDeleteCan you expand on the question of how practicing virtue makes a person aware of morally relevant decisions they might have not noticed?
Tony Lower-Basch I can try.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own life: For the last couple of years, I have tried to notice how my mere presence affects others. I'm not small, and I'm super white and project male. Those things often mark me as dangerous to others, as a potential alley to a very different part of society.
Part of my practicing virtue is noticing that. On a bus, if i sit next to a woman how does she react? By attempting to notice this over and over again, I (hope to) build in a more automatic ability to notice. That is, to increase my perception of others without needing to think about it in the moment.
Or, if I am at a party and someone's conversational style is such that I grow bothered and annoyed, and I know I will only take so much before reacting poorly. If I did not practice virtue -- in this case, of knowing and understanding my likely actions -- then I would not know that this was a morally dangerous situation in the first place. When I notice that it is, this feeds into my decision making, such that if I choose to remain in the hazardous situation I know I am choosing to act poorly. And, just as relevant, I have the capability to remove myself from the situation before it grows overly hazardous.
That is, by practicing observing my states and how others react to me in safe situation such as the bus, I am able to bring these to less safe situation such as a party with strangers. This allows me to better decide what course I choose for the evening to go along, avoid acting poorly, and not harm myself or others.
I don't know if this makes sense!
It makes sense, but it's the mirror-image of what I was asking about.
ReplyDeleteYou're talking about how practicing perception changes your perception. I'm thinking about how practicing action changes your perception.
It's the inverse of the old saw about "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
For instance, one virtue that I practice consciously is waiting. E.g., in a grocery store, there's a crowd of people jockeying, each trying to get somewhere. I move to the side and make room for people to resolve the situation, rather than following my own particular course of "I, personally, need to get to the greek yogurt, which is through this crowd, so I will wade in, because that is the next thing on my to-do list, and I must to-do it."
Practicing that has, in turn, made me more aware of traffic problems, particularly with automobiles. I notice them developing markedly further ahead than I used to. That clearer perception lets me practice virtues like "switching lanes to give people room to merge." Those are virtues I was conscious about practicing before, but couldn't practice very effectively because I seldom perceived the opportunity in time.
I think there's a feedback cycle of "practice in action gives you more options" => "more options give you broader perception" => "broader perception lets you practice more actions." Does that make sense?
Oh sure, and I think this goes hand in hand with the notion of practice allowing us to deal with more difficult situations in a more virtuous way.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, if I practice patience with well-meaning but socially inept people, then I become better at doing so and have a mode of engagement that is by default more charitable. This allows me to listen and understand more, thus opening up other ways of interacting.
Similarly with the car example: by being able to accurately anticipating a moment in the future where I will not be able to handle the situation, I am potentially able to escape the problematic situation from happening in the first place.
I think it does all flow into the same path. And what's interesting to me is not does not take a bad actor to produce a situation in which I am not able to behave virtuously; in the driving example, everyone could be behaving as excellently as they can, but the situation is merely too difficult. Same thing with, say, a gaming group.