Morality is one of the most discussed and researched topic of discussion amongst philosophers. Through this blog I am trying to present my views on this topic. I start with a disclaimer (like the way any professional consultant’s report starts). I am disclaiming any responsibility of any kind for any action taken upon reliance on the views presented in this blog. Moreover, any portrayal by the reader of this article about “yours truly” being construed as being a “philosopher” is a matter of pure coincidence and is not intention of this blog by any chance.
Before hitting the nail on its head let me take the liberty of breaking a few other heads on the concept of “digital and analog”. The question I am trying to figure out that is there anything which is digital in nature (other than digital communication, which may also be argued to be an artificial creation). To put some more clarity “Does nature produce digital stuff?” apart from the idea of life and death which is surely “digital” (there are some people who still argue with the idea of “comma”). I am raising this issue as I believe it is closely linked to morality, is morality a “digital” concept or is it “analog”.
Morality in view is an “analog” concept with a spectrum between moral and immoral behavior in real life. In utopian context it may be digital in nature with the line of morality being defined differently for each individual. So the problem arises when someone tries to assess morality of another person on his line of morality. It is similar to the frame of reference problem where a man traveling in a car sees a fly and makes a judgment that it is stationary but then fly is also traveling at the same speed of car (of course with respect to another frame of reference which is stationary). The problem becomes even more interesting as nobody knows others frame of reference or scale of morality and hence judges the other person on his scale or line of morality. I find the so-called problem of “Generation Gap” fitting perfectly to this analogy.
Then the question arises how does someone draw this “line of morality”, of course this is based on the assumption that some line like this does exist in real life. The answer to this question revolves around the values imparted to one during his/her formative years apart from the cultural environment of upbringing. The individual then creates a judgment log of correctness/incorrectness which is updated on each milestones life. This log helps people create the line of morality, which can be argued to be influenced by the society’s popular perception of morality. This influence would be quite limited in case of a person who has accepted a high degree of value transfer during his/her formative age, whereas the lesser the degree of value transfer the higher would be the influence of society’s popular perception.
The line of morality has wave characteristics and hence one can observe a fringe being formed on this perceived line of morality. This wave characteristics makes it even tougher for us to figure out the answers to such moral questions. Light has dual characteristics of both wave and particle, but in my opinion morality is not similar to light and only follows wave laws.
Can or should morality (or line of morality of an individual) be imposed on someone and if so who is the moral policeman of our society and how did he manage to secure this designation. Enforcement or imposition of any rule on individual leads to resistance and unrest and same is the case for morality. Should the society or a community or a person become a social and a moral policeman, why should a policeman impose his/her (or for that matter society’s popular perception of) morality on a common man and term him/her as a criminal.
Aski “De Moral” “De Casta”
Before hitting the nail on its head let me take the liberty of breaking a few other heads on the concept of “digital and analog”. The question I am trying to figure out that is there anything which is digital in nature (other than digital communication, which may also be argued to be an artificial creation). To put some more clarity “Does nature produce digital stuff?” apart from the idea of life and death which is surely “digital” (there are some people who still argue with the idea of “comma”). I am raising this issue as I believe it is closely linked to morality, is morality a “digital” concept or is it “analog”.
Morality in view is an “analog” concept with a spectrum between moral and immoral behavior in real life. In utopian context it may be digital in nature with the line of morality being defined differently for each individual. So the problem arises when someone tries to assess morality of another person on his line of morality. It is similar to the frame of reference problem where a man traveling in a car sees a fly and makes a judgment that it is stationary but then fly is also traveling at the same speed of car (of course with respect to another frame of reference which is stationary). The problem becomes even more interesting as nobody knows others frame of reference or scale of morality and hence judges the other person on his scale or line of morality. I find the so-called problem of “Generation Gap” fitting perfectly to this analogy.
Then the question arises how does someone draw this “line of morality”, of course this is based on the assumption that some line like this does exist in real life. The answer to this question revolves around the values imparted to one during his/her formative years apart from the cultural environment of upbringing. The individual then creates a judgment log of correctness/incorrectness which is updated on each milestones life. This log helps people create the line of morality, which can be argued to be influenced by the society’s popular perception of morality. This influence would be quite limited in case of a person who has accepted a high degree of value transfer during his/her formative age, whereas the lesser the degree of value transfer the higher would be the influence of society’s popular perception.
The line of morality has wave characteristics and hence one can observe a fringe being formed on this perceived line of morality. This wave characteristics makes it even tougher for us to figure out the answers to such moral questions. Light has dual characteristics of both wave and particle, but in my opinion morality is not similar to light and only follows wave laws.
Can or should morality (or line of morality of an individual) be imposed on someone and if so who is the moral policeman of our society and how did he manage to secure this designation. Enforcement or imposition of any rule on individual leads to resistance and unrest and same is the case for morality. Should the society or a community or a person become a social and a moral policeman, why should a policeman impose his/her (or for that matter society’s popular perception of) morality on a common man and term him/her as a criminal.
Aski “De Moral” “De Casta”
2 comments:
Society is smart enough to understand that direct imposition or enforcement of its code of conduct upon grown-up individuals would create unrest among people so it doesn't tell you what you ought to do when faced with a "moral" dilemma but conditions your thinking right from your formative years so that your start thinking in terms of right and wrong as perceived by society itself. Let me give you an example, you hear the reports of organizations like VHP harassing people of opposite sexes displaying signs of affection in public on Valentine day. Why do they do it? It’s because they have been taught that expressing love in public is immoral. And who has imparted this idea? Our society. Aren’t they like agents of machines in Matrix who act the way machines want them to? Society in our case is like those machines and all of us who roam around with a judgment logbook with the codes of righteousness entered by society are like Mr. Smith. Lines aren’t firmly drawn either, anytime you judge a person without being objective in your assessment of his/her actions you run the risk of turning in one of the agents and it happens with all of us at one point or the other. Morality is your perception of events or actions and is sometimes hard to tell whether you are original in your judgment or it is being influenced by common perceptions of right/wrong. And ever wondered what all these rules have in common? They, as a bunch, reflect the society’s will to sustain itself years after years without any significant change in its underlying nature…like Newton’s first law.
Aski, you might be interested in brief discussion about morality, objective notion of right and wrong etc covered under Existentialism on the following link:
http://www.connect.net/ron/exist.html
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