A Personal Moral Compass
Published on Nov 06, 2015
Gratitude for guidance along the way . . .
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
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"Philosophy is unconscious memoir."
Nietzsche called philosophy "a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir." William James insisted that "the history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments." Many others have commented on the extent to which a person's philosophy represents the "consequences of personality" as Schiller called it.
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Introspection
And so it's in our moments of introspection that we discover why the course of our life has run the way it has . . .
Ethical Baseline
Where does your compass point?
. . . And where our ethical compass points and why.
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Ellen G. White (1827 - 1915)
For me, a major influence in my childhood was this woman, Ellen G. White, a 19th century visionary whose voluminous spiritual writings guided the growth and development of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and still carry enormous authority today. My grandmother, whose maiden name was Eva G. White, could recite sentences and paragraphs by heart from Ellen White's writing.
"Higher than the highest human thought can reach is God's ideal for His people." Ed 18.4
This was one of her favorites . . .
"... Men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole . . ."
Education 46
To give me the moral courage to face the temptations of life growing up in California in the 60s, she would often quote this one.
"Those who. . . at the call of duty give up all to engage in God's service." - AA 226
And this one helped to explain why she and my grandfather had, between them, taught for over a hundred years within the college system of the church. The context of this quote, by the way, was to say that such teachers should be compensated fairly for their work.
"Everything depends on the right action of the will." SC 47
And this quote was one that I heard so often that it seeped into my consciousness and stayed there. It's both an imperative, a command, and an explanation. It has about it the air of a warning--it is unqualified in its scope, no action is excluded. And you could imagine this being uttered by a mysterious cloaked figure whose sage advice is whispered to the young man about to enter the dark and mysterious forest.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Years later in graduate school, when I strove mightily to understand the writings of this man, Immanuel Kant, I found such sayings as these . . .
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"There is nothing . . .anywhere in the world . . . that is good without limitation except a good will."
Another unqualified statement delivered with confidence. It was an assertion, sweeping in its scope and yet narrowed to a single point upon which the whole moral universe was balanced. It sounded strangely familiar.
"Two things fill the mind with . . . awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."
-Kant, 1788
Nature and the moral law! These were old friends to me. I had been encouraged to trust that Nature and the straight path of morality were revelations of God's will.
"I . . .am to act . . .so that I could will that my maxim become a universal law."
Even his categorical imperatives seemed to resonate with the fervor of my grandmother.
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"Act in such a way that you treat humanity . . .never merely as a means to an end, but always . . . as an end."
In our teachings to be kind, to put others first, to respect and love others because God loved them, I sensed a kindred spirit in Immanuel Kant.
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Consequences
But I also had been raised to realize that everything I did had consequences. "Be sure your sins will find you out." I knew that one by heart. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." That was another familiar one.
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John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
But this was about John Stuart Mill, English reformer and shaper of utilitarianism, the other great ethical system besides Kant's deontology.
"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they produce the reverse."
We might not have put it quite that way--it almost sounded selfish--but at least we were in the same neighborhood. For us happiness was a byproduct of doing the right thing, perhaps even a reward from God for following the straight and narrow path--of duty.
Happiness Principle
Mill's followers spoke of this as the Happiness Principle--so much more felicitous than the colorless Principle of Utility.
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Greatest good
for the greatest number . . .
I got it--the need to look out for people, large groups of people, those whom we might evangelize . . .
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Untitled Slide
And it might be helping those in desperate need after a disaster. The way it got translated to me was that unselfishness in response to the need of others was a sure way to find happiness. And when you found yourself in a tough situation you could, with God's help, make the best of it without complaining.
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Untitled Slide
So I finished my doctorate in Philosophy of Religion and came to understand that neither Kant nor Mill required God to make their ethical systems run. They were perfectly capable of living a moral life within the bounds of reason without faith in a divine figure. I was pretty sure my grandmother had not read Kant and probably had not encountered John Stuart Mill either in all her 90 plus years. But I also knew that however Kant, Mill, and my grandmother might differ in their moral intentions and calculations, all three had sung the songs that I had hummed all my life.
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Untitled Slide
So you know you're a Duty person if:
It makes you grumpy when people pass you when you're driving the speed limit.
You finish your chores before you go out to play.
It pains you to leave something undone.
You pick up trash that other people drop.
A good day is when you get through your list.
A bad day is when you don't even have a list.
Your besetting sin is self-righteousness.
Your most annoying trait is being a tight-ass.
One of your good traits is that you're reliable.
One of your best traits is introspection.
You are an investor.
It makes you grumpy when people pass you when you're driving the speed limit.
You finish your chores before you go out to play.
It pains you to leave something undone.
You pick up trash that other people drop.
A good day is when you get through your list.
A bad day is when you don't even have a list.
Your besetting sin is self-righteousness.
Your most annoying trait is being a tight-ass.
One of your good traits is that you're reliable.
One of your best traits is introspection.
You are an investor.
Untitled Slide
On the other hand, you know you're a Utility person if:
It matters to you if everyone around you is happy.
You keep working for consensus when everyone else has taken their toys and gone home.
You get impatient with people who ask questions.
You think in economic metaphors like "the bottom line" and "cost-benefit ratios."
You'll hire an expert if it will save time.
Your besetting sin is cutting corners to get what you want.
Your most annoying trait is blaming others.
One of your good traits is that you make decisions quickly.
One of your best traits is that you're willing to try new things if it will get good results.
You are an entrepreneur.
It matters to you if everyone around you is happy.
You keep working for consensus when everyone else has taken their toys and gone home.
You get impatient with people who ask questions.
You think in economic metaphors like "the bottom line" and "cost-benefit ratios."
You'll hire an expert if it will save time.
Your besetting sin is cutting corners to get what you want.
Your most annoying trait is blaming others.
One of your good traits is that you make decisions quickly.
One of your best traits is that you're willing to try new things if it will get good results.
You are an entrepreneur.
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Ellen G. White (1827 - 1915)
I am grateful to what I learned from Ellen G. White, and Eva G. White. If philosophy is memoir then these are two who helped to shape mine.
"Everything depends on the right action of the will." SC 47
I still remember this one--and on most days I try to live by it. And with a wink and a nod to Kant and Mill I try to find my way through the buzzing, blooming confusion of this world.
Moral Vocabulary
What my grandmother gave me--and Kant and Mill and Aristotle and Martin Luther King and others gave me--was a moral vocabulary with which to carry on this dialogue. Ideas matter. Great ideas can move us to do great things..
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Untitled Slide
For the duty-bound among us, here's a gentle reminder: Don't let doing the right thing stop you from enjoying the trip.
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Untitled Slide
And to those who are all about the bottom line: It does matter how you get there because you have to live with what you picked up on the way.
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Thanks to:
- Immanuel Kant
- John Stuart Mill
- Susan Neiman
- Ellen G. White
- Eva G. White
