The Universe beats me into picking some Commandments.
First of all, sorry about the delay — I’ve been working on trying to get polling up for the site (I adore polls), and not having much success. Hopefully said success will be forthcoming. ;)
In other news, I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of general moral principles, especially the type known (technically) as a hypothetical imperative or (colloquially) as a Commandment or “moral” in the rule-based sense. I tend towards particularism, or trying to make the right decision one decision at a time; it’s much less complicated. (For instance, if lying is the right thing to do in this situation, I don’t have to get all tangled over the fact that I’d previously ascribed to an artificial guideline that restricts me from lying while still demanding that I do the right thing.)
However, I’ve recently been beaten, by a better arguer than I, into admitting that some moral principles are a given — well, I would have admitted that on my own, but specifically that it makes sense to put some principles into words and follow them, commandment-style. This is not because they have value as action-determiners in the moment, as in the “lying” example above, but rather because it makes sense to have positive generalities to fix one’s attention on.
That’s what won the argument, really — I can’t argue with the appeal that the focus and quality of our attention has a huge effect on everything we do. I’ve seen it too up-close, because I used to be one of those people with a horrible attitude about most things, and I’ve been reformed, not by niceity or the stick-and-carrot of society, but by the glaring difference in efficiency between the good-attitude and bad-attitude approach. Adopting the latter is like smearing yourself with napalm before a fire-fight. No matter how traditional or normal the act is, or how badass you think it makes you, it’s just not working in your favor, no matter how you look at it.
So, this Sage who beat me in this latest argument pointed out that an excellent way, not only to improve and prosper as a human, but to cultivate and maintain a good, smart, alert, happy mood, is to have a few trusted principles that one can mentally refer to as often as possible, not just as guide-posts but as, for lack of a neater metaphor, tuning-forks. And I’ll be damned if I can see a single thing wrong with that idea.
Conceding defeat, then, I sat down and came up with the five moral principles that I consider the most worthy and useful for this endeavor. Here’s what I’ve got. (Feel free to comment / tell me yours; it is an open forum here, and these are meant to be pragmatic and good, not sacred and inarguable.)
Let’s call them “Devotional Imperatives”, because I like how it sounds.
- Acceptance. Not number one by accident. Out of everything one can do in this world, I think accepting what is is probably the hardest, most important thing, and the best guarantor of happiness. Believe in a Deity or don’t, but wherever you think it came from, don’t fight what is; that’s just stupid. (A corollary of this is to know/recognize what is.; and a secondary one is “you must know what is before you can change it”.)
- Bet High. When there’s a positive option and a negative option (or several of each, or whatever), and it doesn’t matter at the moment which you believe is true, always believe the more positive thing. Both optimism and pessimism tend to flavor whatever you’re doing; pessimism’s taste is rarely worth the limited protection it may provide you (and it may be protecting you from a valuable lesson anyway). Also, more generally, remember that your thoughts and motivations are flavoring everything this way, so be aware of them and adjust where appropriate.
- Try First, Fail Later. In most cases, trying and failing carries no more risk of loss than not trying at all, or only negligibly more. Just because something’s likely to fail isn’t a good enough reason to not try it. Don’t overvalue your time so much that you never spend any. Or rather, if you’re going to calculate in time-spent, make sure to include the positive gain of having tried something along with the negative of having “wasted” time if it doesn’t work. “If it’s worth doing,” as people have said, “It’s worth doing poorly.” (Anything at all is worth doing well, right?)
- See Beauty. Beautiful things have a way of being invisible if they’re not looked for, like those stupid stereographic pictures from the 90’s. This means that whether your life is populated by beautiful things or not is almost entirely up to you, which makes it morally indefensible to not stop and [smell the roses, breathe the night air, smile at the sunset, admire the pretty rock]. At least, it’s definitely morally indefensible to bitch about how ugly your life is if you don’t bother with those simple, free, painless appreciations. They’re all a lot of lives have in the way of beauty, and with open enough eyes, they’re probably all most lives need.
- Don’t Sicken Yourself. Look, even if there is a God, it’s still you, not him/her, who has to live in your head, and fall asleep and wake up (and live and die) as you. Whatever decision is before you, if one of your available choices would make you disgusted with yourself, just don’t do it. No amount of material or other gain is worth wanting to throw up every time you look in the mirror.
-PD
18 devoted students of Roshi accepted this page in 0.276 seconds without moving, or saying a word.
Hello there, just wanted to say I’ve seen your picture and think you’re very attractive.
It’s a shame you’re married.
Not only am I married, but I’m a hideous pain in the ass to deal with. You guys on the Internet are getting a real bargain. ;)
Seriously, I’ll take that for what it is, rather than as a comment on my towering intellect….! So thanks for the compliment.
-pd
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Lol, finding what is the “right thing” is almost impossible once you start to really think about the consequences of what you are doing. It’s always interesting to ponder on this: it’s right to harm someone if it will make them better persons? It’s right to harm someone if otherwise they would become worse persons?
How do you know what is the “right thing” to do, assuming that the “right thing” isn’t another artificial guideline (like, respecting your elders, not cheating your loved ones, not stealing, not killing). How can a guideline be more “natural” than others unless the guideline is darwinistic in essence?
Also, where’s the proof that being good ir better than not? Why being alive is better than being dead? In the end of the day we just make a lot of assumptions and hypothesis about life and stick to them, not because these are “right” but because they are the ones which make us most comfortable with ourselves. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but pretending that we are doing the “right” and “reasonable” choice is just lying to ourselves.
I’m not a moral relativist (as the above may imply), I have my own set of moral “commandments”, but I don’t fool myself by thinking that I took them after careful and logical analysis instead of impulsive, emotionallly charged, decisions (disguised as careful and logical analysis). It’s very hard to understand ourselves: when we think that we are rational beings even more so.
As a final thought, it’s enlightening to entertain this hypothetical scenario: what would happen if you destroyed everything you care for/believe on? Would you be a monster then? What if you find happiness years after that, is that happiness something to be ashamed of?
I agree with you about the indefinability of the “right thing”, which I phrase as my disdain for hypothetical imperatives. I’m not a relativist either; I don’t think that what’s right depends on each person’s subjective opinion; but nor do I think it can be nailed down in a formula that applies to any situation.
I suppose I’m a pragmatist. What’s “right” is what produces good results, in the world and in one’s head, which is why my little commandments there are all based around what I know to work in terms of producing positive results. I’m not a utilitarian, mind you; I don’t think that the answer that produces the “greatest good for the greatest number” is always the right one either. To a large extent, what is right rests on what the doer knows is right, and this works reliably enough that if I were a religious person, I’d say that a God must be arranging things so that the moral actor usually has the “gut information” needed to make the best decision, because in my experience it seems to go that way more than 90% of the time. That’s my “logical analysis”, if you can call it that (I wouldn’t). It’s certainly not an emotional knee-jerk reaction though; so many of my emotional reactions are anger than I know that that’s no way to choose my paths.
Your hypothetical questions strike me as rather contrived, though, in the sense that they’re only seemingly paradoxical based on pre-conceived definitions. What’s a monster? Does it matter if YOU think you’re a monster, or if other people say so? Once what’s done is done — assuming it’s really done and not hanging out in your mind somehwere, torturing you — then why does either definition matter?
“Finding happiness” seems to be tied most closely to finding peace of mind (which is why my first commandment is what it is). If you can find peace without any of the things that used to bring you pleasure, why should you be any less at peace? (In fact, one can quickly drown in stories of Buddhas who lost everything before becoming Enlightened.)
All of which makes for great story material, too. I’d love to write a short about someone who deliberately destroys everything he has and is convinced that he can be happy now that its gone. (Though there’s a good quote about that — something to the effect of “Often what you think enslaves you is really what makes you free”.) What would be much more fun, though, is a story where the character starts out quite nasty and miserable, and by taking the plunge and destroying everything, makes everyone hate him but does find inner peace. ;)
Thanks!