The Moral Matrix (Kant)

The duty of virtue is essentially distinguished from the duty of justice in this respect; that it is morally possible to be externally compelled to the latter, whereas the former rests on free self-constraint only.
~Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics 

Kant makes the distinction here between virtue and justice. These are two concepts that are intimately linked. 

I see virtue as our own personal morality. Justice, or political philosophy, is the morality agreed upon by the state. This is quite obvious if we look at all of our political disagreements. They are all moral disputes.

What's more important, the sanctity of human life, or a woman's liberty to choose when to reproduce? 

What's more important, present economic prosperity or preserving and sustaining the earth's natural resources? 

Is the death penalty ok if it deters crime, or is the benefit outweighed by innocent men wrongly executed? 

What about the right to bear arms? Thousands of people are murdered everyday by firearms. But this was included in the Bill of Rights because our forefathers experienced first hand what happens if citizens are not allowed to arm themselves: they are helpless against criminals or corrupt governments that use force to oppress them. They felt that the right to bear arms is essential to liberty.

About a year ago, I watched an interesting lecture from psychologist Jonathan Haidt, where he talked about what he called the "Moral Matrix". He said that just like in the movie "The Matrix", we cannot see or understand outside of our own sense of morality. We need to "wake up" if we are ever going to get along and make any progress. 

Haidt argued that humans evolved 5 major values which are the foundation of all our decision making and morality. These are:

1. Harm/Care

2. Fairness/Reciprocity

3. In-Group Loyalty

4. Authority/Respect

5. Purity/Sanctity

These are all respectable values. The only problem is that they sometimes conflict with each other. Liberals tend to value #1 and #2 the most, and conservatives value #3, #4, and #5 the most. Moderates have some some combination of the 5. 

A conservative, for example, is much more likely to say "hey, too bad, life's not fair". A liberal is more likely to question authority and is more open to experience.

While the liberals cry out about all the death and injustice about our current war, the conservatives say "yeah, 

that's shame, but it was absolutely necessary to protect our own country."

Liberals tend to have a more materialistic view of the universe (as in made of matter - a scientific, clockwork view). Thus they support euthanasia and abortion on the grounds that it is the choice of the person. The conservatives are aghast by this. It seems as if these people have no respect for the sanctity and holiness of human life.

But I think that conservatives and liberals are the yin/yang of humanity. We need both, and either of us would be lost without the other. 

The most wonderful thing about conservatives is their insight into just how precious order is, and how hard it is to achieve and to maintain. They express their concern about gay marriage by saying that it will undermine the fabric of society. They mean this literally. We already have a system that works, so WHY MESS WITH IT? WE DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!

Liberals, of course, don't understand this. They naively deride the conservatives as unthinking idiots whose mythical deity told them he didn't like homosexuality. But of course they can't understand, because they have no respect for conventional wisdom nor for the status quo. They are humanity's change agent. Without the liberals pushing the human race forward, we would still be living in the stone age. Without the conservatives to put these exuberant progressives in check, the world would sink into chaos and disorder.

So back to Virtue vs. Justice. I think we should judge a man by how well he adheres to his own values. We have laws, or justice, as a broad set of moral rules that we can all pretty much agree on. But just following the law does not make one virtuous. Virtue, as Kant says,  rests only on self-constraint. 

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Solitude Depends on Your Point of View (Nietzsche)

To one man, solitude is the flight of the sick one; to another, it is the flight from the sick ones. 

 

~Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra 

 

Hmm. I wonder which side Nietzsche takes, considering that he lived in solitude for the greater part of his adult life. 

 

Really, though, Nietzsche speaks the truth. If a man retreats into solitude, he will find a way to justify it. Of course he never admits that he isn't socially well-adjusted or anything like that: it is always some problem with others.

The same goes for the average person when he a man in solitude. Most people cannot imagine isolating themselves for very long because the feelings of loneliness they would get would be overwhelming. They equate solitude with loneliness, but this isn't always the case. 

Thoreau, for example, said that he felt lonely exactly once when he was living by Walden Pond, but the feeling soon passed. I have had similar experiences during my experiments with long periods of solitude. I found that about once every week or two I would experience a wave of loneliness, but it would pass after about 5 or 10 minutes. Then it wouldn't even cross my mind until a couple weeks later. 

But we all have different tolerances. I can assume that the average person experiences that exact same emotion, only with much greater frequency and intensity. If that were the case with me, then of course I wouldn't be able to stand it and would seek social contact all the time.

It is emotions that drive our behavior and motivations. I suspect we all have the same suite of emotions. Our behavior differs because we experience them in varying amounts. 

 

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All Men Have Equal Reasoning Ability (Decartes)

What is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is to rightly apply it.

~Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences

Descartes says that we are all equally intelligent. When two men come to different conclusions, it is not because one is smarter than the other. It is because they think differently. 

Descartes believes that we are not born as rational, logical beings. Men are not born as good thinkers. Rather, our thinking ability is a learnable skill.

Most of the time we don't do any thinking at all. We mostly just parrot the opinions of others that we have heard. 

I will come back to mathematics again because I think it is the most logical way of thought that we have. Ideally, all our thought should rest on mathematics. 

Most people think that physics is a hard subject. I disagree. I think physics is so simple that it can be expressed with simple mathematical formulae. On top of physics rests chemistry. Again chemistry is fairly simple and can be expressed by mathematics and physical laws. Biology is much more complex, but it must rest on the foundation of physics and chemistry. Psychology, in my view, is the biology of the human mind, and it must be compatible with all the preceding sciences.

The humanities, sociology, history and religion must be understood through this same framework. All of human knowledge may at first glance appear disjointed and overwhelmingly complex, but ultimately it must all reduce down to mathematics. Everything fits together in a beautifully coherent logical picture.  

The only thing missing from this picture, in my estimation, are questions like "what is the meaning of life" or "how ought I to live my life". Can these questions ever be definitively answered by a rational analysis? Perhaps not. But these are potentially the most important questions. Without conducting our thoughts properly, how can we ever hope to answer them?

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Do You Believe in Happy Endings? (Thoreau)

This idea is from Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, written in about 1849. This was a highly influential book that shaped the thought of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., each of whom used the principle of civil disobedience to create massive social change. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of Civil Disobedience.

Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

~Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience 

It is not enough to gripe and find faults in the things we don't like. That is far too easy, and it never gets us anywhere. 

Rather than criticizing the government, we should imagine what it will be like in the future. It is a work in progress, after all. 

In the news all I hear is people complaining about the economy and the banking system. They stole our money! Huh? The government is only ourselves. If the government has stolen money from you, then you have only robbed yourself by your complacency with our current system. We are the ones who have built it that way. Now we need to improve it.

How about we focus our effort and thoughts on imagining how the economy might be in the future - learn from our mistakes and build toward that.

It is important that we focus on what we want, not on what we don't.

Mother Theresa understood this on a deep level:

"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." 

Will Smith also understands this:

"People ask me about racism in Hollywood. Why would I acknowledge racism? When you acknowledge the obstacle, you actually give it power by the acknowledgment of it. I'm gonna walk through it, I'm gonna walk over it, I'm gonna walk around it. I refuse to relinquish my power. My preoccupation with the 'happy ending' is that it is our power - the belief in that possibility - is our power and I won't give it away for anybody.
"

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Laws Establish Principles (Plato)

This idea is from The Republic, by Plato, written in about 360 BC. The Republic is probably the most famous book in all of philosophy. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of Plato's The Republic.

And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle.

~Plato, The Republic (Book IX)

Now this is an interesting idea, which may possibly strike at the heart of our most cherished right in America - the right to liberty.

When we are raising our children, rarely do we grant them a broad range of liberty. And why don't we grant much liberty to our children? Presumably we we don't think that they can yet handle it. If we grant them too much freedom, they will run amuck. They will make bad decisions. So we rule them with an iron fist. We try to teach them the proper way to act. We try to instill in them a sense of morality so that later on they will be able to make proper decisions. We do it for their own good.

Plato says that this is the same reason that we have laws for men. The laws are for his own good. It's really quite amazing that though we cry "liberty for all" - just how restricted we actually are. Every time we turn around there is a law telling us that we can't do this or that. 

I suppose that past societies, like the one that ours was formed as a reaction against,  afforded us realatively less liberty. But if it's true that we don't actually have the full range of liberty, how much ought we to have? Where do we draw the line?

Our society is currently in the midst of a debate about whether same sex marriage should be legal. Is this not a discussion about how much liberty we should have? Should we have the liberty to marry a member of the same sex? If "liberty" were truly our most cherished value, then we would unhesitatingly say yes. 

But liberty isn't the only thing at stake. It's not a question of liberty. It's a question of morality. Putting aside the nonsense of whether or not it's a choice, the question we are really dealing with is: given that a person does have a proclivity toward homosexual behavior, should the government condone it?

I'm not sure that this is as straightforward a question as either side thinks. The argument that they didn't choose to be that way isn't exactly rock solid. Most likely, psychopaths didn't choose to be the way that they are, but that doesn't mean we should begin passing laws to accomodate murderers and rapists simply because it isn't fair to the minority of psychopaths who are compelled to do those things. 

I'm going to stop myself right there. Increasingly, these daily articles are becoming a derivative stream of consciousness that sometimes is only loosely associated with the original idea of the author. For the record, I don't think homosexuals are nearly as harmful to society as psychopaths, and as of today I think that gay marriage ought to be legal. That doesn't mean I won't continue to think about it and entertain more conservative viewpoints. I think this is a good topic for a more substantive article in the future.

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Sometimes it's Good to be Rash (Shakespeare)

And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

~Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act V Scene I)

Sometimes it's called "following your heart". Sometimes it's called "going with your gut". Some call it intuition.

Or as Shakespeare says, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends".

Logic and rationality can only carry us so far. I like to think of our intuition as a sort of Google of the mind. It analyzes and takes into account all the data in our lives. Much more data than our consciousness is capable of handling. (Psychologists tell us that our conscious mind is only capable of dealing with around 7 pieces of information at a time). 

When we need to figure out something quickly, Google can give us an answer in .16 seconds or less. Though the answer may seem rash, it is actually based on a complex algorithm involving millions of computers somewhere. 

And so it is when we follow our intuition. Sometimes in order to make the best decision, we have to let go of the control we think we have. Sometimes things are simply too complex for us to grasp, and we have to let the unimaginably complex computer inside our heads take over.

Of course, in some instances our intuition can lead us astray. The stock market almost seems like it is designed specifically to lead our intuition to make incorrect decisions. In these cases, careful rational deliberation is required. For most decisions involving other people, we're probably better off if we just assume that "a divinity shapes our ends" and go with our gut.

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There is no Such Thing as a Duty to Love (Kant)

Love is a matter of feeling, not of will or volition, and I cannot love because I will to do so, still less because I ought (I cannot be necessitated to love); hence there is no such thing as a duty to love. Benevolence, however, as a mode of action, may be subject to a law of duty.

~Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics

This is a theme that Kant visits multiple times. We cannot control who we do or do not love.

He even goes so far as to critique the Christian philosophy of "Love thy neighbor as thyself", or even "Love thy enemies". Kant says that this advice is useless, because we cannot will ourselves to love, no matter how hard we try. 

He does offer us an out, however. Kant says that though love may not be our moral duty, benevolence is. Kant puts it this way:

“Do good to thy neighbor, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence).”

This is something we have to work hard at. We have to fight with every fiber of our being to uphold a philosophy such as this. It is in our nature to hate, to destroy each other. Because of this, people may say that though this philosophy sounds nice, it isn't practical. 

What is practical after all? Was is practical to build a spaceship and fly to the moon? Was it practical to run a mile in less than 4 minutes? Apparently men think that just because something hasn't yet been achieved. it is by default impractical. 

But while the majority of men laugh at the dreamers of today, they enjoy the fruits of the dreamers of the past. And the dreamers of today will build the future of tomorrow. Humanity must not forget its dreamers.  

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Study The Victories and Defeats of the Past (Machiavelli)

This idea is from The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli, published in 1532. This was a highly influential book that continues to shape political and social thought to this day. Read my mini-review and overall impressions.

But to exercise the intellect the prince should read histories, and study there the actions of illustrious men, to see how they have borne themselves in war, to examine the causes of their victories and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former; and above all do as an illustrious man did, who took as an exemplar one who had been praised and famous before him, and whose achievements and deeds he always kept in his mind, as it is said Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, Caesar Alexander, Scipio Cyrus.

~Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince 

This reminds me of a quote I have always liked: "Smart men learn from their mistakes, but wise men learn from the mistakes of others."

Machiavelli speaks here of war, but this advice applies equally in every domain of human life. Most humans are basically the same. They make the same mistakes over and over. Ocasionally, when someone manages to do something different, we should stand up and take notice. If others succeeded before us, we can look at what they did and emulate that. It is a shortcut to learning, although it is more practical than theoretically satisfying. 

This is what is meant by choosing a role model. You are literally choosing which role in human society to model yourself after, so you had better choose good ones. 

I have previously derided celebrity news in previous articles, but I would like to say a word for it here.  It's possible that people who keep up with every move that Britney Spears or Jennifer Aniston make could be making themselves wiser if they are paying close attention. 

When we see these people fall in and out of love,when we see them make mistakes or get in fights, we can learn something about ourselves. We follow the lives of these people for years on end. Their stories are deeper and more realistic than any biography or Shakespeare play. They teach us about ourselves and the human condition. We should look for the reasons that they have succeeded, and we should take note of the times that they fail.

Machiavelli urges us to study the victories and defeats of the past. Perhaps in his time those were the only stories available. Now we can study people in real time. But are we learning any lessons from them?

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History is Class Struggles (Marx)

The following idea is from The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx, published in 1848. This was a highly influential book that continues to shape social, economic, and political thought to this day. Read my mini-review and overall impressions of The Communist Manifesto.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

~Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

Probably Marx's most famous statement. Whether true or not, it is certainly an interesting way of looking at history. 

In our modern society we can kind of see this. The Repulican Party represents the interests of the upper and middle class, and the Democratic Party represents the interests of the lower class and minorities (as a broad generality). 

Our goal ought to be to eliminate the class struggles. Marx thought that by making everyone the same class, then there would be no classes to struggle against each other. 

Unfortunately, his vision was never realized. There never has existed a true Marxist state; there have only been corrupt governments with that name. The power lies in the hands of a tiny minority, and the rest are oppressed. 

And besides, as many critics have pointed out, if you make everyone the same class, then all you have is one big mediocre class. Yes, everyone is equal: they are all equally mediocre. 

There must be some other solution. How can anyone deny that so much energy is wasted when humans fight against one another? The constant antagonism and bickering is nonsense and will never get us anywhere. 

I would like to see a society where humans are not all equally mediocre, but we are all equally great. I look forward to a time where there will be millions of Newtons and Einsteins filling our academic buildings. Millions of Henry Fords and Steve Jobses leading our industries. Millions of Tom Hankses and Daniel Day Lewises filling our theaters. I want every player in the NBA to be better than Jordan or Lebron James could ever hope to be. I want the arts to be filled with millions of Shakespeares and Mozarts and Michaelangelos. 

This is my vision of communism. This is where we are going as a species. This is our destiny. I am not satisfied to believe that we must depend on only a few great ones to hoist the world on their shoulders. Soon the entire human race will work in tandem and heave the earth into the heavens.

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High Mountains Come From Deep Seas (Nietzsche)

Whence come the highest mountains? So did I once ask. Then did I learn that they come out of the sea. That testimony is inscribed on their stones, and on the walls of their summits. Out of the deepest must the highest come to its height.

~Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

It has been said that there can be no creativity without suffering. 

If humans weren't somewhat dissatisfied with their conditions, then they would have no motivation for envisioning something grander and working toward building it. 

The neuropsychologist Stephen Karpman created a model for interpersonal and psychological conflict called the Karpman drama triangle. He said that in most human interactions, the participants assume one of three roles. There is the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer.

These archetypes are apparently so ingrained in our minds that you can see them played out on a grand scale in movies. This would be the hero (the rescuer), the villian (persecutor), and a damsel in distress. 

 Most of us don't ever think of ourselves as a persecutor, but in the eyes of another, that's what we may be. Rather, we usually think of ourselves as a victim, and look for a rescuer to save us from our plight. 

That which is persecuting us doesn't always have to be a person, and neither does that which rescues us. Anything that we blame for our own troubles is our persecutor, and anything that we turn to for relief is our rescuer. 

Alcohol or drugs, for example, is what many people turn to as an escape from their own personal "persecution". The government, or a natural disaster may be the things we choose to name as our persecutor. 

David Emerald Womeldorff elaborated on this model by proposing that we should never see ourselves as victims. Rather, we should view ourselves as creators. If we don't like our current circumstances, then we need to figure out how to create better circumstances. What we previously viewed as persecutions we should view as challenges that help us learn and grow. And rather than seeking rescuers, we should seek out coaches.

This is what Nietzsche means that the highest mountains must come out of the depths of the seas. Unless we are challenged, we have no motivation to create. 

Lately in our society we love to blame our genes for our troubles. Everyone apparently has a mental disorder which is the cause for all their troubles, and they seek out medication to become "cured". Unfortunately, this is no different from what the alcoholic or habitual pot-smoker is doing.

The vast majority of these people do not have disorders. "Mental disorder" is a misnomer. It presumes that the mind is not ordered correctly. The only disorder that these people have is the human condition. Bipolar, depression, anxiety: these have been sculpted and perfected by natural selection for millions of years and all serve distinct purposes. 

I don't deny that people with these "symptoms" (actually, in evolutionary psychology terms - "social strategies") feel a great deal of discomfort. That is, of course, the human condition. But I think we do a great deal of disservice to them by labeling them as disordered. This merely solidifies their self-image as a victim of their alleged disease, and leads them to seek out things to rescue themselves from their affliction.

But these "diseases" are the drivers of greatness. It is no coincidence that some of the greatest artistic and scientific geniuses were either bipolar or depressed. These geniuses accepted the challenge and created something great. 

What would have happened if Van Gogh had been placed on mood stabilizers? No one would even know who he is. 

About 50% of our genes make up our brains. The other 50% make up the rest of our bodies. Look around at the number of people who truly have deformed bodies. I would estimate that that is about the same percentage of people who truly have mental disorders. 

It would truly be funny to say that any deviation from the average in our physical appearance is a disorder. Anyone shorter than 5'10" presumably has a height disorder. 

By taking prescription medications we rob ourselves of our humanity. The human condition needs to be overcome, not medicated. 

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