Thoughts on morality and ethics
Sep. 25th, 2009 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdOne of the things I had to do in my portfolio for First Realm Class was talk about ethics.
To me, ethics are different than morality.
Morality is imposed on people in order to force them into intrinsicly unpleasant behaviors that the power structure considers useful to its stability and continued dominance.
Ethics are what people decide for themselves about what is right and good and worth pursuing.
High-authoritarian people love morality. They love the structure of it, the neat way everything falls into the categories of "prescribed" (Thou Shalt) or "proscribed" (Thous Shalt Not).
Ethics bothers them. In ethics, there is no structure, except what the person gives it. The essence of ethics is "you may do what is right and good."
I'm not Wiccan, but I've been giving a lot of thought to the Wiccan Rede and other ethical teachings.
The Rede is a hard thing that takes much examination of yourself and your action.
"An it harm none, do as you will."
Harm none. None. Not others, not yourself. That calls into question every possible action you perform, from skipping brushing your teeth one night (harming yourself) to speeding (harming self and others) to the food you eat to the way you live.
Do as you will.
Do you know your own will?
What do you will?
Not only must you know it, you must do it. I can will the laundry to be done all I like, but until I get up and start the washer, it remains undone. (then we're back to the harm thing with choice of detergent, with choice of line or dryer, cold water or warm) Magic is applied will. You push against the matrix of reality when you perform magic, but you have to be dead certain of your will. Because you're part of the matrix and you're pushing yourself as well.
I've been examining my will of late. All my life, I was taught that my own will was a bad thing; it was selfishness and headstrong rebellion. My will. My power. What is it I will? How many years have I been sending harm out into the matrix, both inadvertantly and deliberately, both free-floating and targeted? Now, what do I will? What do I need? And how do I stop sending out the bad stuff?
***
In many cases, morality is assumed to mean sexual morality. Of a girl who gets pregnant very young, we say, "She just wasn't raised with good morals."
But is there an intrinsic value to virginity? Or even fidelity when there is no formal agreement to it? Or are we holding over and imposing notions from a time when a daughter's marriageability (hence the end of her family spending money on her) was determined by her sexual status?
And what of those whose ethics say that sex, freely given, freely received, is a good thing to be shared? Or those who think it is a holy thing, a blessing to be shared with those one is guided to? (This assumes consentual, non-coercive relationships. Underage teens and children are incapable of consent and must always be considered coerced, as must animals. Harm none.) For them, having sex is the right and good thing to do.
One of my personal ethical rules is "Don't harm the littles." It comes straight from SW fanfic, a part of Chewbacca's personal code. (Everyone is little to him, hence the phrasing) "A little" means anyone with less physical, mental, emotional, economic or social power than you. It is a sexual ethic, in that it requires sex to be shared with someone on a equal footing with yourself: a consenting adult who is not coerced through any means, including emotional. But it also covers many other things: how to treat children. How to treat the poor. How to treat the handicapped. How to deal with class issues. Some call it Noblesse Oblige, the idea that with privilege comes responsibilities. "With great power comes great responsibility."
***
It's all very complicated, because adults deal in shades of grey. I am not a high authoritarian person. Rules leave me rebellious
I grow more deeply in love with Micah 6:8 each day:
He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Do justly. Be fair and honest and scrupulous in all dealings (harm none)
Love mercy. Feel for others (even though they be turkeys). Treat them the way they want to be treated. (harm none, do your will)
Walk with your god(s). Optional for those without, but vital for those with. (do your will)
Easy. Except it's not. It's pretty much everything.
To me, ethics are different than morality.
Morality is imposed on people in order to force them into intrinsicly unpleasant behaviors that the power structure considers useful to its stability and continued dominance.
Ethics are what people decide for themselves about what is right and good and worth pursuing.
High-authoritarian people love morality. They love the structure of it, the neat way everything falls into the categories of "prescribed" (Thou Shalt) or "proscribed" (Thous Shalt Not).
Ethics bothers them. In ethics, there is no structure, except what the person gives it. The essence of ethics is "you may do what is right and good."
I'm not Wiccan, but I've been giving a lot of thought to the Wiccan Rede and other ethical teachings.
The Rede is a hard thing that takes much examination of yourself and your action.
"An it harm none, do as you will."
Harm none. None. Not others, not yourself. That calls into question every possible action you perform, from skipping brushing your teeth one night (harming yourself) to speeding (harming self and others) to the food you eat to the way you live.
Do as you will.
Do you know your own will?
What do you will?
Not only must you know it, you must do it. I can will the laundry to be done all I like, but until I get up and start the washer, it remains undone. (then we're back to the harm thing with choice of detergent, with choice of line or dryer, cold water or warm) Magic is applied will. You push against the matrix of reality when you perform magic, but you have to be dead certain of your will. Because you're part of the matrix and you're pushing yourself as well.
I've been examining my will of late. All my life, I was taught that my own will was a bad thing; it was selfishness and headstrong rebellion. My will. My power. What is it I will? How many years have I been sending harm out into the matrix, both inadvertantly and deliberately, both free-floating and targeted? Now, what do I will? What do I need? And how do I stop sending out the bad stuff?
***
In many cases, morality is assumed to mean sexual morality. Of a girl who gets pregnant very young, we say, "She just wasn't raised with good morals."
But is there an intrinsic value to virginity? Or even fidelity when there is no formal agreement to it? Or are we holding over and imposing notions from a time when a daughter's marriageability (hence the end of her family spending money on her) was determined by her sexual status?
And what of those whose ethics say that sex, freely given, freely received, is a good thing to be shared? Or those who think it is a holy thing, a blessing to be shared with those one is guided to? (This assumes consentual, non-coercive relationships. Underage teens and children are incapable of consent and must always be considered coerced, as must animals. Harm none.) For them, having sex is the right and good thing to do.
One of my personal ethical rules is "Don't harm the littles." It comes straight from SW fanfic, a part of Chewbacca's personal code. (Everyone is little to him, hence the phrasing) "A little" means anyone with less physical, mental, emotional, economic or social power than you. It is a sexual ethic, in that it requires sex to be shared with someone on a equal footing with yourself: a consenting adult who is not coerced through any means, including emotional. But it also covers many other things: how to treat children. How to treat the poor. How to treat the handicapped. How to deal with class issues. Some call it Noblesse Oblige, the idea that with privilege comes responsibilities. "With great power comes great responsibility."
***
It's all very complicated, because adults deal in shades of grey. I am not a high authoritarian person. Rules leave me rebellious
I grow more deeply in love with Micah 6:8 each day:
He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Do justly. Be fair and honest and scrupulous in all dealings (harm none)
Love mercy. Feel for others (even though they be turkeys). Treat them the way they want to be treated. (harm none, do your will)
Walk with your god(s). Optional for those without, but vital for those with. (do your will)
Easy. Except it's not. It's pretty much everything.
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Date: 2009-09-25 11:19 pm (UTC)I'm coming out of Christian fundamentalism and moving into paganism. I half-jokingly say I follow the Wookiee faith: a deep connection to the Force and tree-ish metaphors for the supernatural. But only half. The first pagan deities I connected to were Athena and Freyja, but the first that called to me was the Green Man.
Like I said, I did a paper on this for a class I'm taking in the pagan church I attend. And I got to thinking hard today as I drove.
There are a lot of people, of all faiths, who use their religion to justify hideous stuff. The fastest growing religion among white racists is Asatru, a form of nordic paganism. I've seen Christian ministers use their Bible to justify everything from kicking out their kids to bedding their parishoners.
And there are people who get into religions to justify exactly what they want to do.
Parke Godwin, in The Snake Oil Wars has stuck L. Ron Hubbard as an answering machine in the afterlife. "I died rich from inventing a religion. The key is taking what people want to do anyway, calling it self-actualization and charging them to progress toward it."
But as Robert Fulghum says, the Examined Life is no picnic. I'm learning this.