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Enjoying the Moral Life
Initial Focus on Other Persons
Among other virtues, for our dealings with other persons we ought to cultivate and practice honesty, reliability, benevolence and a keen sense of justice. Practicing good morality in social situations lessens the uncertainty, the precariousness of our social environment. It makes social life more predictable. It removes endless anxiety and the need for constant mistrust and continual watchfulness.
We ought to maintain respectful, benign relationships with other persons whenever possible. Their openness to our moral initiatives can be very enhancing for us and probably for them as well. Many situations we encounter are variable-sum situations where we can successfully undertake our personal projects without having to oppose others and needlessly alienate them. In constant-sum situations that interest us, we may need to oppose the enhancement projects of others because we want the girl, the job, the championship, or whatever. However, even in their disappointment at losing out, others will often accept the validity of our success without rancor if we have observed moral values and principles in the competition.
We ought initially to approach others in trust unless we are already in possession of clear evidence that recommends otherwise. Our social environment will never improve its capability of enhancing our lives if we refuse to trust other people. Still, the moment we realize we are dealing with a person whose intention is to use us, or damage us in some other way, we ought immediately to switch from observance of fundamental moral principles to being guided by effective responsive principles. As moral persons we need never play the role of naive patsies in the face of the sinister dispositions and scheming acts of other persons.
When we assume responsibility for our own lives, we make ourselves accountable to others for our acts that impact them. Similarly, they are accountable to us. Existential ethics teaches us that we ought to judge the quality of others' acts and hold others accountable when they damage us or other innocent persons. We patronize others when we don't hold them accountable for their acts, when we make excuses for them, or allow them to make excuses for their bad behavior.
We ought to co-operate with other moral persons in undertaking projects that promise to improve the situation for all citizens in our nation, or for all human beings in the world. We (and our loved ones) are a part of this "all".
We ought to give expression to acts prompted by our caring for others, providing these acts are within the bounds of good morality. While any obligation to be friendly, thoughtful, kind, generous and generally concerned for the wellbeing of others may not be fundamentally binding, our lives will most likely be enriched if we do cultivate these dispositions. Importantly, a mutual observance of moral obligations makes human life tolerable, but happily, a mutual exchange of acts prompted by caring makes life warm and enjoyable.
We ought to maintain respectful, benign relationships with other persons whenever possible. Their openness to our moral initiatives can be very enhancing for us and probably for them as well. Many situations we encounter are variable-sum situations where we can successfully undertake our personal projects without having to oppose others and needlessly alienate them. In constant-sum situations that interest us, we may need to oppose the enhancement projects of others because we want the girl, the job, the championship, or whatever. However, even in their disappointment at losing out, others will often accept the validity of our success without rancor if we have observed moral values and principles in the competition.
We ought initially to approach others in trust unless we are already in possession of clear evidence that recommends otherwise. Our social environment will never improve its capability of enhancing our lives if we refuse to trust other people. Still, the moment we realize we are dealing with a person whose intention is to use us, or damage us in some other way, we ought immediately to switch from observance of fundamental moral principles to being guided by effective responsive principles. As moral persons we need never play the role of naive patsies in the face of the sinister dispositions and scheming acts of other persons.
When we assume responsibility for our own lives, we make ourselves accountable to others for our acts that impact them. Similarly, they are accountable to us. Existential ethics teaches us that we ought to judge the quality of others' acts and hold others accountable when they damage us or other innocent persons. We patronize others when we don't hold them accountable for their acts, when we make excuses for them, or allow them to make excuses for their bad behavior.
We ought to co-operate with other moral persons in undertaking projects that promise to improve the situation for all citizens in our nation, or for all human beings in the world. We (and our loved ones) are a part of this "all".
We ought to give expression to acts prompted by our caring for others, providing these acts are within the bounds of good morality. While any obligation to be friendly, thoughtful, kind, generous and generally concerned for the wellbeing of others may not be fundamentally binding, our lives will most likely be enriched if we do cultivate these dispositions. Importantly, a mutual observance of moral obligations makes human life tolerable, but happily, a mutual exchange of acts prompted by caring makes life warm and enjoyable.
Initial Focus on Ourselves
Existential ethics recognizes that, from a secular point of view, enlightened self-interest is the only explanation that can be employed to rationally justify moral obligation. Moreover, not only does enlightened self-interest justify morality but it provides the strongest possible motivation for the universal practice of good morality. Each of us has a very good chance of enjoying our life over a reasonably prolonged period of time if we pursue the values and observe the principles taught by existential ethics. This beneficial result is not a certainty but it is highly probable.
To enjoy success in pursuing the best ends and adopting the surest means to attain our fundamental goal of continuing to exist in wholeness while optimizing pleasure and minimizing needless pain, we ought to do a number of important things.
We ought to respect ourselves as sovereigns over our own lives. That is, we ought to acknowledge our complete freedom to choose ends and means. Acknowledging this, we accept full responsibility for our lives and acts and offer no excuses for our prevalent shortcomings. We are totally honest with ourselves and change our ways if that is what is necessary to lead a moral life.
We ought unfailingly to apply the fundamental principles of existential ethics to our self-motivated acts that will impact ourselves and perhaps innocent others. However, we ought immediately resort to validated responsive principles when responding to the good or bad acts of others. Our responses should never lose sight of attaining the basic aim of fundamental morality: ensuring our own opportunity for survival and enhanced living and that of all innocents.
We ought to keep the importance of our personal freedom constantly in mind. Concerning our every act, we ought to try to ensure that it will not serve to undermine or diminish our ability to act freely on future occasions. We may of course willingly agree to limit our own freedom in cases where we see a significant advantage accruing to ourselves and our loved ones as a result. We may agree, for example, to abide by the rules of a game, or the laws of a democratic country, or the constraints of a marriage. In fact, this kind of rational limiting of our own natural powers is what characterizes the essence of morality.
We ought to follow the well known maxim, here secularized: "I will cultivate the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
In important matters, we ought to cultivate the disposition to exercise our rational capability of choosing our acts for their positive moral quality so that we always actively and beneficially shape what we will become and what will become of us.
Except in minor matters, we ought to avoid making choices by default: that is, making passive choices that leave what will happen to us to random events and the choices and acts of other persons.
We ought to cultivate a reflective and dynamic concern for the quality of both our physical and our social environments.
We ought to cultivate virtue so that we become full-of-power persons who are always able to do what we ought to do. We ought to cultivate virtue so that we are fit and healthy in body, mind and emotions, ever ready to determine the shape and quality of our own lives to the maximum extent possible for human beings.
Among other virtues, for strengthening ourselves we ought to cultivate and practice prudence, temperance, honest self-assessment, self-command, critical thinking and moral courage.
To enjoy success in pursuing the best ends and adopting the surest means to attain our fundamental goal of continuing to exist in wholeness while optimizing pleasure and minimizing needless pain, we ought to do a number of important things.
We ought to respect ourselves as sovereigns over our own lives. That is, we ought to acknowledge our complete freedom to choose ends and means. Acknowledging this, we accept full responsibility for our lives and acts and offer no excuses for our prevalent shortcomings. We are totally honest with ourselves and change our ways if that is what is necessary to lead a moral life.
We ought unfailingly to apply the fundamental principles of existential ethics to our self-motivated acts that will impact ourselves and perhaps innocent others. However, we ought immediately resort to validated responsive principles when responding to the good or bad acts of others. Our responses should never lose sight of attaining the basic aim of fundamental morality: ensuring our own opportunity for survival and enhanced living and that of all innocents.
We ought to keep the importance of our personal freedom constantly in mind. Concerning our every act, we ought to try to ensure that it will not serve to undermine or diminish our ability to act freely on future occasions. We may of course willingly agree to limit our own freedom in cases where we see a significant advantage accruing to ourselves and our loved ones as a result. We may agree, for example, to abide by the rules of a game, or the laws of a democratic country, or the constraints of a marriage. In fact, this kind of rational limiting of our own natural powers is what characterizes the essence of morality.
We ought to follow the well known maxim, here secularized: "I will cultivate the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
In important matters, we ought to cultivate the disposition to exercise our rational capability of choosing our acts for their positive moral quality so that we always actively and beneficially shape what we will become and what will become of us.
Except in minor matters, we ought to avoid making choices by default: that is, making passive choices that leave what will happen to us to random events and the choices and acts of other persons.
We ought to cultivate a reflective and dynamic concern for the quality of both our physical and our social environments.
We ought to cultivate virtue so that we become full-of-power persons who are always able to do what we ought to do. We ought to cultivate virtue so that we are fit and healthy in body, mind and emotions, ever ready to determine the shape and quality of our own lives to the maximum extent possible for human beings.
Among other virtues, for strengthening ourselves we ought to cultivate and practice prudence, temperance, honest self-assessment, self-command, critical thinking and moral courage.
Our Government
Where our governments are concerned, we ought to do what we can to ensure that they act as though they were an extension of our moral selves. We should try to ensure that they leave us as free as possible to govern our own lives, to the extent that allowing a similar degree of freedom for every other citizen can be tolerated. We should try to ensure that they have a peaceful way of regularly seeking mandate and that they are supportive of reasonable collective projects that have as their aim the wellbeing of all citizens. We should try our best to ensure that they respect the fundamental human rights of all innocent persons, regardless of their morally irrelevant characteristics such as race, color, gender, or ethnic origin.
We can identify good government by looking for some essential characteristics. A good government recognizes and respects the sovereignty and authority individuals have over their own lives. A good government appreciates that it has been established by its citizens to serve them in their majority will. The citizens in turn understand that the government they have established has needs that they must help to satisfy if it is to fulfill its legitimate purposes. A good government ensures that all innocent persons it encounters will enjoy fundamental human rights, very importantly including freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. It ensures that all innocent citizens will enjoy basic civil and political rights. It ensures that all innocent citizens who have reached the age of majority will enjoy the right to vote and to run for public office. It ensures that all citizens will enjoy equality before and under the law. It ensures that all significant public decisions will ultimately be subject to majority rule. It fosters and abides by the rule of law.
As citizens, when laws are fairly and otherwise properly made, we are obliged to respect and observe them as long as they are in force. Even as we observe their requirements however, we may criticize them and morally work to change them.
Where our government is not a good government, we who have chosen to continue existing in wholeness, and are sovereign over our own lives, have a moral duty to pursue good government by moral means. Where that is impossible because a tyrannical government forbids it on pain of severe repression, revolution is morally acceptable.
We can identify good government by looking for some essential characteristics. A good government recognizes and respects the sovereignty and authority individuals have over their own lives. A good government appreciates that it has been established by its citizens to serve them in their majority will. The citizens in turn understand that the government they have established has needs that they must help to satisfy if it is to fulfill its legitimate purposes. A good government ensures that all innocent persons it encounters will enjoy fundamental human rights, very importantly including freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. It ensures that all innocent citizens will enjoy basic civil and political rights. It ensures that all innocent citizens who have reached the age of majority will enjoy the right to vote and to run for public office. It ensures that all citizens will enjoy equality before and under the law. It ensures that all significant public decisions will ultimately be subject to majority rule. It fosters and abides by the rule of law.
As citizens, when laws are fairly and otherwise properly made, we are obliged to respect and observe them as long as they are in force. Even as we observe their requirements however, we may criticize them and morally work to change them.
Where our government is not a good government, we who have chosen to continue existing in wholeness, and are sovereign over our own lives, have a moral duty to pursue good government by moral means. Where that is impossible because a tyrannical government forbids it on pain of severe repression, revolution is morally acceptable.
Our Society
We individuals who are sovereign over our own lives would rather not be subject to decisions made by other persons concerning what we may or may not do with our lives and personal property. Yet we recognize the reality that, whether we like it or not, group decisions that significantly impact our lives will be made and acted upon. In view of this, we see that we ought to try to arrange things so that we are subject only to group decisions that are made in rational, informed, and fair ways (in ways that make room for our participation) rather than subject to biased decisions made in arbitrary ways by persons who hold and wield raw power. Hence, we ought to appreciate the value of a free, peaceful, stable society whose institutions are democratic, very importantly including its government institutions at all levels. Once attaining this kind of society, we should actively support it and willingly share responsibility – making whatever sacrifices are necessary - for keeping it free, peaceful, stable and democratic.
Summing Up
Existential ethics has its origin in our natural prudence, in our awareness of our own existence as individual human beings and, at the age of existential understanding, in our choosing to exist in wholeness rather than to not exist. Although Sartre did not develop and pursue this matter, he obviously had a measure of insight concerning it. As he put it, "…there is no truth of consciousness (of) self but an ethics, in this sense that it is choice and existence giving itself rules in and through its existence in order to exist". (Truth and Existence, p.48)
We can reasonably expect to receive many worthwhile benefits if we pursue the values and observe the moral principles endorsed by existential ethics. First of all, our doing so will help us significantly to reduce the many negative impacts that are generated by the bad decisions we too often make in our lives. In addition, our good decisions will produce many positive benefits. When we have learned to not always allow ourselves to be driven by our immediate appetites but to be drawn by our own considered goals to their attainment, we become free beings. We enjoy true liberty – liberty that we have generated ourselves and taken hold of, not pseudo-liberty that is condescendingly permitted to us by some self-proclaimed authority, nor selfish-license that rejects all constraint.
We are taught by existential ethics that we are not governed by externally generated, absolute principles, living under the threat of eternal punishment for transgression. Rather we have the ability to create value and follow our own rationally chosen paths to new and exciting prospects. This liberty is not something we should dread. It is exhilarating! Life need not be the nightmarish trial Kafka imagined for Josef K. (perhaps inspired by the reality Kafka witnessed in the passively-oppressed lives of many people). Not at all! Guided by existential ethics, life becomes a highly interesting and significantly manageable adventure.
In living our lives, we can appreciate our unique opportunity to experience, remember and reflect, to imagine and plan. We can steep ourselves in the complexity and magnificence of the universe. We can participate in the thrill of creation - create an airplane, a palace, a painting, a poem or a knitted pair of socks, things that would not exist without our agency. We only need the will, the courage and the tenacity to shape the pattern and weave the substance of our lives.
Before closing, it must be said again that there is no guarantee that the probabilities envisioned by existential ethics will always come to pass. Notwithstanding our good choices, we can yet be overcome by the forces of nature and the actions of malicious others. We can lead moral lives and still be hit by more than our share of misfortune. However, practicing good moral conduct as recommended by existential ethics reduces this eventuality to the smallest possible degree.
So, in whatever state we may begin them, if we choose to continue living our lives, we should embrace them, manage them and make something truly unique and impressive out of them. We should freely exercise our caring natures in morally acceptable ways. Practicing good moral conduct will make us decent persons. Caring for others will make us amiable persons. These attributes are a powerful combination. If we put them together intelligently, we will benefit handsomely and so, very likely, will everyone whose lives we touch.
We can reasonably expect to receive many worthwhile benefits if we pursue the values and observe the moral principles endorsed by existential ethics. First of all, our doing so will help us significantly to reduce the many negative impacts that are generated by the bad decisions we too often make in our lives. In addition, our good decisions will produce many positive benefits. When we have learned to not always allow ourselves to be driven by our immediate appetites but to be drawn by our own considered goals to their attainment, we become free beings. We enjoy true liberty – liberty that we have generated ourselves and taken hold of, not pseudo-liberty that is condescendingly permitted to us by some self-proclaimed authority, nor selfish-license that rejects all constraint.
We are taught by existential ethics that we are not governed by externally generated, absolute principles, living under the threat of eternal punishment for transgression. Rather we have the ability to create value and follow our own rationally chosen paths to new and exciting prospects. This liberty is not something we should dread. It is exhilarating! Life need not be the nightmarish trial Kafka imagined for Josef K. (perhaps inspired by the reality Kafka witnessed in the passively-oppressed lives of many people). Not at all! Guided by existential ethics, life becomes a highly interesting and significantly manageable adventure.
In living our lives, we can appreciate our unique opportunity to experience, remember and reflect, to imagine and plan. We can steep ourselves in the complexity and magnificence of the universe. We can participate in the thrill of creation - create an airplane, a palace, a painting, a poem or a knitted pair of socks, things that would not exist without our agency. We only need the will, the courage and the tenacity to shape the pattern and weave the substance of our lives.
Before closing, it must be said again that there is no guarantee that the probabilities envisioned by existential ethics will always come to pass. Notwithstanding our good choices, we can yet be overcome by the forces of nature and the actions of malicious others. We can lead moral lives and still be hit by more than our share of misfortune. However, practicing good moral conduct as recommended by existential ethics reduces this eventuality to the smallest possible degree.
So, in whatever state we may begin them, if we choose to continue living our lives, we should embrace them, manage them and make something truly unique and impressive out of them. We should freely exercise our caring natures in morally acceptable ways. Practicing good moral conduct will make us decent persons. Caring for others will make us amiable persons. These attributes are a powerful combination. If we put them together intelligently, we will benefit handsomely and so, very likely, will everyone whose lives we touch.
© 2009 - 2016 Robert MacQuarrie, ExistentialEthics.com