An old essay by Andrei.
Values
Illustration
Essay
For
Melinda
Simmons
PHI-2630
11
Sept. 2009
PHI-2630
Melinda
Simmons
11 Sep.
2009
Values
Eight
years ago, on a day much like any other, many Americans in Washington
D.C. and New York started their morning rituals with much practice
aforethought. The alarm clock shattered the blissful silence of
sleep, followed by the quickened morning breakfast, seeing children
(if they had any) off, and the commute to work. And, for many on four
flights that day, it was similar. Four irrelevant flights, lost
within the blue sky, simple blips on a flight controller’s radar
covered by hundreds of others. Rejecting absurd conspiracy theories,
all was stale, linear, and forward, until nineteen men took action –
nineteen men, none of whom themselves had a western education, but
were lead by a man who did and once thrived in western society named
Osama bin Laden. Nineteen men, who took charge of planes carrying
men, women, and children, used them like meteors sent by God’s hand
into the earth and its structures bellow. And all those Americans,
those innocent civilians – men, women, and children – finally
having completed a fair portion of their morning ritual, were
disintegrated by the burning fuel of the jets, or crushed by the
rubble of the falling behemoths. What if the nineteen hijackers lived
their lives exactly as they had up to a point, except for having a
western education? Would a westernized ethics class – showing the
various types of ethical concepts and philosophers – have prevented
or lessened this tragedy? What if they had used college as a cover –
and actually learned from it? Would they all have committed the acts
they did? Or what if they had been there before? Would they have
joined al-Qaeda in the first place? Or would they have excused all of
these actions based on their own ethical reasoning – duty-bound to
Allah, to sacrifice themselves as “martyrs” to Islam and let God
sort out those innocent whom had to be collateral damage?
Does
one even have a choice in the matter? Are morals biologically and
socially pre-determined, locked and sealed from change like a
“read-only” file in a computer once adolescence is reached? Or
are morals conscientiously chosen through the exercise of free will,
with one able to pick and choose the influence that he or she will
heed? There are those who support either the nature, which in this
context includes both biological and social upbringing (which in this
context is determinist), or the nurture (which in this context is
free-will) side of the argument, but it seems that this is – in
actuality – a false dichotomy. Modern-day psychology shows, in
healthy individuals, that it is virtually split. The argument of
determinism versus free will has raged for centuries, both on actions
and thoughts. Some philosophers, like Schopenhauer and later
Nietzsche, saw both – that we are not absolved of our nature, but
that we can overcome it through a strong will, acting independently
to a degree, and forming our own values independent of social or
biological conditioning. (Nietzsche S23) One is then left with the
question of how to escape what may be negative influence – how is
one helped to find the door?
Even
the most well taught ethics class cannot, in of itself, make a person
ethical – regardless of whether they have, or are free of,
psychological defects as we define it. A student is not fully ‘tabula
rasa’ upon setting foot into said class. Whether a college student
or a high school student, they have already had years of development
through social interaction, religious indoctrination, or tragedy.
And, assuming that an objective moral code even exists, one may still
end up with an ‘immoral’ conclusion, regardless of the ethical
reasoning they use. However, exposed to different trains of thought,
and the brute logic of many ethical theories, one has little choice
but to become self-critical. The door can, at least, be shown – but
it is up to the individual to walk through it. Even for one who has a
concept of subjective morality, it then becomes not the “if” one
thinks an action is moral or not, but “why”. How one reaches the
conclusion, and acts accordingly, whether through Kantian
duty-ethics, forms of utilitarianism, existentialism, or Nietzschean
trans-valuation. Of course, it is a pipe dream to expect everyone to
view a person as ethical or moral, but this speaks with vision guided
by the lens of western society. The critical-thinking introduced by
education concerning ethics, through introduction to different
theories and formulae around ethical decisions, is a better form of
moral education than mindlessly espousing the values instilled by
others. One should be able to state, with a clear conscience, their
reasoning behind their beliefs, and either affirm or reject those
they held beforehand. One can open the door that has been shown, and
find their self – or at least a little piece.
Works Cited
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good
and Evil. London: Penguin Books, 1973.
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