To behave well

The title of this post has to do with a girl I met on the Net on those days, but since we don’t talk each other now I only going to say in this translation that this journey to the strange world of ethics begins with the question “what is to behave well?” :P

Let’s start by polishing our concept of good and evil. In order to do that we must return to the sources.

OK, there’s an individual criteria, but no doubt that criteria is at first molded by government, religion, geographical moral and family. From government the laws. Not always all that is legal is good but simply “legal” We all know there are things we should not do, not because by doing them we would harm others but because we could win a punitive gift. To promote people’s wellbeing, even if it’s just a conventional assertion, we could say that’s something good coming from a government; that helps.

Religions have certain private ideas about what is good and evil, which, on making comparisons they make some relativity. Some ideals of goodness, love and some ethical codes can be used.

“People’s ethic", except when we talk about “barbarism" uses to ratify the idea that at bottom we are the same animal and because of that there’s some universality. This however could make us mix up ethical values with moral values. To repudiate cruelty on the weak has its local flavors but it is still ethic; on the other hand following the “good ways” has its own local contrasts and nevertheless the don’t have an ethic valuation. The fact a man in Japan would not stand up to let a woman have a sit could be shocking, but we would not consider that man “evil” for his comfort.

The key point is family: daddy and mommy (substitutes and/or relatives) “spray us” with a general idea (local, religious, political) about what is good or evil, but they also make us swallow their own ideas of what is good or evil for them. And then, along with the sparkles of adolescence our imago (the result of our own “creation”) is shaped.

Is is not odd then that sometimes it may be so difficult to discern. Let’s see the case of euthanasia alone. “To kill” in almost all governments is illegal and in almost all religions is a sin. “Normal” people consider aberrant the act of killing another human. But if we take it into terms of “the only option to relieve physical and emotional pain to the hopeless”, then it does not sound too bad. It’s the consequence of our economic tendency to become attached to dichotomies: good/evil, white/black, etc. & etc. which is convenient to the frustrating yet unavoidable inefficiency of every ethical code established to judge a case individually and within its context, be that code a moral one, religious, legal or of any kind. That’s why education is so complicated so is life, because lot of time we don’t know what would be appropriate, we make mistakes, adverse factors weighs or just doing the right thing would be to much against our own desires.

Yes, it is true that Ethics are necessary as collective commitment in order that we can survive to our own human impulse of f... annoy each other. On the way we have built up too absurd expectations. We rack our brains trying to understand why a criminal is “so bad” under the naive implicit premise that “we all should be good” May be because the logic of reality in its simplicity is to overwhelming: the thieve steals because that’s the most convenient, easy or only way to get what he or she wants; the violent one attacks because his surroundings threaten him (or something like that), etc.

For most of us, who don’t consider ourselves so mean, what could be de clue to discern between good and evil when things are not so obvious? Well, we could identify a pattern. A bad action suggest the idea of “cause harm”... but not all damages are evil: Zorro (Antonio Banderas) blew up a profitable gold mine, but this fact is lessen by the release of the slaves working in it. Inversely, some perversion can put all of it charisma and dedication to the construction of massive destruction weapon. In other place, a surgeon cut our flesh and moves our insides, but he does it to heal us and... get paid... hummm... this is not helpful.

In the end I think ethics and all its discussions tending to distinguish between good and evil like they were chemical reagents has no other use than defend our personal or collective valuable interests. If we really care to be honestly good (or honestly evil) we would use that powerful application included in the installation pack of our soul: Empathy.

2006, May 16. El Jardín Lúgubre