Judgement

Moral Thinking

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If you begin with the intention to determine whether something is right or wrong, you have begun thinking morally.  If you apply moral principles fairly to evaluate the social benefits and long-term consequences, then you are thinking morally. When you arrive at a well-justified course of action that advances the greater good, then you have achieved a moral decision. Simple.  

Moral thinking is often confused with spiritual or instinctual thinking, but it is more exacting than simply having a conscience, feeling guilty or a desiring to conform to social norms. If your conscience tells you that you have just made a moral error, then you should have thought before acting. Others confuse morality with submission, obedience and inculcation, but, if you’re letting someone else make decisions for you, then you aren’t thinking. Such herd dynamics are also instinctual, and following instincts without moral thinking causes more moral problems than it fixes.

Moral thinking is a conscious effort to decide what is right and wrong, from immediate individual choices to broad, long-term social consequences.  Moral thinking is what we should learn first at home, in pre-school and when we learn about religion.  But it is not simply learning rules; it is understanding why a choice is wrong. We must learn the lesson, extrapolate from it and then apply it well to a new situation. We take the moral of the story and use it to do good. Moral thinking is used to guide our behavior, to create fair rules and laws, and to question social problems and demand change.  

Neither should moral thinking be confused with rational thinking. Philosophers try to prove altruism logically and often decide it is a self-serving illusion. Poppycock. All day, every day, good people make moral choices to benefit others without notice or reward, including sacrificing themselves in ways small and large. Rational analysis can dissect and analyze these acts without ever being able to understand the moral motives to alleviate the suffering of others, to be kind to strangers or to lose so that unrelated others gain. Because moral thinking has different motives, uses different techniques and has different goals, it is difficult to comprehend with only logic and rational analysis.

Some argue that moral judgement is the sole province of the Divine, that humans either are incapable or have no business trying to make their own moral judgements and that humans must simply obey the Ten Commandments, the Bible or a delegated authority like the Pope. I would argue that we have been granted both the ability to think and knowledge of good and evil, so it would be a sin to carelessly or slothfully neglect our responsibility to use those talents to do good.

Some argue that moral thinking is hopeless, that there is no single source that everyone recognizes as being the correct answer.  Nonsense.  Even if there is no single divine rule for every issue, nor a utopian moral code hidden in the ether, it matters not.  Whether all the religious texts and great philosophers are in contradiction or not, matters not.  What matters is that humans make an effort to decide whether something is good or evil.  This way of thinking matters, perhaps more than any other.  The debate matters, getting it correct matters, and the consequences matter.  

If you and I disagree on what is good or evil, then we should have that argument.  As long as we are arguing in good faith, without being influenced by money, status, or fantasies, then we are trying to think morally.  Moral thinking is persuasive, has its own inexorable logic and its own authority, distinct from popular mob instincts.  What is good or evil may be debated, but an answer can be achieved, at least for specific topics in specific instances.  

Since we are all on the same side, we share the same fundamental, universal moral imperative: to sustain life. Since life requires diversity, we must choose to coexist and to balance competing objectives. Since each individual life is limited, we must work together to share our knowledge to pursue our joint mission and to improve not only our own lives but each other’s and also future lives.

From that simple moral framework, based on the golden rule, many moral choices become obvious. Just as your life may be important to you, others believe their lives equally important. Selfishness is being unfair to others, instead of treating people with equal respect. Our responsibility to future generations is greater than our responsibility to our own generation. Despite short run pressures, we must act for the long run good.

The purpose of moral thinking is to make a good decision or judgement to improve individual lives or society.  Whether we are thinking for ourselves or others, or about specific policies or abstract principles, moral thinking is needed to avoid making a bad choice or the wrong recommendation, or to fail to see the consequences or the underlying flaw in an idea.  We do not go through the effort of thinking morally in order to stand by and do nothing or to hurt people.  That would be immoral.  Morality requires a bias towards action, determination and courage.

We think morally in order to be good, do good and promote what is good.  We also think morally to oppose evil, fight injustice and make our world a better place.  After thinking morally, we may speak out more clearly, confidently and persuasively, and our actions may have more positive impact.   That is why we study ethics, justice, honesty, altruism and responsibility.  

Moral thinking begins with a moral objective to arrive at a moral decision using problem-solving methods designed to achieve moral results. Moral thinking takes a long, broad and deep perspective, weighs consequences fairly, has a bias towards action, is courageous in the face of popular or powerful opposition, is driven by love of life and humanity, abhors needless cruelty and suffering and sets bold, well-justified priorities that convince people to take the correct path forward.

Moral thinkers view their way as correct and believe that the world would be better off if more people thought morally.  

What’s the Point of History?

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What’s the point of history? Why bother learning all those boring facts and dates? Sure, there are some interesting characters and conflicts, but surely all that old stuff doesn’t have much relevance to today’s problems with AI, mass shootings, war in the Middle East and global warming. The world changes so quickly now, so what’s the point dwelling on the past, when we need to fix future problems? 

Glad you asked. 

There’s a common misconception that we have some sacred obligation not to judge the past and just to record it as it happened without questioning it. Out of vanity, many people like to study the history of their ancestors, believing that they were virtuous and victorious, in order to be inspired. We’re passive spectators, taking note of past events, and maybe defending the actions and beliefs of our own ancestors, as if we were cheering for our home team. If someone criticizes part of our history, then we say that nobody should judge what they did using hindsight. We read history in order to validate our beliefs that our origins were honorable, and by not questioning anything, we declare ourselves honorable historians. 

That is all lazy, narcissistic nonsense that wastes our time, misses the point entirely and prevents us from learning anything useful. We do not study history in some vain attempt to feel better about our selves due to something our ancestors did. We study history to make better choices now, so that we can rightfully feel proud that we are doing our best. The dead can suffer some honest criticism, and they do not enjoy being excuses for our mistakes. Rather than being forgotten, I’m sure they’d prefer being inspiration for our future successes. 

The point of studying history is to learn from the past—both admirable actions and atrocious mistakes—in order to make better decisions today. History didn’t have to happen the way it did. As today, people made mistakes, were driven by greed or hate, and acted out of ignorance. They could and often should have made better decisions, but, no matter how flawed they were, we should not simply dismiss and forget them. We must learn from their mistakes. We must constantly apply our highest moral judgements, use our imagination creatively, and draw the most logical conclusions possible, whenever we study history. That way we will learn as much as we can, so that we can apply the lessons of history to our future decisions. 

Above is a Ghost Dance Shirt from 1890, decorated with eagle and owl feathers, worn by a Lakota (Sioux) warrior who hoped that it would protect him from bullets. That December 29th, at Wounded Knee, under a flag of truce, the US Cavalry, driven by settlers’ often imaginary racist fears, machine gunned 250 to 300 men women and children to death. The point of history is neither to let such facts sit dryly without emotion or judgement in a book, nor to toss it in the dustbin, nor to argue that the massacre was inevitable, nor to compare whether your ancestors were more mistaken than mine or anyone else’s. The point of history is to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid the doom of repeating them. 

620,000 men, roughly 2% of the population died in the line of duty during the Civil War. If we apply no judgement as to why they died, then we learn nothing useful. If we are dishonest or allow ourselves to be confused by old misinformation, then we will draw the wrong conclusions. If we understand the plain truth—that the war was fought over slavery—, study its racist roots, and apply our best judgement, then we can fight racism better and perhaps avoid a future war. Learning to be better must be our main goal, after considering the consequences. 

Some lessons can be applied immediately, and others are evergreen. For example, if the safety lessons of Port Chicago had been learned immediately, another similar disaster could have been prevented. The deeper lesson, that bias kills and that diversity can save lives, is one many of us are still struggling to learn. If you can’t learn anything useful from history, you’re not trying hard enough. 

Today’s problem of AI replacing skilled labor can be better understood by studying labor history. The most intractable conflicts today can be understood better by studying hatred and injustice from our past. The climate crisis can be better understood by studying evolution, archaeology, and our few remaining intact ecosystems. History is the reservoir of our past experiences and knowledge, and we must draw on that as thoughtfully as possible, always driven by the need to improve ourselves. That’s the point. 

Fort Davis National Historic Site

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This is an Indian Native American War era fort. Soldiers from here, including African American Buffalo Soldiers, fought Geronimo and the Apaches in Arizona, the Kiowas and the Comanche, patrolling the San Antonio-El Paso road against raids. President Andrew Jackson predicted it would take a thousand years for white settlers to replace the Native Americans in the west. In reality, the process only took a few decades.

I believe the goal of history should not be a recitation of events. I believe the point of history should be to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future. The people are dead. They don’t care whether we praise them or criticize them; that’s not the point. We need to evaluate past actions in the context of the times.

Columbus was an innovative navigator, whose initial voyage went against common sense at the time and changed people’s understanding of the world. He was also wrong about who the Natives were, and he treated them viciously. But he didn’t create racism or slavery. Those were taught in European universities, supported by the church and were the official policy of European governments. Those institutions, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of racism and slavery of colonialism.

Kit Carson was an accomplished explorer, who developed strong relationships with the Native Americans he met and traded with. He did what others did not dare and changed people’s understanding of the west. He also carried out a brutal scorched-earth campaign against the Navajo and marched them into internment camps. He neither created racism nor invented the policy of removing Native Americans from their land.

Andrew Jackson was an American hero for defeating the British in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He also fought many wars against the Native Americans, broke treaties and even defied Supreme Court orders to remove Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, leading to a legacy of depressed, poverty-stricken reservations. He should have chosen a different path, leading to greater education, cultural exchange, technology transfer, integration and cooperation. The US Presidency, Congress and the military, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of the wars and forced removal of Native Americans.

History must be studied to make these judgements and to recommend corrective actions whenever possible, otherwise we doom ourselves to carry the burden and even repeat our past mistakes.