morality

The Disappearance of Deference: Dissolving Morality

by C. P. Lawrence

Part IV: The Disappearance of Deference: Dissolving Morality

Full disclosure: this one is a bit long, but the subject matter demanded the length. My apologies.

When it comes to morality, Aristotle believed that moral principles were ingrained into one’s character by past actions “done in right ways and with right attitudes.” These past actions would come from community from those older and wiser. All of this could only take place in communities of differences where morality was much more than a list of wrongs and rights. This was, as Aristotle asserted, ingraining moral principles into one’s character through repeated physical actions done in community with others who would either confirm or correct. It was the action that revealed the morality. Aristotle believed that communal interaction with those older and wiser was how we would recognize the right application for the situation, which, for him, was a form of morality, but none of it mattered without the action. We are born into and live within communities for a reason; we are raised in families with parents; we are taught in schools by teachers and eventually we work and submit to others in vocation, and all of it develops in us a moral sense. The process of maturity, including the development of morality and the ability to reason, involves communities of difference and our interaction with them.

It is important to note the role that action plays in cognitive recognition and moral development. I see this as evidence in support of the importance of communities of difference, which supports Aristotle’s assertion of the relationship between reason and desire, but it would render Kant’s views of reason as merely practical null and void. There is ample evidence to support Aristotle’s notion that a gap exists between reason and desire. This gap between reason and desire has an important distinction; a smaller gap, the more likely we are to think in moral and practical ways, and the more inclined we are to have deference. This smaller gap would also indicate that reason was impacting desire, which is moral in context. A wider gap, the less likely we are to think in practical or moral ways and to have deference, but the issue does not stop there. A wider gap also indicates that we are more likely to reach a point of malicious intent when it comes to morality, due, in part, to reason and desire operating autonomously with little to no impact on each other. 

As sensual people, desire will trump reason if they act independent of each other. In this situation, it will be our desire that pushes us to the point of narcissism and even madness when it comes to morality. Every decision, including moral ones, will be rooted in self, which turns our selfish desires into our own morality. In this moral state, there is no greater good, no concern for others, no empathy and certainly no deference. Our morality and our desire become one. We become hostile to anyone who does not share our ideology, our thoughts or reason as we do, which pushes us to seek community with only those who are like us. We join homogenous groupings that we think share our ideas and beliefs, which seems to confirm our rightness and everyone else’s wrongness, but the opposite is true. These groupings become our morality and determine our thoughts, ideas, and values. In these groups, we think one dimensionally, do little to no thinking on our own and repeat the groups as our own. We do not think in a dialectic way, and our morality becomes narrow and skewed.  

In this moral state, decisions are not based on a greater good or on a concern for others; instead, decisions, policies and even laws are based only on the morality of the group and their explicit ideology or worldview, manifesting through our own perception. It is our perception that becomes our truth, and all thoughts, ideas and decisions are based upon it, which are not original but merely an extension of our grouping. In this moral state, we feel safe and right because we are surrounded by those who share our morality, and our perceptions are always true and right as long as they are rooted in the morality of the grouping. The concept of a greater good dissolves along with empathy for others and all that is left is power. At this point, Aristotle would see this situation as a complete moral failure due to it being based on desire alone. He would see it as a failure to think practically and reason rightly because every situation would be perceived according to one’s own internalized values and for one’s own personal gain, which would come at the expense of all others and any kind of general good. There would also be a personal cost. In this situation, there is no growth or maturity; there is no development. There is only sameness, bitterness, and cynicism.

Sadly, I see this situation playing out before us today. In this moral state, internalized personal values become one’s morality and the main means of reason which form their own reality. In one sense, it is a shared reality with those in the grouping, but in another sense, it is a lonely and isolated place where one feels trapped; to think different thoughts is to commit treason to the grouping. This is devastating because the grouping has become family. It is welcoming and accepting, but only of those who align with its morality and ideology. This causes a loss of a proper perspective on the world and gives way to an isolated and egocentric approach to life. In such a moral state, one’s perceptions are flawed as they become skewed and narrowed, leaving only room for the grouping’s own ideology and morality. Perception instead of reason merges with desire evolving into something masquerading as morality used in moral ways.  

Perception, for Aristotle, was a psychophysical state, which lead him to this idea of akrasia (Please return to my first post for a reminder of what this is.) which revealed the importance of physical action to morality. When a thought moves us to action, we believe and value that thought to the point that we act on it, which is the physical part of morality. Aristotle thought an individual’s actions were not solely defined by their circumstances, thoughts, or ideas but they also included the actions produced by these thoughts and ideas. These physical actions were powerful and moral. For Aristotle, this narrow egocentric view of the world would be unlikely and unable to produce any moral action on behalf of others; it would only be able to produce action for the benefit of self. We are an egocentric people, and our morality is an ongoing fight between the desire to be selfish and the conviction to be selfless, which Aristotle recognized as the battle between reason and desire. 

Aristotle thought that this polarized immoral state was the result of desire dominating reason. For him, it was a lack of character development, which was needed to withstand the temptation of self, that allowed this immoral state to thrive. As people, we will always battle the temptation to be selfish, but it is a battle meant to be fought in community with others who are different and not in isolation on our own. In isolation, especially morally, there will be no means to fight this temptation and to develop the character required to withstand it. It is the relationship between the circumstance of the immediate situation and the circumstance of the particular or the “perfect form” that are the battle lines in the fight to develop the character needed to ward of those temptations. He considered these communities of difference as the proper environment needed to win these battles. 

Aristotle referenced that the battle between reason and desire was difficult because all states of practical thought converge at the same point, which obscured the differences between those who speak of judgment, understanding, practical wisdom and reason with those who possess judgment, understanding, practical wisdom and reason. When we only speak of these issues and no longer act on them, we will never possess them, and they will never become ours to use. These situations indicate that reason and desire are operating independently from one another, and discernment, which is a product of a right relationship between reason and desire and is morally necessary for practical thinking and deference, is no longer being produced, leaving us in an ongoing moral dilemma. 

The answer to this moral dilemma is phronesis, which is roughly translated as practical wisdom, prudence, and sound judgment; it could also be considered deference. For Aristotle, it was this phronesis that acted as intellectual virtue, allowing individuals to make right choices in difficult situations for the greater good, but it was produced only in communities of difference, which is where we learn about virtue. It is virtue that is necessary for phronesis (or deference). Phronesis cannot exist without virtue, and virtue needs phronesis to be developed. For Aristotle, phronesis was the “eye of the soul” and enabled a person, who was virtuous—this virtue came from those past actions done in right ways with right attitudes in community—to do what should be done in a situation, and, if necessary, do it at the expense of person’s selfish desires. It was phronesis that pushed akrasia to the side and replaced it, but again, this could only be developed in communities of difference.  

This phronesis was not about following a set of rigid rules or an explicit ideology; instead, it was more akin to respecting and allowing reason and desire to work as perception and experience, and together, they would serve as the means to finding the “golden mean,” which, for Aristotle, was the appropriate middle or moderate response. Where have all the moderate responses gone? This golden mean does not come from within us, but instead, it comes from outside of us, from others, from community, and from our own internalizing of our interactions with differences. Phronesis, in a virtuous person, gives that person the ability to recognize the right action for the situation in much the same way a coach would coach players. It would be akin to a coach using knowledge, experience, and sense to determine how to prepare players in practice to perform well in a game. This would come from your own knowledge and your own experience developed by someone who mentored you. It would also come from your own sense for the game, which would be based upon how you internalized your past knowledge and experience with your current situation.  

Aristotle compared this phronesis to prudence, which is also analogous to deference. While deference is not practical thinking per say, it does begin in the same right position … an openness to the right action for the situation at the expense of self, which would make its nature moral. Aristotle suggested that when we act morally, we act with courage. Courage is an action made that is right even if it come as the expense of our own desire. He stated that to act this way would require our perception of the action to function as an instantiation, which is a form of courageous behavior (the perfect “form”). In a way, he was saying that acting in moral ways is acting in courageous ways because it is acting for good at the expense of self. It is how reason and desire come together to make a good decision. Sometimes that decision will also be our desire, but many times it will not. 

Aristotle saw practical thinking as a kind of moral temperament, in part, due to the need practical thinking has for selfless action of the individual. This selfless action, according to Aristotle, was a learned action in community and could not be produced in moral isolation by desire alone; it required reason and virtue. Kant suggested it was a priori while Aristotle a posteriori, in part due to the need for virtue. Aristotle believed that passions (desire) alone, which isa priori, could not respond in right ways because of their sensual, self-centered, and innate nature. They are rooted in who we are as people, in our daily desires. However, he also believed that virtue could only be acquired through a process of intentional conditioning through training in communities in possession of virtue, and yes, you guessed it, these communities would need to be communities of difference.

This opens another line of thinking altogether regarding virtue. I will tackle that subject next time. Until then …

The Disappearance of Deference: The Changing Nature of Reason

by C. P. Lawrence

Part III: Reason

In my last post, I submitted a thesis regarding who we have become as human beings. We are egocentric; we live in communities of sameness and deference is slipping away from who we are. Has reason also changed? To find that answer we need to go back to Aristotle and start with his thoughts on reason. 

Aristotle claimed that abstract forms of reasoning—and most reasoning begins in abstract form—are impossible without imagery; imagery used in reasoning tends to be concrete and come from community. Aristotle suggested that this “imagery” presented a “particular” that the thinker used as an example to measure a thought; he called this imagery a universal (a standard) used to adjust and correct one’s thoughts. One way to think about these particulars or universals would be as if they are akin to Plato’s perfect “forms.” The particular or the form was thought to be the center of cognition, especially when we think about moral ideas. It was a baseline of sorts on which to measure our initial thoughts and perceptions, but, according to Aristotle, these standards do not come from within us; instead, they come from outside of us, from community and the morality and differences found there. It is community that is part of the development of practical thinking and of reason, and, for me, deference is the gate that allows for that development.

But if all ideas are a priori, as many assert today, then reason would also be a priori, which makes little sense if we consider Aristotle’s ideas on reason as accurate. If reason is a priori, it would mean that these particulars, or forms, would no longer function as universal standards because we would no longer interact with community in the ways of the past, which would reduce their impact on us. Our interactions would be primarily with communities of sameness, which would no longer provide moral baselines. Instead, we would seek these communities for confirmation and encouragement, especially if the only communities we engage are those who share our same ideology. In such situations, we would no longer reason; instead, our thinking would be an extension of our own ideology and come in isolated chunks or pieces extending from our own thoughts and in support of our own thoughts. We would not rationalize or even contemplate; we would simply act or not. Everything would be personal to us because every thought would place us at the center. Every thought counter to ours would be perceived as hostile and threating because, in essence, they would be. 

Change, correction and accountability would be our enemy, which means we would keep repeating the same mistakes and never grow or mature. There would be no such thing as a general good because we would have no concern or need for such a good; our only concern would be for our own good. Every thought and action would extend out from us and be rooted in who we are. We would be offended more than encouraged; everything would be personal, and gossip and rumor would serve as a means of confirmation and promotion of our own ideas and thoughts. Thinking this way would not produce any kind of truth or morality, but instead, produce irrationality, dysfunction, and chaos, leaving those who think this way always seeking power and offended if they do not find it. The idea of good would be mangled and reduced to plays of power; the ideas extending from these people would only have two purposes: accumulate power or reluctantly submit to those who have power. There would be no need for respect, deference, truth, or morality. There would be no learning and certainly no reasoning. There would only be divisions, insults, lies and everyone would be watching out only for themselves. Excellence would evaporate and any idea of morality would be considered weakness because every situation would be a play for power, which would be selfish and pragmatic, with morality considered a weakness. Any moral decision for sake of others would be crushed and used for the sake of self.   

With abstract thought, even in this situation, we would still first seek clarification and understanding about an idea before we moved it to action, which is still a form of learning and reasoning, but if we no longer interact or embrace any kind of difference, then, there would be no way for that difference to impact us. Our actions would be reduced to reactions in ways that either benefited us or submitted to the most powerful good at our own expense. Our actions would be reduced to only reactions, which would be purely pragmatic and practical. Any new situation would force either our reaction, which would be based upon an old situation, a power play, if we had power, or our submission to the most powerful idea, but there would be no practical thinking or reasoning as those elements necessary for both would no longer be part of who we are. In each new situation, our own personal good would be the goal. We would no care for others, the greater good or doing what is right.

The absence of practical thinking, according to Aristotle, is ultimately a failure to be moral when we should be moral, which is what separates human beings from all other beings. It would also be a failure to reason properly. Reasoning, practical thinking … both, for Aristotle, were moral in nature. Our tendency, according to Aristotle, is to be too easily swayed to be general in moral situations for selfish purposes, which is what is produced when we live in a world void of deference. Is this not what we see playing out before us in culture? In such a moral state, we would make the choice that is beneficial to us, regardless of its application or situation to others or the greater good. Deference, respect, and concern for others would be gone. The only issue that would matter to us would be our own well-being and this would come at the expense of the greater good and of others. 

The even more disturbing part is that the morally right decision would mean very little to us. We would see it as weak and lacking excellence; we would even present it as a poor decision when it was merely a decision against us. Our response would either be to submit to the decision or invoke our own power to sway the decision toward us. I would question whether we, in this moral state, would even recognize how morally upside-down or selfish our decision was, in part, due to who we had become as a human being. Would the general good be general or even considered good anymore? I am not sure. Would there be a right way to do things, or would that merely be a distant memory? 

Do you recognize any of this? It is the path that we are on. Politicians, entertainers, athletes … all with power and all looking out only for themselves at the expense of everyone else while lecturing the rest of us on what we should be doing. If truth is relative and merely a means to a personal end, then there is no moral basis on which to lecture anyone anymore. There is no good and evil. There is only self. What would be the first sign that our culture is on this wrong path? In my opinion, it would be the disappearance of deference.

This concludes this section, but there is another one the way. Until then … 

The Disappearance of Deference: Thought and Perception

by C. P. Lawrence

Part II: Thought and Perception    

As I begin this section, it is important that we not leave this idea of akrasia behind. Aristotle saw akrasia as a failure (actually, a state of failure) to accept the circumstances associated with the context of an individual action, which, in certain situations could be considered delusional. This akrasia was powerful and could and would become presuppositional, due to its nature, if employed consistently. According to Aristotle, the state of failure found in akrasia is produced by the strained relationship between thought and perception. When one’s perception reaches the point of reality and impacts thoughts and actions, it’s nature will become presuppositional for the individual. It will become their reality and impact who they are and how they live.  

The Thomas Theorem applies here, which states, “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” This theory refers to the point when an individual’s subjective perception of a situation trumps the objective facts of the situation and shapes and impacts behavior, affecting the resulting actions of the individual’s behavior. The application of the Thomas Theorem indicates the presence of the following assumed truths as lived out by the individual:

  1. It is assumed that human behavior is guided only by one’s own perception and interpretation and not impacted by objective truth. 
  2. It is assumed that it is the individual who defines what is taking place, even when involving others, by way of their own perceptions and interpretations which are the basis for one’s subsequent actions. 
  3. It is assumed that even if one’s actions are based upon one’s own false perceptions, there are real world consequences to these actions due to the person acting on them amid others. 

There is a point where delusion begins, and the Thomas Theorem presents the elements needed for that point. I believe the ability to accept the actual consequences of a situation over one’s perceptions of that situation is reality, but it is a reality that does not necessarily emanate from within us even if the impact is predominately on us. Reality is, in most cases, based upon our thoughts aligning with most others in the situation. The deeper we retreat into ourselves the more the potential for our delusion to become our reality, which is what I see in our world today through our use of phones, social media, and technology. 

This Thomas Theorem presents one scenario on how impactful diverse versions of truth can be on us, especially when our own beliefs and subsequent actions are responses to those versions of truth. There are many terms for these situations: one of the most common would be referenced as self-fulfilling prophecies. How are we to respond to this existential threat to who we are as people. In the past, we have not had to respond as we have lived and socialized inside, what I call, communities of difference. These tended to keep our delusional tendencies in check, as we all have them, but those communities are diminishing in number. Instead, what is growing in number and in impact are communities of sameness, which promote one predominant ideology as true and right over all others. It is these communities that clamor for power; the more powerful they become, the more they will impact the moral structure of who we are as human beings. 

In the past, we co-existed amid our differences, in part, due to the mutual respect of our differences which were developed in these communities of difference. To be clear, there were problems in these communities as well, but from my perspective, there were also readily available solutions too. This is why I believe the absence of deference is important. To solve anything involves change, whether that change is an original thought or a perception, it will require both difference and conviction. Both of those come from a community of difference and not from an individual in moral isolation. Living inside one’s own isolated morality tends to produce a person who is suspicious of difference, void of respect and in possession of little consideration for others; all of these just happen to be the moral foundation of deference.

The problem we face today is that morality is presented as reason and as a priori, which would make it pragmatic and situational. In this situation, there would be no alternate consideration for one simple reason: there would be no source for it. This would be, in part, due to the isolation of the individual from difference. If every person lives inside their own homogenous morality, there can be no deference because deference depends on difference and the respect of that difference. An absence of deference would be due, in part, to a community where akrasia and its state of failure and the assumed truths of the Thomas Theorem existed as norms, which would make reason circular and morality pragmatic and situational. To reason away from an original thought at the expense of self would require an alternate thought that was embraced as valid, reasonable, and equal. The geneses of that alternate thought would have to come from a source external to who we are in our isolated moral situation; it would have to come from a community where difference was allowed to exist. Without difference and deference to that difference, would we even consider anything external to own thoughts? I think we know the answer. 

This alternate thought to our original one would have to be respected and perceived as valid and equal. We would have to live with it and see it each day in action in community. The only way our minds would be changed would be if we were convinced that our original thought was wrong. That conviction, in my opinion, would begin, in part, with deference, which would be an openness to change. The change itself would come from the community and the different moralities found there. To be clear, a community used to be a heterogenous collective of which an individual was a member of difference. Not too long ago, communities were everyone shared the same ideology and morality were not referenced as a community or even in a positive light. There are many forms of community. Community could be one’s family, school, friend group, church, workplace, or neighborhood, but these communities of difference are dying due to the consolidation of communities into one morally homogenous community group with one moral ideology. Many of these communities have a home that is often online, making it much easier to expand but also much easier to educate the community in the isolated morality.

Considering all this, what does reason look like today? That is the next question I will tackle in my next post. Until then … 

Education, Painted and Soiled: Part V

by C. P. Lawrence

Education, Painted and Soiled:

Part V: True Education 

In 1916, John Dewey referred to education as “a social process—a process of living and not a preparation for future living.” While I think Dewey got many things about education wrong, I think he got this one right. Education is a social process. It is life and for a lifetime, but defining it seems to limit it. Definitions are ends for the means they serve. Education, for me, cannot be put into a box, nor should it be, which suggests that I am engaged in a fool’s errand. Let’s find out. 

Aristotle implied that education was not formal instruction nor was it just knowledge; it was much more, but what was it? For Aristotle, it involved developing both intellectual and moral virtues through practice and experience, and it was for a specific purpose, to produce flourishing human beings. This idea of human flourishing was, for Aristotle, the ultimate telos, i.e., the end goal, for all human beings, but this telos implies something else about education.

In this post, I will look at education from one last angle with the hope that I see something that makes sense to me. I want to look at education from the perspective of how we experience it. One author I recently read referenced Erich Fromm and his distinction between having and being. This is as good of a lens as any other to use. Fromm defines “having” and “being” as modes of existence and as different ways of understanding ourselves, the world in which we live and those living in this world with us.

According to Fromm, “having” is concerned with ownership and possession with a focus on controlling; “being,” on the other hand, is rooted in love and concern with a focus on shared experience and productive activity. Being engages the world while getting seeks to possess and control the world. Fromm saw these as two modes of human existence: the mode of having and the mode of being. The mode of having perceives everything as a potential possession while the mode of being perceives self as the carrier of certain properties and abilities.

Fromm thought “having” emphasized a duality between the owner and the thing owned. It was a view of the world with self at the center and all other things arranged in a circle around self. They are distinct from self and their relationship to self is only through their ownership by self. Being is about those qualities that merge with our existence … skills that belong to us that we can exercise, but these skills cannot be taken from us. They are part of us. They are ours. What Fromm proposed was that we have a choice on how to live. Do we live lives having or being? Fromm emphasized that there was a difference between a society set to live for people or for things. Where did that difference take root? I think you know the answer. 

Looking at education through the ideas of “having” and “being” clarify some things for me. In one sense, education can be something possessed as in, “I have a degree.” In this sense, education is one of those things to be possessed by self. It is part of the circle of stuff surrounding self, but then in another sense education can become part of us in the sense of “being” educated. If education is merely a paper on a wall, then, yes, there is a chance that I could lose that piece of paper, but if I am educated and continue to be educated then I lose nothing and gain everything. 

This approach forces me to confront my pursuit of education. I have been looking at education as something to define, but I have learned that such an approach is misaligned and the pursuit untenable. Education is not a thing to possess but instead it is a part of being, of who we are, or at least it should be. If education is as Dewey says—a social process—then we must treat it as a social process. Education, then, is like other aspects of our social world. It is akin to the interaction of family. It is friendships and courtships. It is an evening with friends, a day at work or even a family vacation. How do we define these things? The quick answer is we don’t because they are part of who we are as social beings. We learn these things over the course of a lifetime, starting as children. We are taught by our parents, progress into school and then into college. We eventually have our own children and start the cycle all over again. 

If education is “being” then it will define who we are more than we care to admit. It is not a neutral process but one that will impact us. In the same way that our parents defined who we are as children, education will have the same impact if we grant it the right. The push to educate your children at younger ages—there are many K4 programs out there—is a push to replace your impact on your own children with an educational one. This impact is masquerading as knowledge, either a core body of knowledge or a survey of chosen content. There is a hidden curriculum inside this content, and that hidden curriculum is this: every teacher and school teach from a perspective of the world which they will present to your children as true and right. Do you know what perspective of the world your school presents to your children as true and right? Many schools will claim that their focus is only on knowledge and content. Well, that is a perspective of the world, is it not? Shouldn’t you be the one who defines what is right and true for your four-year-old?  Do your beliefs and values align with the beliefs and values of the school your children attend? These are good questions to have on your mind when considering educational choices.

As I close this series on education, let me sum up what I have learned. First, education is not just content. It is so much more and no matter how hard we try to make it just about content, it will never be just about content. Two, education is not one dimensional. It is multi-dimensional, and it is always social. Aristotle presented the idea that education is about the posture of wisdom, heath and morality and a lifetime of movement, and there are implications if he is even a little right. Third, the foundation of education is morality whether one cares to admit that or not. Fourth, education will change culture. If we do not understand this aspect of education, then we are doomed to be overrun by those who do. To change culture, you must gain control of the schools. History tells us that there are many who have understood this and used this understanding to their benefit. Fifth, with great wisdom comes great responsibility. One does not gain education for only knowledge’s sake. Education provides power. Finally, education is a social process. It is akin to life and something we should engage for our entire lives in a manner akin to friendships, marriages and families. We work at these over the course of our lifetimes. We should do the same in our educational interactions. 

There is much more to address inside this topic of education, but for me, this concludes this series on education. Remember, thinking matters and so does education. Until next time …