Philosophy Now Forum

in thinking about the eastern idea of morality/ethics and
the western idea of morality/ethics...

we can take this example..... human beings are, by nature,
social creatures... we don't need to be taught to be social..
we just are... do you need to be taught how to talk to others?
we just talk to others even in childhood... kids just naturally
are social creatures with each other...there is nothing to be learned....
we just need to be ourselves and we can be social creatures...
nothing more is needed....

but we, in the west especially, think that we need to learn what ethics/morals
are.....but why? just as we are social creatures, we are beings who
are justice minded.... in other words, looking at children, even a young child
can see when injustice is being done to another child... even a young child
can see that beating a dog for being a dog is unjust....they don't have to learn
anything to know this.... they just have to be children....

and in this, we can see how eastern philosophy works... we can be one
with order.. if, if we simply understand what this order is.... to be social
as human beings... that is order... and to understand/know justice as a child
is order..... the Tao is things as it is....to be human is to be social....
and that is the order of things.... to self practice isolation is not
order because it stands away from what is natural and right about
being human... which is that we are social beings, always have been
and always will be.... that is the nature of order....
we don't have to make any adjustments or do something different to
follow the natural order of being human... we just have to do what
is natural for us... to be social... and that ain't so hard....

and within eastern philosophy anyway, this is the exact same
thing about ethics/morality..... there is nothing to learn....
we just have to follow the natural order of things and we
will be engaged in ethics/morals..... and in the west,
we see that quite often, we have conflicts between the
individual and the society/ the state.... or as Barrett might suggest
(the book, ''Irrational Man") that we quite often have conflicts of
competing goods... my need/ego driven need for material possessions or
money or fame vs the needs of the society or state...
which comes first?

the eastern philosophies would suggest that the state/society comes first...
and I am inclined to agree.... for we can still find our essential nature or what
we need within the state/society...... recall that the Athenians believed
that the only path to becoming human was within the city/the polis....

for we are social creatures and that must never be forgotten.....
we start there when thinking about what it means to be human....
I suspect that part of the reason for the malaise of the modern day
world is this egoism that makes us individually think about ourselves,
instead of thinking about us in context of being social beings...
for the western thought that ''every man for himself" leaves us too
far apart from our own order of being social beings...

one of the primary questions of human existence and that is part of
virtually all religions, is this... how am I to be saved?
and the answer to that question in the west is by self...
and the answer in the east is we are saved within our being
within the collective state... staying within order,
that is the eastern solution, the western solution is
to put our hands into god or to individually seek out an answer....

How am I to be saved, is not an individual question but a collective
question... involving all of us..... and by being part of the ''order'''
being who we are and staying within that.....unlike the west where
we think individually, and act within the individual.... whereas in
the east, we can only find salvation in the company of others, the state
and the society........

Kropotkin

This question of what is moral and what isn't, really revolves around
what works within a society, a state.. if it upends or damages
the society, state... that is immoral....or said another way,
morality is based on maintaining the order of existence...

to kind of giving an example, the other day, a Colorado
congresswomen named Lauren Boebert... a very conservative
congresswoman... was kicked out of a play the other day for
creating a disturbance... and what she did was violate the rules
of the theater... she was vaping, and she recorded much of the play,
both of which are obvious violation of the rules of the theater...
and when people complained about this, and security came to
her seat, she argued that it was her right to do these things...
to maintain order within a theater, the rules must be followed
or there will be people who will get hurt... for example,
the lady, who complained about Boebert vaping, was actually
pregnant... vaping will hurt her unborn child...and Boebert
actually, could not have cared less....a person against abortions...

This holding onto the idea that my rights are greater than your rights,
is a common conservative idea...and a danger to the successful
working of our state and society....for we cannot hold to one set
of rights being greater than another set of rights if we are to maintain
the balance that keeps a society/state functioning...
all rights have to be held to be equal or the state/society will
fail to function...

or to rephrase this, to keep the state/society functioning,
we have to maintain order within that state/society...and the
practice of morals and ethics is a primary way to held keeping
order within a state/society....and the evidence for this is
really this idea of human beings are social creatures...
we cannot survive on our own without a state/society to
help us work out our own needs and desires...my needs
that are biological in nature and all life has, is the need
for energy/food, to need to procreate, to maintain
order within our own bodies, or as it is called, homeostasis...
and that same tendency toward individual ''stable
equilibrium'' must also exists within the state/society....

the rules of the individual life form, are also the rules of
the state/society.... we must maintain balance and
equilibrium within a state/society... to maintain order....
the individual body is no different from the state or society....
and maintaining this order, this stability is what we call
morality, ethics....

Kropotkin

and one might ask, how can I be me, if I have to follow thee?

and I might say, you can't be unless you are part of something,
like a state or a society... and my second answer is this,
this is a misunderstanding of what the ''me" is....

and what is this value of me? is my value in being me comes from
who I am, or, or does it comes in where I fit into the state or society?

think of a holy man, say, Saint Francis of Assisi... think of his value....
if one reads a biography of Francis, one quickly sees that Francis
in fact, did nothing to benefit the state or society... he was in fact,
a leach off of the state/society... and his followers were too...
or has one forgotten that Francis originally began by begging,
gaining his food from the wealth of others...and his followers did
the same... to live off the charity of others... now the question becomes
was Francis and his followers a plus for the society or a negative?

In the long run, I would guess that the overall value of Francis
and his followers are a plus, a positive for the society/state....
and that plus is basically coming from his own and his followers
offering up some sort of alternative way of living and belief...
but in the short run, I would venture that Francis and his followers
would be a negative within a state/society... and Francis himself
admits this when he directed his followers to have a means of
gaining an income, or at least to becoming self-sufficient...

the basic point becomes this... the value one has is somewhat to the
the degree that they impact or improve the state/society.....the ones
who demean or devalue the state or society are less valued or not
valued at all.... think about how we dislike criminals or deadbeats....
because they don't improve or they actively devalue the state or
society they exists within..... criminal acts like stealing or violence,
they don't help the state or the society... they harm it....
and thus the negative value they have.... but for most people,
the actions that they make aren't so clear as to how they impact
the state/society...... I would suggest that those who
engage in attacking taxes for example, are negatively impacting
the state/society... the state is necessary for us to lead our lives...
and for us to gain our goals of meeting our needs or us gaining
our desires or reaching our possibilities....the state/society isn't
something that we can do without, we must have a strong state/
civilization for us to thrive... for us to reach our own personal/private
goals and possibilities.... and those who advocate for a small government,
clearly doesn't understand the value and worth of a government.....
how without a government, we cannot become who we are....to find
our own worth must be done in some relationship with the state/society....
and the stronger a state/government is, the greater the possibilities exists
for us...and that is why, it is of vital importance that we practice
order within our state/society..... and by practicing/following order, we
give ourselves value within a state/society.... engaging in order is what
gives our lives some meaning, some value... for we cannot be without
the state/society... and to engage in order means that we practice/follow
a path that benefits both us and our society/state....if asked, which
value should we engage in more, to practice social/civil order within
a society/state or to engage in seeking out my own personal worth
regardless of the damage it might cause the state/society....
I will lean toward the state/society side...for we individually, come
and go, but the state/society will exist long after we are dead...
and by that standard, we must give priority to the state/society...
even if, even if it hurts us personally.... but that returns to the idea
of sacrifice... we individually sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of the
state/society... and many say, that is the highest value of being human
that there is.....and we offer up statues and moments to those who
have sacrificed for us... as evidence that we honor sacrifice for
the betterment of the society/state...

but we can honor the state/society without the sacrifice of ourselves,
by practicing/following the order within a society/state...
as eastern philosophy itself suggests....

and this question of being human is really this relationship
between our own seeking who we are and our relationship with
the state/society...of becoming who we are and balancing that
with holding to order within the state.. and sometime that balancing
act fails.. and either the individual fails or the state fails and given
a choice between the two, the state/society and the individual failing,
I will always take the side of the state/society....

Kropotkin

in thinking about this maintaining the social order by our
actions, we do need to note that the state/society is not
something that is universal or applicable to all.... what worked
for the Athenians, probably won't work for us Americans today...
that values and actions are not universal and applicable to all,
must be said....for in different situations and different societies/state,
the same action may or may not be valued or useful....
thus we can say that there is no action/belief that is
applicable to all societies or states....

the definition of order/stability is different for each individual state
or society... and what is the working definition of order/stability is
held by the individual state/society...and how are we to judge such
a matter?

by the only value that we can use, does it work?
is order and stability found within that state/society?
and if the answer is yes, then we can think that the particular
state/society is working toward values and beliefs that
create order and stability in that state.... but we know,
know for a fact that order and stability within a state,
cannot be the one and only factor in thinking about a state/society....
for example, the confederate south with its slaves, is not a
a state/society worth believing in, worth fighting for, no
matter how stable or how much order might exists within that
state/society..... the holding of slaves, no matter how much order
or stability it might bring into a state, negates, devalues that
particular state/society.... regardless of the laws/rules stating so....
holding to slaves is wrong, regardless of how many laws are passed
that make it legal...and how can we ''know'' this? under the idea
of justice.... that some are treated with dignity or value and some
are not, is not justice... for the primary value of justice is equality...
and holding some to be slaves is not, by any stretch of the imagination,
to be equal/just...to deny women value because they are women is
not equal or just.... to make women the property of men is wrong
because it assumes the natural superiority of men and inferiority of
women... there is no justice or equality within that opinion of
women being only property of men... it devalues women and overvalues
men... equality/justice demands that we value/treat each as equal...

and the implication for justice and stability within a society/state is
that by treating others as equal means the state/society will
have greater order, greater stability... look at history.. societies/states
that treat people equally are more stable, have more order than states that
practice inequality and thus fails to provide its citizens with order....

we can see from historical examples, that the state that practices order
and stability are the states/society that practices equality and justice for all...

Kropotkin