On Making Mistakes

What Matters?

As a result of writing my book, Ethics as Social Conscience, I came to the conclusion that individual activities do not matter. This is not ethical nihilism, although it sounds like it. What matters in Ethics are the social norms and the social aspects of individual behavior; i.e., for Ethics, the individual matters socially, but not "in itself."

Most of what people believe about the world is contradictory, even incomprehensible. Thus we have photons that are particles and waves. No matter how much we try to make it come out otherwise, there are always antinomies when reasoning about values. What is it about the Mona Lisa, besides the eyes, that makes it a great work of art? The Golden Rule seems reasonable until you try to apply it in daily life. There are lots of things I have thought through and through, over and over, which always end in a contrary or contradictory place from where my considerations started. Consequently, I have often written myself off as a clear thinker: there must be something (systematically) wrong about how I analyze things. Or, perhaps those things cannot be brought down to logically consistent conclusions. If the latter case obtains, rationality (i.e., as in the Enlightenment sense of "reason") cannot apply to matters of value. If it is not me, it must be the subject; i.e., matters involving value must be irrational.

If values are irrational, that does not mean they are emotional. "Emotional" does not exhaust the realm of the irrational. For example, values could be implicit in practices. If we discern values in what happens, the discerning is something we do. What is discerned is not necessarily "in" some external world apart from the discerner. Even though everyone I know is convinced of the reality of the external world, I believe all of the philosophers (including me) and scientists have failed to prove that is so. Nor do I believe we can ever prove it. Nonetheless, we act as if it were so, just as we presume there are values in making our judgements.

If there were no conscious observers, would the world be the same? We assume so, which is just to assert a form of naive realism. Things really are what they are. Truth, Good and Beauty are inherent in the world. Thus it seems, but it cannot be proven. So what we take as a fact is forever separated from what we assert is true; which is another contradiction or, at least, inconsistency. If such is our lot, as I think it is, how are we to decide what is right or wrong?

Historical Indifference

Moral judgements, as well as other judgements of value, matter a lot to individuals. That is, they matter (subjectively) to each person, regardless of what others believe or how others react. I do not doubt that, if I murdered someone or robbed a bank, I would be punished for my crime. I am also quite sure that I may be rewarded in some measure if I arrange for those around me to get what they want. So, for purely personal reasons based on my experience and expectations, the judgements I make matter. Whatever morality is involved in such cases is entirely egocentric.

Regardless of my beliefs and seemingly conscious choices, a large amount of what I do is simply automatic. For example, I have been conditioned to open the door for ladies: "Ladies First!" we were taught in that other day and age of my youth. While I now think that is a silly custom in view of women's lib and other, changed social norms, I still try to observe it. Just like everyone else, I was programmed to do these things without giving them a thought. A recent consequence of that acculturation is my repeated embarrassment, when women and children open doors for me; me, a man, even though I am an old man who shuffles about with the help of a cane. Clearly, my perception of my duties (and my self) are quite different from my abilities to carry them out. Changed circumstances have turned approved social behavior upside down or inside out; but, even if I understand the facts, it does not change my attempted responses or my beliefs about what I should do. Of course, I am sure I can be deprogrammed eventually, when the absurdity of my behavior is just as apparent to me as it is already to others. The difficulty in that deprogramming is, again, entirely egocentric, for what is required is a change in my perception of who I am, a perception inculcated in me in the first place by others.

Regardless of my supposed moral judgements and the activities of a lifetime, all of which matter to me, I think it obvious that they matter little in the grand scheme of things. Consider whether it matters much to anyone today, if King Midas turned into gold because of his greed for the substance. As I understand ancient History, there really was a King Midas or someone like him who was important in the invention of money. Almost everyone implicitly acknowledges his existence and invention in the (now) simple act of buying and selling things. But what do we know of King Midas? Do we have any acquaintance with him, as we do of our familiars, friends, neighbors, co-workers and fellow citizens? Do we even know him as well as candidates standing for election to public office, who we only see on TV? If King Midas is so remote, what of the millions of other human creatures who have come and gone since time immemorial, leaving no observable trace of their existence? Most people have simply disintegrated into dust: they became random particles, molecules and atoms mingled with trillions and trillions of other similar substances. There is not even a social memory imbedded in a family or personal name, or any other cultural memento. Most of those who were buried with great pomp lose their place in History in a few centuries as grave markers crumble and stories turn into myths. For example, my family name is probably handed down from a bunch of German barbarians who invaded Italy a millennium or more ago, but no one knows who were those people or what they did. I do not know how my ancestors acquired the name. It is a rare occasion when we know almost anything about our remote ancestors, especially the prehistoric ones.

Thus, in a sufficiently long run, it cannot matter what anyone did. Were it otherwise, we would know about it. Our life's activities matter very much to the ones who engage in them at the time, and to those affected by them for better or worse. What we do affects social norms in the process I call "normative networks;" i.e., individual acts are integrated into social outcomes. Each life is like a wave that spreads out from its origin and gradually dissipates in the surround. As we move further from the origin, it becomes increasingly difficult to detect individual components of the social result. In the end, there is just the result. This is what I call "moral evaporation."

Tolerance

The foregoing leads to the proposition that we must tolerate mistakes. The main reason for this conclusion is that we cannot know in advance what is a mistake. There are lots of happenings people assumed were mistaken which turned out otherwise. The Alaska purchase was famously "Seward's mistake." (What if, during the Cold War, Alaska or the northern California coast had been Soviet territory?) Was it really a mistake to send men to the Moon? How many "follies" have turned out to our advantage?

While this notion is uncomfortable, especially to those who are imbued with moral certitude, no one has the right to enforce opinions on others. Any such right is dependent on the certain knowledge of the enforcer, which is impossible. I believe History demonstrates the probable truth of this last statement.

The immediate consequence of this view is we must accept the results of elections and other social choices, even if we strongly believe they are wrong. In effect, we must accept the principle that people are allowed to make their own mistakes. Of course, that also means that wrongdoers will suffer the consequences. In other words, the further consequence of this doctrine of Historical Indifference is that we do not have the right to save people from themselves.

What is right or wrong is always judged in retrospect, given our present point of view. Given that our present is an integration of past experience, whether or not we are aware of that experience, we can say that the social norms by which we judge "right" or "wrong" are a convolution of judgements to date. Since we are unable to extend or project the convolution to the end of time, we can never know whether our judgements are finally correct.

Posted 11/06/2008 08:14:41 AM                Last update: 11/06/2008

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