Lately, I seem to be challenged by ethical choices. Some are directed toward me, and a decision I must make, and some are decisions that others are making or have made, that challenge my concept of what is ethical.
What I am noticing is that we do not all agree on what is ethical. I realize there are courses on Ethics at universities, and countless books, papers, articles and blogs written on Ethics going back thousands of years. I have not read or listened to them all, or even a lot of them. My ethical philosophy is primarily driven by my education as a Christian in and Evangelical Presbyterian church when I was growing up. Also heavily influenced by my parents and grandparents. I am a rule follower. I believe in laws, people’s rights, and responsibilities, or at least I thought I did.
Except that, I have recently started to believe that people can’t make mistakes and there is no right or wrong, just experiences. That flies completely in the face of what I was trained to believe as a child. And even into adulthood my father and I had light hearted arguments about whether there were absolutes in terms of right and wrong. He was a , “The Bible is the law,” kind of guy. Except that I have read the Bible, and it is really not consistent in those supposedly absolutes of right and wrong. Taking a passage out of context or without considering the whole text can seem like there are truths and absolutes, but really, there are not.
If you can’t base Ethics on the Bible because it isn’t consistent, then what do you base them on? You can’t really base it on the laws or rules that governments or organizations set either. Those area also wildly inconsistent, in both what they say, and how they are applied.
As I have studied racism and its origins, that last idea has become overly evident, that laws are not applied consistently across populations or individuals.
That leaves me constantly trying to be an ethical person, because I was taught that I should be ethical, but also questioning what that actually means.
Since no one can agree on what is ethical, does that mean that ethics is about doing what we each think is right and avoiding what we each think is wrong? That seems dangerous. I don’t know if I believe this, but I have heard that without external pressures, humans would run amok and destroy everything and everyone in their path, that we are essentially animals that need to be controlled. I don’t think I believe that. I am not like that, but I have had external influences, pretty strong ones, my whole life, so would I just go wild if I had not had them?
Mark Manson might agree with that sentiment. He often says people are essentially assholes and need support to find a less assholish existence. He attempts to educate people on how to be less of an asshole in a weekly blog post as well as educational courses on his website. I find him both insightful and entertaining. I don’t know if I agree with him though. I don’t think people are essential awful people with base needs and tendencies.
I think we are born pure of soul and spirit. We are born with all of our purity in tact, then the world starts to mold us into who we become through our experiences. Each time we are born we have experiences that educate our soul. You ever wonder why some people seem to keep repeating a pattern of life over and over and not seeming to learn anything from it? Do you ever wonder why life keeps pressing them and putting this lesson in front of them over and over again? Like the person who keeps going after the same type of job opportunity over and over again only to hate the job and be disappointed, going after the same type of romantic partner, friends, social circles, again, only to be frustrated, fail, and be disappointed over and over again? You would think they would learn something and do something different. I think people think they do that “something different”, that we on the outside, think they should do. But people often are slow learners.
I am not exempt from the slow learner pool. I have chosen repeated partners and friends who disappoint me and relationships fail. I have done pretty good with job choices over the years, more friends and partners that didn’t work out.
The point here was ethics though. Whether you believe we are all awful people who need to be controlled by outside rules and laws, or you believe that we are essentially good people who have gotten lost or been changed by the world’s awfulness, what is right and wrong remains a question that has no absolute answer.
That is where I always come to. I can’t tell you what is right and wrong for you. I can say what I think is right and wrong for me, what I should do or not do, but that is only for me. I can’t tell you what your path should be or what you should do. Only you can figure that out for yourself. I firmly believe we have a path that we set out to experience prior to our birth. That we as a pure soul determined with our other soul mates in the fourth dimension what we would experience together. We made agreements about those experiences.
Some of those experiences are to learn, some are to teach, some are just to have an experience so that we can know what that experience is like. We chose them for ourselves and for others as a group. Ever meet someone for the first time and feel like you have known them forever? They were there before you were born choosing a path for you and for them together. They are part of your soul group. You do know them. Even if they are a blip in your human life, you have known them forever. As souls, we all know each other, and have known each other forever. Only some of us have agreed to connect in this lifetime though.
I don’t pretend to know the truth. I know that I believe this to be my truth. It is something that resonates as true for me. You may have other beliefs, and I don’t doubt them being true for you, though I may not agree with them for myself. I do not actually believe in absolute truths or falsities.
I guess for me, ethics is about following your own path. What you should do is what you believe is right for you, and I believe that will change over your lifetime. You can only choose for yourself in each moment the best that you can. The more you learn, the less likely your choices will be those that harm you or others. I think that is Mark’s goal, to educate people to stop hurting each other, but we will keep doing that. We are selfish creatures focused on having our own experiences, which require others most of the time, but we tend to focus on our experience, not that of others. One way to try to be less of a jerk is to focus on others at least as much as yourself. I do try to do that. I also fail sometimes. It is part of being human. I am human, yes, an awful, wonderful, flawed, perfect human.
That is what ethics are to me. Being the best you can be at being yourself, whatever that is. Be true to you and what you believe. You will feel it if you are going against your own values and beliefs. Try not to do that, and you will have found your ethical path. If that stomps on others, well, perhaps that isn’t socially acceptable, but following your true path is what integrity means. Integrity doesn’t mean you are a good person. It means you follow your own values and beliefs. Many people don’t actually do that. They believe one thing, and then do the opposite, which might actually mean they actually believe the opposite. Behavior is more truthful that statements of “belief”. That is a whole other blog though.
Namaste