The need for moral education in society

Imagine a world where murder was legal but nobody did it. A world where there was no minimum wage but everyone was paid it. This may sound like an unreachable utopia but perhaps it is not as absurd as it first seems. The libertarian socialist argues the supremacy of the individual and therefore the need for the state to support each individual equally. The libertarian capitalist also argues the supremacy of the individual but comes to a different conclusion, that of individual freedom from governmental control and therefore a free trade market. Each of these systems has its merits but I want to argue that both of them are not the optimum because they each neglect a key issue.

The socialist model in theory is one of social justice and compassion. It acknowledges that not everyone in society is equal and believes that those in need should be helped by those who can; the slogan being “each according to his needs; each according to his means”. These are all noble ideals, however they compromise the fundamental issue of individual freedom. Those who do not agree with this system are compelled to provide for it, regardless of their beliefs. In effect the system controls the ‘morality’ of society rather than educating them about it. This is the neglected issue, education. The government doesn’t need to edcuate society about social justice because it already imposes it. This neglect of education results in contempt for a seemingly just system which sacrifices individual freedom.

The same problem arises in the capitalist paradigm but in a different way. The capitalist says that the freedom of the individual is paramount and should not be controlled by government. Economically this results in a free-market economy which more often than not, benefits those at the top of the economic food-chain and disadvantages those at the bottom. The slogan this time is “freedom and liberty” but once again there is no acknowledgement of a societal moral obligation. This allows for employee exploitation, environmental ignorance etc. the hallmarks of a free-market society. The society is so blinded by the wonder of individual freedom that it neglects any need for moral education.

I realise my explanations of these two “polars” is very limited but it is meant to illustrate a point rather than act as a concise explanation of the theories. To refer back to my first statement; “Imagine a world where murder was legal but nobody did it.” This is a society which affords us the individual freedom of a capitalist paradigm but also has the social justice and compassion of a socialist one. A person is free to act in any way they wish, but they won’t commit any ‘crime’ or perform any injustice because they have been educated not to. I don’t mean brainwashed, I mean educated. This is the Utopia. In practise it would seem that even with a comprehensive moral education, any society would still contain deviants. For this reason there would need to be some governmental crime and justice control. But in essence, if we lived in a society where "fair trade"was taught as an expression of justice and equality then there would be no need for economic control, and individual freedom would remain entact. If the concept of charity was taught as a social justice rather than a pity case (like Islam and Judaism already do) then there would be no need for taxes. Not only that, wouldn’t it be much nicer to live in a world where people deliberately wanted to help those in trouble rather than having to compell them to do so with laws and taxes.

I’m sure i’m not the first to come up with this idea. In fact, I’d be interested to know of any author who has discussed this idea. However, I think in contemporary debates about the role of government in society we are often forgetting the value of moral education and how it can be used to find a synthesis between two economic systems which would not only improve the economy and social structure of society but also its morality and integrity.

• ben

In a Free Trading Market the rule of tub is that you must be able to compete on price with your competitors, hence tariffs exist on imported goods, which can be made cheaper in other countries. Example if China or India can produce a commercial commodity for $10 and the US or members of the EU can only do it for $120 then its obvious, which product will be bought in a free market without tariffs. The only way to compete is to cut costs, and the biggest cost in the First World countries is normally wages! So in effect to remove all world tariffs would set back First World country employees who worked in industries were the much cheaper labour costs of the Third would drive them out of business and to unemployment all because of cost. The law of Capitalism is: Sell something for more then it costs to make! Once you remove the costs of the natural materials the only other variable is the cost of wages. This is why Capitalism needs protection from countries that have the ability to out produce and under cut most First world countries.

A modern example is the fact that a lot of software development is moving from countries like the US / EU to India! In India the labour costs are much cheaper and so is the cost of living. This means in a free market economy the best place to get software made is in India. This has the effect that more computer programmers are now on the dole in the US / EU because of Indian competitiveness. The law of supply and demand has the added effect that all IT jobs have more potential employees going for the same position, causing a drop in wages as programmers will undercut each other to get the job, some money, is better then no money.

Without tariffs everybody in a particular industry will be paid the same based off the cost of getting an item into the market. So if the item cost of wages in India is $1 an hour, but the cost of logistics to the US adds the equivalent $2 for a total of $3 an hour. That means the most an American could make an hour would be $3. Tariffs protect employment and will do so until the costs of production are equal in all countries.

So the world we currently live in is not a Free Trading World! The Rich have tariffed the Poor to keep themselves rich! The ideal of Capitalism is only for Free Trade with those who have similar economical conditions, (i.e. they will only compete with those who have similar costs) otherwise tariffs are introduced to make local products competitive.

Haha, maybe Saddam and Bin-Ladin have a point after all! Us evil westerners exploiting the world for personal gain.

To be honest there isn’t much difference! The current school systems do little other then indoctrinate children into society. To me the true way to educate is to have people thinking freely which requires skills predominantly inherent in philosophy. Philosophy is the enemy of all those who wish to control people, i.e. Government! Plus if you look at current cultural heroes, it people like Homer Simpson who are considered cool. We have a society that thinks it cool or fun to be dumb! and for the immature it’s more important to be cool!

I believe we already live in a Utopia. Because if we were limited to only one-way of being, we would lose a lot of our freedoms. Freedom is about being able to do evil even though it’s wrong! When you lose that ability you lose your Freedom. Morality is a mental construct, nothing more! While it would be nice to have moral people, morality in it’s self is a limiter of freedoms. Society doesn’t need moral codes, it needs good people and I’ve come to believe that morality doesn’t make good people, yes it might help shape some, but it’s mostly our genetic make up, DNA.

Time to stop hanging around with tree hugging hippies Ben! While I do agree with you on this point, it’s not possible. It goes against what our true nature is! Self-preservation. I think a large part of what might be called greed has to do with people thinking that, “I mightn’t have enough to last me in times of trouble”. They are psychologically limited; maybe even a little retarded in this area of existence. They might have the false view that if you only have enough food to keep one person alive it doesn’t make sense to share it. But of course we’re all going to die, I think most people can say this, though I think very few actually understand what the words truly mean.

An example: Two people on a deserted island there is only enough food & water to keep them alive for 3 weeks. Now, one of the two thinks to himself, if I were to kill the other I would have enough food to last me 6 weeks! Should he kill the other person so he can live for an extra 3? I think most would say well if he thought that a boat might come and find them before the total 6 weeks were up there would be some sense for the killing. But if the boat never came then it would have be pointless. The 3 weeks made no difference to the eventual end, he still died. Now in the real world and the morbid question, what difference does it make if I live another 3 year or 5 or even 30 years? Does it come from the belief that here and now is better then death, as when we see death it looks like everything is over, it’s finished, nothing more, no afterlife as it were. With these ideas hidden in the back of all peoples heads, greed for money or anything for that matter is just a way of trying to hold onto the thing we want to never have to give up, our life. It’s one of those psychological things were the mind can’t cope with the problem directly so looks to other avenues for possible solutions.

I have to make a comment on this, especially after what you have written in the above post. I think Rabbi Hillel has show why morality is only a small part of life, as people believe that it doesn’t work! Who is for me? Only me! This is not a cry from someone with high hope for morality, let alone society. But it does reflect the strength of the Jewish community. Who is for the Jews? Well to be frank, in most of history nobody! This to me is where the Jewish community’s strengths lie, they know if they don’t stick together and help each other no one else will.

I disagree that education in schools is indoctrination, not because every teacher is the most ethical being going, but because a lot of the time the subject matter cannot be exploited in that way. You can’t indoctrinate someone with how to conjugate the ‘avoir’ verb in french. It’s either right or wrong and can be proven with text books and other resources.

However, my point is not about current school education, I’m talking about moral education and with that indoctrination becomes an issue. To indoctrinate is to teach something uncritically, to give an unbalanced often harmful view of something which does not have a definite answer. This is true for morality which is why, as you suggest, there needs to be some sort of philosophical approach to teaching morality. Schools seem the most logical place to put this education but I think there could be other ways of educating our society to be more moral. Indoctrination is just as bad as forcing something governmentally because you are only giving people one choice. Education means giving people a choice. A society which chooses to do good, although a hard task, is a greater one than a society with no choice at all.

I’m not sure I understand you? How can someone be labelled good without having some form of morality? Are you distinguishing between morality as a belief system and good people as an action? If so, I should explain that when I say morality, I also mean integrity in action as an extension. If someone is to be moral, it makes sense to act on it, otherwise it is as meaningless as not having the moral at all. I think society needs moral codes AND good people to carry them out, but my argument is that the society and its individuals must come up with this morality on their own and not have it forced down their throat by a government. The government should intervene by educating towards a utopian society.

If that’s what you believe then I’m afraid we disagree. Modern society should never be governed by what is our true nature and I assume by this you mean genetic nature. We already go against our genes in many ways; contraception, vegetarianism, adoption, abortion etc. and I think it is a positive manifestation of our consciousness. We have become aware of our genetic limitations and this self-awareness has enabled us to overcome them. Because of this, although I would not count myself as a tree-hugging hippie, I do not think my Utopian vision is an unrealistic ideal.

My vision of this ideal is best summed up by a quotation from the film “The Life of David Gale”. Gale is lecturing a philosophy class and quotes Jacques Lacan and Pascal:

However, before you challenge me on self-sacrifice and why I’m not sacrificing my life for others I shall continue with my commentary on the Hillel quotation. I don’t share your view on what Hillel says but I fully believe in the tradition of personal interpretation and would not dare to say it was right or wrong; just different.

The way I read Hillel’s quote is this. “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” This part is saying, look after yourself. I cannot help other if I myself am not helping myself. We cannot help others if we sacrifice our own lives. This line is saying, be selfish. BUT the next line is saying, if I am ONLY for myself, what sort of a person am I? What use is it to only look after myself and then not look after others as well. And then, the last part is, if I don’t do it now, then when will I do it?

Each of these lines has meaning but they need to be seen holistically to understand their true impact. Look after yourself AT THE SAME TIME as looking after others and start NOW! For me, it is one of the most inspirational quotations ever written and is the basis of my free, morally educated society!

Come join the revolution!

• ben

— WoW! great posts!

— Although one can teach morals in school (maybe one day higher education will be available to all regardless of economic status) one can not thereby impart a sense of moral conscience just as one can teach history but can not instill in the pupil a sense of history.

Ben said:

“Some look at the way things are and ask why, and some look at the way things could be and ask why not?” Imagination is the forbearer of great things to come. In order for people to do these things volitionally of their own free will, it will require education, not inculcation, love, not fear.

Ben further stated:

Too often, though, education has been used to amass more capital (capitalism), or to serve the state (socialism). Perhaps a first step would be to take education out of the hands of government and big business.

Pax Vitae. A lot of your economic points are well stated.

Pax vitae stated:

I’ve said it before, “Education should teach you how to think not what to think.” I do find it hard to explain a utopia in which everyone can do wrong, but doesn’t. An ability to do wrong, unused, ceases to be an ability, and used, destroys the utopia. seems like it would be an unstable state. I must disagree with you that morality chiefly comes from our DNA, however, but i’m sure your arguments would be interesting.

Ben said:

Subjects like history definitely get twisted, but you go on to state that your point is not about current school education, so i’ll let it ride. Education outside of the schools? in churches? I still entertain the idea of secular monasteries, especially after perusing Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game.

Pax Vitae said,

Fascinating! people themselves may choose to be moral irrespective of their morality! We should definitely discuss this more!

I agree with Ben on Hillel’s quote, as Ayn Rand said you have to be able to say “I” before you can say “I love you.” Only by caring for yourself will you ever be able to care for others. It’s not an absolute, merely a prerequisite, that we first care for ourselves.

I’ll write more when i get time. regards.

That’s true for things like Maths and Languages (but even languages have poetic license, were it becomes okay to break some rules for added effect). But there are many other areas of education that have more to do with opinion then fact, take for example even History (“Subjects like history definitely get twisted, but you go on to state that your point is not about current school education, so i’ll let it ride.” hehe I won’t). The world ‘History’ comes by the way of Latin from the Greek word ‘Historien’, which means, “to narrate”, and that word comes from another Greek word, “Histor”, “a judge”. History not only tells stories it also passes judgments on them, which the Greeks were obviously aware of. In my history class we were given facts, along with beliefs about those facts. It’s those beliefs I’m talking about when I say indoctrinate.

Nationalism is also a form of indoctrination I’m Irish because I was born in Ireland.

To me morality is a judgement passed on an action, the action itself is amoral. People act, we then judge that action based off what is believed to be right.

Are you saying a Moral Code is something that can be taught and learned?

I’m saying morality can be talked about and explained, but when it comes time to act sometimes under great presser when there mightn’t be much time to think of how I should act, that initial response, that action, comes from a deep place within our psyche. Is it possible to change the nature of something so deep, so inherently human yet aloof, our gut reaction? I think yes to an extent, but it’s something that must be taught to children at an early age and constantly reinforced throughout society.

Another way of looking at morality, it makes sense to have friends, people who you can trust and will help you in times of trouble. There’s a helping relationship between those people, a moral one so to speak. Then there are those people we don’t really need to know, who have little bearing over the shape of my life or how my future will progress. Do I need to be nice to them, no, but should I be nice to them, yes. Why? Because morality tells us, as this is how we would like to be treated. This is the only moral code, and the one law. Do to others, as you would like them to do to you! This isn’t exclusive to Christianity, nor was Jesus the first to say it, many other philosophers before him and many in the future will echo those words.

You’re assuming that everybody will judge things in a similar light. This is fine for some big issues, but not all of them. Ask most people and they will tell you killing another person is wrong, unless there is a Justified reason. It’s this “Justified Reason” that causes all the problems in Moral Codes. Take the War in Iraq; some think its right others wrong, but is there a real objective answer? When people are subjected to propaganda it’s very hard to be objective. I would say it’s close to impossible to be objective. Back to the Iraqi example: This could be any war or conflict I’m just using this as an example and I’m not debating if it’s truly right or wrong, I’m just staging a point. We know it’s normally wrong to kill so at that level it’s wrong to go to war with Iraq. Iraq was said to threaten the safety of other countries with WMDs, was this true? There’s no real way of knowing now. But lets assume the reason stated wasn’t the true reason for my example. Lets say, the real reason was in 5 years there wouldn’t be enough oil for other countries needs, literally, to fuel their economies. In 5 years we would lose all our cars, airplanes, light, all the industries that are fuelled by electricity would be hit. It would cause vast unemployment and almost certainly cause a massive shake-up in urban society. With that knowledge, ask the people if we should go to war with Iraq, they have the oil we need to live. If we don’t get it we will effectively die in 5 years. Should we go to war for self-preservation under those terms? What is the Moral answer? Is there a Moral answer?

True and likewise there are areas where this consciousness is very useful, it stops people from raping each other when the urge strikes, and killing when we are very angry. Well for most it does. We are not all alike, it’s the price of freedom, we need to be different, and if everybody were the same there would be no freedom to be different, or we would lack the essence of what is required for real freedom of choice. I’m not saying all choices are right, it’s obvious this is not the case. But without “evil” there is no freedom, I’m saying that in a general sense. There must be more then one way, as if there wasn’t then there’s no freedom. There must be at least two choices. In some cases the two choices have no moral relevance, but in others they do. If we were only ever able to choose the good one of the two choices we would have no need for morality and in effect all the other non-moral choices would become irrelevant choices, as the world can’t have any important choices if it doesn’t involve other human beings.

Look at how alcohol changes a person, or drugs! Even the food we eat changes our behaviour. We are a chemical reaction, but a unique one that can choose its own fuel for the experiment, but what fuel we choose affects how we choose and act in the future. When you ignore the fact that what we eat & take (drugs) changes who we are, you lose sight of the fact that we are linked to the physical world. While the mind might seem to exist separately from the physical, there have been many experiments on the brain that show it affects how the mind thinks and acts! Never overlook the part your chemicals play!

He’s speaking logically not emotionally. It might be worth reading my last 2 posts in the “Why Is One Happy? (An Analysis)”. I talk about emotion & logic and how the two are very much apart of who we are as a person. A life lived without desire is impossible and to long for one absurd! The joy of loves first kiss! This means nothing to logic! As logically all kisses are the same why is one more then another? Emotion!!! People tell us it’s wrong to be emotional! No it’s not! It’s wrong to be over emotional, like its wrong to be over logical! We need both and they are the synergy that makes us human, and shapes who we are. Ideas are needed for the logical mind too see that its doing a good job, but good desires are also needed for the emotional mind to feel complete. It’s the combination of the emotional & logical mind that creates our conscience. So it’s necessary to act in ways that both parts of the mind will approve.

Yes, I can see I was off with my interpretation. I think he is writing like you guys write Hebrew, he’s leaving out bits that should be left in for clarity! Hehe

Thanks for that useful reply Pax Vitae.

Pax Vitae stated:

Ben, forgive me i seem to have a penchant for tangents. Your points, Pax Vitae, are good. DNA unlike chemicals, however, is given to us irrevocably, we can’t give it back. With drugs, chemicals, etc we at least have a choice as to whether we use them. If our morals were determined by DNA then we would either be moral or not with no hope of ever changing until geneticists can figure something out. I do not disagree with your more general point that we are also physical beings though, as Herr Nietzsche said, “Body am i entirely and soul is only the name of something in the body.” Many thanks for the philological history of ‘history’, i frequently find myself doing the same thing.

Here’s my quick hypothesis on DNA and how it works… To me DNA is the starting point for nature to construct the body and then the person. Kind of like the Minimum and Maximum ranges of a device, that device being a human experiment. Depending on how this experiment interacts with the world (the food it eats, the climate it lives in, etc) it will change its value the next time it’s rewritten. DNA is re-written by the creation of Children, keeping within similar limits of the original program, generally, and by adding, removing, or changing its value to enhance the new strain’s survival chances, based off previous experience. Meaning the life experiences of the DNA will effect the new version of DNA that it will create in a child. But to keep the system fluctuating DNA must mix with another different strain of DNA. This helps to cover most of the possible combinations of DNA values (1 life = 1 value) so if something changes there is a DNA variation in existence or is almost in existence to cope with that change. It’s like the Second law of thermodynamics, all systems increase in entropy, randomness. (http://www.2ndlaw.com/evolution.html)

An example of this in Rabbits: In Australia there was a problem of overpopulation of Rabbits so the government ordered the destruction of millions of rabbits. To do this they created a disease that would do the job of killing the rabbits. But with in a generation or two the rabbits became immune. Their DNA found what was needed to survive so it becomes a characteristic of all the remaining rabbits. (http://www.umt.edu/geograph/edlund/g346/myxomatosis.html)

I think if we want to discus this further we should start a new topic on this subject under Science.

— I agree for the new topic. I agree on your take on DNA, but it seems to do little for your original thesis.