Moral Absolutism Is Trumped By Moral Individualism - Developing One's Own Conscience

Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics showed how prudence can be used to develop a moral conscience not based on absolutist mandates.

Perhaps the first person of antiquity to recognize that absolute moral imperatives or standards were impractical was Aristotle. He accomplished this by his emphasis on the "golden mean", e.g.  between two extremes of behavior.  as the basis for a generic moral compass. Much of this brilliant and temperate morality was set out in his masterpiece, The Nichomachean Ethics.

In forging his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle was careful to invoke the practical wisdom of prudence in pursuing the maximum good (for the greatest number) and avoiding evil, or at least minimizing it if it is impossible to avoid.

Aristotle defined prudence as pre-eminent, that is, it is the practical wisdom of knowing how to act, and thence how to secure the ends and goals one seeks for one's life. The golden mean structure is implicit in the deliberative exercise of prudence but is also evident in the judgment phase of prudence - when one is called to make a right action (or not).

Aristotle's ethics bear a striking similarity to a more modern revival known as moral provisionalism.   In provisional morality the greater relative good is always chosen over the lesser one. For example, the case of the nun some seven years ago who chose to save the life of a 27 year old  woman giving birth  Her moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.In this case, two deaths with two life saving efforts represents the lesser good, while one death with one life saving effort represents the greater one. 

Anyway, Aristotle's ethics and moral provisionalism occurred to me as I was reading a letter in the WSJ yesterday about the need to impose "absolute moral guideposts to determine the line between sick and healthy behavior", especially as Americans "no longer accept the Judaeo-Christian code as God-given and absolute". The letter writer, Tim Watson, also asked:

"If there no longer are absolutes why should others dictate my morality or judge my online viewing preferences?"

Watson's sentence was interesting in that it appeared to conflate the basis for actual moral actions with a quasi-moralistic temperament subjected to certain stimuli then leading to feelings of disgust.  For example, can a person's porno viewing habits be clearly labeled as "immoral" if they arouse disgust in others but not in himself? (Say watching online videos of pregnant women having lesbian sex?). Ethics professor Cheryl Mendelson in her book, 'The Good Life', provides a perspective, (p. 157):

"The premoral mind confuses the disgusting with the wrong and retains an infantile fear of things sexual. Its rationality is overcome by emotion, fantasy, wish and projection.."

Dacher Keltner in his own book, 'Born to be Good', makes a similar point, referencing (p. 130)  when he once asked students for their reaction to a hypothetical in which a man goes to the supermarket to purchase a raw chicken, then takes it back home and has sex with it. After the majority of students respond with utter disgust they come to their rational senses and realize he hasn't really transgressed against anyone - "so long as he doesn't serve the chicken to guests for dinner".  In other words, one must first clear out the clutter of subjective emotional moralism before one can explore morality.

Thus, Watson appears to believe that because his feelings of disgust might be aroused by what he or  someone else sees or does, that makes the act immoral or even "evil".  He confirms this by also noting that at one time- "before the secularization of recent decades, most Americans knew when their behavior was immoral or depraved."

He may have a point in terms that the ethical compass of too many has become blunted or non-existent. How else explain the fate of a pledge at a UPenn frat, forced to undergo an alcohol quaffing "gauntlet" then falling down stairs, hitting his head,  and being left to lie there for twelve hours before his "frat brothers" called 911?  The young pledge died, and now those brothers are facing charges. The question is why wasn't a basic moral impulse aroused in any of them to immediately act on the kid's behalf when he was unresponsive? This is a far more germane question on moral or ethical norms than asking why a person would view pregnant women having sex.

Blaming "secularization" for any moral or ethical blunting is also off the mark. We live in a secular society, after all, not a religious one governed by the Ten Commandments or Old Testament mandates and mores.  What sort of society would we get by rigidly adhering to the latter? Some examples:

Deuteronomy 22:22

"If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from Israel"

Deut. 21: 18-21

"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and - though they chastise him he will not give heed to them, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of the city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.."

So if "old time religion" governed our society instead of a secular Constitution we'd expect adulterers as well as impudent sons stoned to death in the streets. Of course, homosexuals would also face such a fate based on several citations in Leviticus. For example, Leviticus 20:13: 'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads'.

Tim Watson's error inheres in demanding an absolute moral code everyone must adhere to, as opposed to moral individualism, or the development of a refined moral and ethical conscience. The tragedy of the UPenn incident is that none of the frat boys- who allowed their pledge to lie unattended for 12 hours-   had the conscience of a slug. If any of them had, they'd have called 911 immediately, or if obstructed by the "brothers" then gone to an outside phone to make the damned call.

Mendelson herself is clear on the role of conscience and why a highly developed conscience is essential to choice of ethical behavior. She also contrasts this with the moral immaturity that defines the premoral character,  writing (p. 71):

"In the premoral mind, in place of moral individualism - the individual's capacity to think and act according to conscience - there is mere egoism: the demand or wish, to be allowed to do and have what one wants. The premoral individual who confronts a moral culture must cope with social demands that he regards as illegitimate.

Because of his sense of entitlement, his greed and his demand for superiority feel right to him and are not internally moderated as they are in moral minds. Moral restraints may provoke him to outright rage and hatred."

Thus, we beheld Trump's ravenous rage when held to account (by the still existent moral culture) for his groping and forced kissing of women without their will during the 2016 campaign. And now, in the wake of the immoral, thuggish firing of James Comey, compounding his egoism in order to trump conscience. This leads the wary, morally developed citizen to inquire: Do we have a government of laws or of men? If of men, filled with ego and false pride like Trump, we cannot be surprised at the progressive dissolution of our nation and erosion of its collective conscience as he and his toadies destroy the ethical and moral basis for our secular laws as enshrined in our Constitution.

One can sympathize with letter writer Watson's yen for absolute moral guideposts, but in the end it's a fool's errand. For one thing absolutes are inaccessible to limited brains. So one must concede that humans – with limited knowledge- lack the wherewithal to issue absolute, fixed moral laws. Note this is not an absolute statement in itself, merely a statement of limitation, biological and theoretical, based on facts. If brains are limited in size and capacity they simply can't know everything, hence, can't render absolutist propositions about any positive actions. (This also follows from the Godel Incompletness Theorems).

Our best option then is to re-examine Aristotle's own ethics in terms of prudence, and see how they can assist us in the goal of attaining a developed conscience based on moral individualism.

Want A Better Capitalism? Keep Entitled "Big Shots" Under Control

The work of Berkeley Psychology Professor Dacher Keltner, on the critical topic of dominance and how it translates to power plays and economic inequality,  is well known to many .  In his book, 'Born To Be Good - The Science Of A Meaningful Life', for example, Keltner waxes forth on the main culprits standing in the way of a more equitable and harmonious society.  Among these is  "rational choice theory"  and the "strongest proponents are in the halls of economic departments". The deformed creature resulting is "Homo Economicus" - a misshapen critter solely looking out for himself and his financial advancement. Also a believer in the Neoliberal idiom that each person must disdain governmental supports or assistance in favor of "personal initiative". This also feeds into the nation's overt hyper-consumption, since each individual (as a "productive" worker) is then expected to consume, consume and consume using his wages....so remains on the work-spend treadmill til he croaks.

The ultimate denizen of Homo Economicus is a bizarre, disdainful and arrogant grabber: the entitled CEO, "boss man" or alpha member of a group who fancies that he is the one deserving of the "most toys". Experiments conducted by Keltner and others have exposed these deformed, entitled cretins in numerous experiments and via many observations, including: games of Monopoly in which they grab two dice instead of one to advance, and company managers invariably grabbing twice as many biscuits or other goodies brought into a room for a team, or teams of employees.

Evidently, from the get go, these entitled goobers believe it their right to grab as much as they can and devil take the weaklings or less powerful. What are they going to do? Complain to the big boy? 

Of course, transferred to the larger economic scene - say to hedge fund managers, CEOs and thousands of bosses, we can easily see the basis of inequality. If these grabbers, indeed, can set up an economic system which is rigged from the outset to get them more: more money, more jobs, more real estate, more resources of every kind  then we have a putative basis for huge economic inequality.

But this stuff isn't new. It is a fact of historical record, which can easily be checked by anyone, that the social and political hierarchies of Nazi Germany were set up this way. The most powerful and dominant always took more than their share before the German hoi polloi or little people even had a chance.  My sister-in -law Krimhilde, for example, often related how high (and low)  ranking S.S. would barge into their farm and home and take whatever they felt they could use, or give as perks to others. They didn't care it would leave the family with five mouths to feed worse off.

Much of this was exposed 60 years ago in the little known book, 'The Power Elite' by C. Wright Mills who actually modeled his work on earlier studies of Nazi Germany. In Wright's 1956 book, however, the sights were turned on American society which even then was infected by the virus of a self-sustaining clique of miltarists, corporatists, PR mavens and politicians out to feather their own nests.

Later, Harvard's Pitirim Sorokin published 'Power and Morality' which proposed that the individuals introduced by Mills were not just self-interested but sick. He wrote:

"Taken as a whole, the ruling groups are more talented intellectually and more deranged mentally than the ruled population'"

Much of this take (by an admitted refugee from Lenin's Russia) was taken as commie drivel - at least until 1959 when Edward Jennings (a founder of business ethics) quizzed 162 American execs on their lives. Were they little angels just out to do as much good while they made some profits on the side? Did they treat their employees and others fairly? Hardly.

Jennings found:

- In the office most treated their colleagues with suspicion and regarded friendship as a weakness

- They to a man allowed self-interest to govern their in work and outside behavior

But in true Jekyll and Hyde fashion, most admitted to being "nice guys on weekends" - meaning they played with their kids and invited the neighbors over for barbecue.

The implication of Jennings' findings was that most of these honchos were born with their penchant for unethical behavior. It wasn't a side effect of being in charge.

Keltner in his book (op. cit.) divides humans into "low jen" and "high jen" groups.  According to Keltner:

"Jen is a central concept in the teachings of Confucius and refers to a complex mixture of kindness, humanity and respect that transpires between people."

There are also biological markers that are signatures for "high jen" humans, including: vagus nerve operation (eliciting lower heartbeat and release of oxytocin inducing more compassion for fellow humans), oxytocin itself - inducing greater empathy for others, more trust, and the Duchenne smile - embodying the outward manifestation of love of humanity and a general trust.

By contrast, low jen humans (like the entitled power players exposed by Jennings) exhibit consistent scowls or paranoid distrust, unless weekends arrive - when they put on their fake smiles (always easily distinguished from the Duchenne because the eyes are not a part of them, only the mouth).

Keltner's claim and which is expatiated upon in his book, is that the jen concept "reveals a new way to think about the evolution of human goodness."  Very often, as Keltner observes, low -jen humans originate in the cradle. They are seldom held by their mothers, they are usually slapped or screamed at rather than embraced, hugged, and these actions lead to negative physiological markers - including low oxytocin levels, and overly excited vagus nerve response to most situations.

The "jen ratio" is the somewhat subjective measure that allows the quality of jen in a person to be assessed. According to Prof. Keltner, when assessing the jen ratio in another person, we place all his negative recent actions in the denominator, and all his positive actions in the numerator. For a manipulative billionaire like Trump, for example the jen rato would be about 1/40 on a given day. For Hillary, it might be 3/10. Based on these, one can easily see Hillary has the higher jen ratio.

Is this enough to elect a politician or presidential candidate to high office? Maybe not, but it's a start, certainly in terms of choosing the lesser of two evils which is what we are confronted with in this election. As Carl Bernstein also pointed out on 'Smerconish' this morning, neither one of these candidates - Trump OR Hillary - "has been properly vetted by the media" . This goes beyond 15 minute segments on '60 Minutes' or the occasional appearance on 'Face The Nation'. Bernstein was referring to (and demanding) entire hour documentaries on each of the two, going to their real selves and getting beyond the mythologies.  Will the bought and paid for PR- driven media do it, say like Cronkite and CBS would have in the 60s? I doubt it.

Keltner himself published a controversial paper on power dynamics in 2010 after which three European academics (Martin Korndorfer, Stefan Schmukle, and Boris Egloff) surmised it might be possible to reproduce the results using data from surveys carried out by the German state.  Their work suggested the opposite of Keltner et al's, i.e. that privileged individuals were actually more generous to fellow citizens than poorer citizens. (Which makes sense because they have more disposable income to afford greater generosity). However, on submitting it to The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found it was rejected by peer reviewers.

On re-submitting with some major revisions (extending analysis to the U.S. and other nations) it was still rejected. Did the journal peer review board exercise proper and objective judgment or display bias?  It isn't clear, but if the charity index is anything to go by, their conclusions certainly needed to be more rigorously crafted. One must be able, after all, to separate the many perks of privilege - such as being able to devote more time to volunteer work- from those aspects that feed and foster an aggressive sense of entitlement. The peer review board likely felt this was not done. In any case Egloff et al ultimately published their work in an online journal.

Keltner, for his part has pointed out many of his social experiments have indeed been replicated. I even cited some of them in my book, 'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God.'.  As he explained in one NY Times magazine piece:

"Here is what power does to just about every human being: it's going to make you not pay attention to people as well as you used to pay attention to them....You will be a little less careful in the language you use. You will be a little less thoughtful of how things look from their perspective.. So just practice a little gratitude."

He makes excellent points, and I'm sure if more power wielders followed his advice we'd behold fewer instances of big shot malevolence and also healthier form of capitalism. This has oppose to "I got mine so screw the rest of them!"

Older Mensans Ought to Be Smarter than to Pick On A Millennial With Tats!

"Michelle" - posing for the cover of Mensa Bulletin in Dec. 2004. Older fuddy-duddie Ms piled on in the wake.

I joined Mensa 20 years ago in order to try to find a forum and venue predicated on greater open-mindedness, and with people prepared to discuss issues based on evidence as opposed to emotion.  What I often found, in the course of sundry debates-exchanges, were people often no more informed than the "normals" or  the "98 percent".  Sure, they had the higher IQs (you only qualify if you place in the upper 2% of the population) but that alone doesn't ensure being able to use logic, or refraining from attacks on a fellow member's appearance.

One of the most bludgeoning wake up calls transpired after a Millennial, "Michelle", appeared on the cover of issue No. 480 back in 2004. Michelle (see image) evinced the non-conformist Millennial who is attractive but also opts for body piercings and tats.  The photo was intended to focus on Generations in Mensa, and how well they got along with each other. Well, not so much based on the flack that followed in droves of hateful, stupid and spiteful letters to the Bulletin. Many of these were published in the subsequent issue under the header 'About That Cover Photo'.  The lead in paragraph to the letters observed:

"Although the volume of letters complaining about the cover and our model, Michelle, still runs a distant second to those incensed over a small child kissing a puppy (February, 2004), what we lacked in quantity this time we made up for in vehemence and vitriol."

 Some examples:

"I suppose your cover girl picture of Michelle shocked many of us when we pulled out the Nov-Dec Mensa Bulletin from our mailboxes. But isn't that what you intended? Hey! For the first time in 25 years of membership I simply tore off and trashed the cover.....

It is sad when an otherwise pretty woman should have to mutilate herself in order to draw attention. 'Smart' or not it shows a self-demeaning personality who desperately needs psychiatric help.

Also, there are no 'generational differences! Past generations simply visited these people in freak shows!"  - C.B.Huesing  Ft. Wayne, IN


"What could have possibly gone through the heads of whoever put the picture of the mutilated trollop on the cover of Mensa Magazine No. 480?  Someone may think that garbage is attractive - but those rings are for controlling pigs, which she certainly is. And her other piercings may be cute to bikers and drug abusers as well as the completely ugly tattoos which will keep her out of the workplace.

It is incredible that Mensa would think this is acceptable in any way. It is barbaric and not conducive to recruiting people like my daughter who is 16 and trying to decide between Harvard, Davidson and Williams ...She would be repulsed if I showed her this magazine, so I will trash it immediately."

-T.R. Cook III, D.M.D., M.D.  (No location given)


"This is the ugliest cover I have ever seen on a Mensa Bulletin. Does this individual actually represent Mensa youth? Certainly, she and the cover are proof that there is no positive correlation between intelligence and judgment."  S.D. Higgins - Albuquerque, NM


"I am appalled by your cover selection for the Nov.-Dec Mensa Bulletin. By placing the photo of a misguided woman who has deliberately disfigured herself her face and body and having called it 'Generations in Mensa', you have invited disgust on my part. The ultimate offense was in your reference to this as 'body art'.

If you persist in this manner of publishing I will feel compelled to request that my membership in Mensa be severed." - 'Butch' Bialke, Park Rapids, MN


"The Mensa Bulletin has reached new levels of propriety and journalism. First, it was the article several issues ago about the slut Asia Carrera. She may be Mensan but a slut nonetheless.  Now, the current issue features a freak on the cover.

Who will be next? Osama bin Laden? At this rate you'll be up for a Pulitzer Prize for sure!"

- J.P. Robinson (No location given)


"With reference to the Mensa Bulletin of Nov-Dec, 2004, when did Mensa get taken over by Satan?

With reference to the cover, please refer to Leviticus 19:28 and to Revelation 21:8 and the term 'abominable' which tells us what is to become of those who do such things. There are the words of Jesus Christ as God who made everything and established all the commandments, statutes and judgments stated in the Bible (John 1:1-4 and Hebrews, 1)"  - Harold J. Farrell, Hastings, Neb.


"How sad that a beautiful, intelligent  young woman feels it necessary to disfigure herself with those really bad illustrations on her skin. Even more sad is the appearance of her image on the cover of issue No. 480, the magazine for the members of American Mensa."- Trudy Loper


---
Well, after reading through all this flapdoodle, I was reminded of the old saying: "better to remain quiet and be suspected of being a fool, than to open one's mouth and confirm it".  Especially the character who claims to be an M.D. and calls Michelle a 'mutilated trollop' and the other nominal Mensan who cites an ancient book once used to stone women and homosexuals to death.

But Michelle got her say in the January issue (No. 481):

"I have to admit I was a bit surprised (perhaps naïve) and dismayed to hear that my appearance on the cover of the November/December issue of the Bulletin caused such an uproar. I was a bit puzzle by this reaction, particularly from a group that, by definition, is unusual. Mensans all at least two standard deviations above the mean, making us all patently unusual.

Human nature dictates that people form themselves into groups consisting of "us" and "them".  This division can be made along a multitude of lines: geography, religion, race, gender. I suspect many people are chafing inside at the self-imposed, yet uncomfortable, social prison that necessitates the denial of their true selves. It bothers me that intelligent people so easily fall into the grips of such an automatic, yet unfortunately common, social phenomenon.

TO those who object to my appearance: the only really important difference between us is that I got tired of pretending to be 'normal'. Now I simply wear my weirdness on the outside, and it has been quite liberating. It has also added the advantage of separating the 'cream of the crop' when dealing with people, or the less common but truly worthwhile effect of opening one's mind.

If my mere image can challenge assumptions and group boundaries, and just one person resists the temptation to fall into the grips of the human brain's unfortunate categorization process, then I have dropped my pebble in the pond. When one boundary becomes fuzzy, perhaps others will as well- such as those relating to gender, sexual orientation, culture or any other arbitrary human division that exists.

Those who reacted negatively- I implore you to take a moment to look inside yourself and ask why my image causes you such distress. Is it because your perception has been challenged? Is it because you can't reconcile the dichotomy of an intelligent person who is also different? This is not a criticism, it is in fact, a gift.  If you confront these feelings it may allow you to grow. I am a picture on a piece of paper to you, yet be assured that somewhere out here, that image correlates with a living, breathing human being.

If you took the time to know me, it might actually threaten your world view...yes- but what is life without challenge? Growth rarely occurs in the absence of conflict. I can't claim much importance, I am just one person in a sea of many. But what I represent - change- should give you a cause to look inward and determine why a mere image can fill you with such venom.

We are all different. Many of us have felt alienated and as if we don't quite belong anywhere. I have been blessed with the wonderful yet sometimes difficult inability to pretend to be anything aside from what I really am. Please respect that."

-----

Quite a well written response. In regard to why such venom was displayed in reaction to Michelle's image, I am reminded of an experiment described by Dacher Keltner in his book, 'Born to Be Good'.    He was interested in exploring the arousal of what he called "gut morality" in an Ethics class. He surmised most people simply reacted at "gut" level before their neocortex could process actual moral transgression and distinguish it from idiosyncrasy - even foul idiosyncrasy.  To that end, he asked students to morally rate a scenario in which a man goes to purchase a chicken from the grocery each week, then has sexual relations with it.

After most of the class reacting emotionally and screaming "Pervert!" and condemning the act as most foul (not fowl), Keltner led them through the act again and more slowly, engaging their higher brain centers instead of the limbic ones.  By the end of the period they backed off, dismissed the guy's penchant for  store chickens as a foible and agreed no law or moral edict was violated so long as the practice was confined to his own domicile, preferably with the curtains drawn. Oh, ...and he should not invite any guests for chicken dinners!

I'd submit that the reaction to Michelle's tats and piercings equates to a similar gut reaction, and the assorted elder Mensans who fired back irate replies didn't let their gut -stoked neurons cool down first.  Had they waited a week or so and processed their thoughts more carefully, they'd likely have backed off ...Maybe. Who knows?


In the end, what the episode disclosed is that enormous divisions exist even inside Mensa, oh, and inside Intertel too,

Most of these we may never be able to surmount, as they relate to religious differences, political divisions, and economics ....but I hope to whatever higher order power may exist we get over the negative reaction to appearances....especially among the most intelligent citizens.

Else ...what the hell will we do when these guys below show up from Tau Ceti? If people can't handle Michellle's piercings and tats how are they going to handle communicating and interacting with ET?

Give This Pope A Hand!

Let me say up front – as I have in past posts- that I like this new Pope a lot! He has in the space of a brief time, swept away more pennyante bollocks and malarkey from the Catholic Church than John XXIII did in his whole papacy. He got my vote early for asserting – and more than once- that atheists can "be there at the end", so long as they live moral lives. (Not that I believe there’s an "afterlife", but it’s always good to know there’s an ‘escape hatch’ in case I am wrong!)

Now, according to a front page story in The Washington Post, Pope Francis has come out full square against “small minded rules” dogging the Church – but which most of us know were put there to keep her “children” under firm control and on a short leash. In an interview with Jesuit publications released Thursday, Pope Francis set the framework for his papacy, calling for reform of both the attitude and the structure of the church, and “chided what he saw as the tendency of some church leaders to focus on ‘small-minded rules’ and instead insisted that “the church’s ministers must be merciful.” Francis said, “the people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.” I ‘ll second that!

The pontiff added:

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

The scientific Materialist concurs with this, labeling such reactions to assorted minor acts as emotive moralistic trivialization. If such moral trivialization is permitted to metastasize into law then we describe it as moralism, For the most part, moralism isn’t founded on species survival but on an unsubstantiated and subjective belief in a uniform human sensibility to external stimuli. In this way it becomes the conscious vehicle of behavior modification, used by any group with political or economic power.

Nor, may I add, is it necessary to belabor sexual issues, as if one is a single-minded obsessive authority, especially when so many in the Church’s hierarchy are guilty of covering up real sexual crimes, i.e. priest –practiced pedophilia. And yes, that’s one reason I’ve no respect for Ratzinger, and very little for Pope John Paul II, and certainly not making him a “saint”. He wasn’t. Nor is there any proof he met the saint standard on even one “miracle”.

So, Francis is totally correct in advising his underlings to back off and not become so obsessive, because when they do they inadvertently turn the spotlight on their own acts – or absence of what they should have done when thousands of trusting kids were being abused across the globe. Clean up your own closet first, then you can seek to clean up others! (Advice I also proffer to nations who believe they are exceptional, 'holier than thou' moral stalwarts when they are not!)

One of the many factors that drove my departure from the Catholic Church, then onward to atheism as a college student at Loyola, was the litany of small-minded “rules” that almost entirely focused on sexual acts. There were piddling proscriptions against: “impure thoughts”, “looking at impure pictures”, “committing impure acts” (i.e. “jerking off”), and later – as an adult- there was the bogey of artificial contraception (defined as “mutual masturbation” by the Church’s throwback, residual Inquisition, i.e. the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the no-no of abortion.

In my new book, ‘Beyond Atheism, Beyond God’, I put all these acts under the category of third rate moralism not any actual morality. (My new book can be purchased at: www.quantumbeing.net)

A classic example that highlights the moralizing instinct in humans was described by Dacher Keltner and presented to his students to gauge their level of moral revulsion. Keltner presented them with the case of a man who goes to the supermarket each week, purchases a packaged chicken and then takes it home for sexual relations, before cooking and eating it. (Keltner: , Born to be Good – The Science of a Meaningful Life,, 46)

Keltner reported that after his posed example he observed the students to “react with the full blown Darwinian-Jamesian emotion of moral disgust written across their faces". (ibid.) The nature of the reaction, presumably, discerned an innate moral right to judge, said to be inextricably bound to the “moral gut.” Keltner’s examples include moral philosophers (e.g. Jonathan Haidt) that “prioritize the moral gut”. In other words, millions of years of human evolution have embedded such disgust –revulsion reactions into us and we ought to heed them as a criterion for moral judgement when aroused.

But why? To the scientific Materialist one is then allowing emotions to rule and if these are codified into law many nasty consequences can ensue. In the case of the man abusing his purchased chicken, Keltner expressed relief to report that - after their initial disgust - the students agreed the behavior could be placed in the category of a personal perturbation or even idiosyncrasy. And so long as practiced in the man’s own home – presumably with blinds drawn – there were no laws broken. Oh, it would also be best if he had no dinner parties featuring abused chickens!

Obviously, and clearly, one can make the same case for an adult (or youth) “jerking off”, “having impure thoughts” or practicing artificial contraception as a married couple. None of these reach the standard of “severe moral transgressions” as the Church’s moralists have expounded, and certainly if they’re claimed to –they blow all moral consistency into a cocked hat. The moralists are then left to rationally ponder how the hell they can weigh a single jerk off, say, against slaughtering 15 people with a Bushmaster .223. If they say both offenses merit ‘Hell” they are all certifiably insane and their moral laws descend to inchoate horse manure.

As for the Church’s moral minions railing against abortion, Anne Druyan and the late Carl Sagan pointed out that John Connery, S.J, ( a leading Catholic historian), showed that up to 1869 the Church’s Canon Law had historically held abortion to be murder only subsequent to the end of the first trimester. (Sagan and Druyan: PARADE, April 22, 1990, 6.)

The interesting thing is that for the bulk of Church history the practice of abortion was allowed, at least up to the first three months of pregnancy. More interesting is that the doctrine of papal infallibility was pronounced in 1870. Could it be that the latter doctrine was introduced to back up the Church’s change in its moral position on abortion? If so, one wonders who really controls the Church, the Holy Spirit as is so often claimed or zealous prelates in positions of high power who fear relinquishing vise-like grips on their congregations.

As for that doctrine itself, Theologian Hans Kung, for example, observed the following ( Infallible? An Inquiry, 143.

….no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently cannot be erroneous.

The true fact, then, is that all the minor proscriptions – such as against assorted sex acts the prelates and hierarchy keep yelping about – are only violations of the Magisterium or teaching office. In other words, as one brave Loyola padre once confided to me: they are meant "to be offered as advice, not absolute moral laws." This is something the remaining Catholics, especially in the U.S., would do well to bear in mind.

"Jen Ratio" and Goodness: Maybe We Should Take Note

 Sandra Fluke Embodies a high jen person of goodness
According to Dacher Keltner, in his book, 'Born to Be Good', "Jen is a central concept in the teachings of Confucius and refers to a complex mixture of kindness, humanity and respect that transpires between people."

In later parts of his book, he even makes the case that there are biological markers that are signatures for "high jen" humans, including: vagus nerve operation (eliciting lower heartbeat and release of oxytocin inducing more compassion for fellow humans), oxytocin itself - inducing greater empathy for others, more trust, and the Duchenne smile - embodying the outward manifestation of love of humanity and a general trust.

As we can see by examination of the photo of Sandra Fluke - at the Democratic Convention- her face captures the "Duchenne smile", and hence manifests higher oxytocin levels in her physiology, as well as being a "vagal superstar" in the parlance of Prof. Keltner. These also reflect a "high jen" persona or to quote Confucius: "A person of high jen brings the good things of others to completeness." By contrast, a negative, scowling persona indicates low jen and he is more likely to bring the bad things of others to completion. Moreover he doesn't trust others unless they are part of his immediate kin.

Keltner's claim and which is expatiated upon in his book, is that the jen concept "reveals a new way to think about the evolution of human goodness." Also, why is it that those like Sandra Fluke exhibit high jen while her calumniators, say like Rush Limbaugh - exhibit very low jen? It could be on account of their upbringing. Very often, as Keltner observes, low -jen humans originate in the cradle. They are seldom held by their mothers, they are usually slapped or screamed at rather than embraced, hugged, and these actions lead to negative physiological markers - including low oxytocin levels, and overly excited vagus nerve response to most situations.

The "jen ratio" is the somewhat subjective measure that allows the quality of jen in a person to be assessed. According to Prof. Keltner, when assessing the jen ratio in another person, we place all his negative recent actions in the denominator, and all his positive actions in the numerator. For example, let's say he's a blogger who professes to be religious and aspires to carry forth "God's holy word". Then in the numerator we place all those times he has encouraged others and shown true Christian love to them, and in the denominator we place all those occasions in his blogs where he's threatened them with hell even indirectly (e.g. putting 'tick, tick tock' up ) or inserted any hellish images - say of atheists burning up. Let's say just once he's written an inspiring piece on his blog that elevates other religions, while 25 times he'd put up hell images or condemning words in the past month. Then his jen ratio is: 1/ 25 = 0.04.

Keltner also maintains one can apply the jen ratio to just about anything: one's interior life, the tenor of a family reunion, the goodwill of a neighborhood, the rhetoric of a president or the actions of a political party. From this, one would be able to say that very plausibly Obama's rhetoric is "high jen" while the GOP's  behavior, standoffs on the fiscal cliff and (coming soon) the debt ceiling is very, very low jen.

Sandra Fluke's caring for her sisters facing health problems because of their being unable to access affordable contraceptives, is very high jen. She obviously seeks to bring the good of other young women to completeness. She even put herself on the line, exposing herself to the vitriol of pigs like Limbaugh! Her speech also at the Dem convention disclosed her as a high jen, basically good person. Her Duchenne smile is the physiological marker and confirmation. It is the outward signature of an innate, humane goodness which trusts other people implicitly and seeks to bring their best potential to fruition.

Keltner also makes the case that just as people have jen ratios, so also do nations. As he observes:

"Nations whose citizens bring the good in others to completion thrive. High jen ratios are the hallmark of healthy societies."

He goes on to cite a study that showed (ibid.):

"For every 15 percent increase in the trust of a nation's citizens, their economic fortunes rise by $430."

What about the United States? Is it gaining or losing jen? According to Keltner (p. 9):

In the recent explosion of studies in social well being, signs of loss of jen in the United States are incontrovertible. The percentage of Americans who trust their fellow citizens has dropped fifteen percentage points in the past fifteen years."

He lists the symptoms of ill health/ low jen  as follows:

- increasing feelings of anomie, greater loneliness

- the trend toward less happy marriages,

- People have fewer close friends, intimates

- Young babies have "more contact with their strollers" than human hands

Keltner also attributes (p. 195)  the American low jen ratio to a "touch-deprived culture". This ends up triggering a cycle whose outcome is inevitably lower oxytocin, less national trust. The lower oxytocin resulting from lack of tactile stimulation then initiates even less trust, and lower oxytocin. He asserts that the widespread tactile deprivation in the U.S. - from the case of parents ignoring crying infants, to teachers fearful of patting students on the head for good work (on account of possible abuse charges) "owes its deep roots to the Puritans, well known for their attempts at extirpating human delights".  The 40 -year long hostile "drug war"  (especially against MJ) is also a creature originating with this dynamic, as is the widespread fear of sex, intimacy.

Interestingly, Prof. Keltner ties these trends to an "ideology" that if pursued further will lead to a national jen ratio of 0. He refers to the main culprit as "rational choice theory"  and the "strongest proponents are in the halls of economic departments". The deformed creature resulting is "Homo Economicus" - a misshapen critter solely looking out for himself and his financial advancement, and a believer in the Neoliberal idiom that each person must disdain governmental supports or assistance in favor of "personal initiative". This also feeds into the nation's overt hyper-consumption, since each individual as a worker is then expected to consume, consume and consume using his wages....so remain on the work-spend treadmill til he croaks.

A high jen society with a view to correcting the unemployment problem, for example,  would instead leave out rational choice theory and de-prioritize consumption. It would see the problem as too many work hours by a relative small proportion, so would seek to partition those work hours so they are more equitably allotted to all who need work. Thus, instead of current 50-60 hour weeks (imperiling family health and personal time), we'd go down to the more reasonable 30-35 hours a week. This would enable more people to be hired, albeit at the shorter hours. They'd initially earn less income, for sure, but they'd also have less for infantile consumption. As the new wage -work tableaux then settled in, a new wage-price structure would be the outcome ...so prices would be held in concordance with the new wage structures. But by then, a firm saving ethic would already be established, having been reinforced by earlier lower income.

The problem is that the rational choice theorist doesn't trust for this to happen, or be beneficial to society. It more suits his Neoliberal fancy to have definite income winners and losers as opposed to spreading the wealth (income, resources) so more of the society benefits. It also suits his fancy,say if a shareholder of some company like Mattel, to have more 'Barbie' buyers not fewer. Naturally, this person is severely low jen!

The general outcome of this inverse jen thinking abounds: "economic losses loom larger than equivalent gains, losing twenty dollars stings more than finding a twenty pleases, " and thus the affected person is further induced to pursue rigorous self-interest.

Interestingly, this same exact dynamic is what Benjamin Barber has defined as in accord with the "infantile consumer ethos" in his book, CONSUMED.  Thus, we see that the Neoliberal, self-interested pursuit of economic gains is tied to a naturally infantile, low jen persona.

Is there more to it? I believe there is. I, for one, hypothesize it's not merely a matter of rational choice theory taking hold but rather excess militarism too. Militarism extolled as a national virtue debases a country, and causes it to pursue decidedly low jen goals such as less international cooperation, perpetual war (to keep the military industrial complex fed), building of empire - with military bases scattered by the thousands across the globe, and a military culture which praises all soldiers who've "served" as some kind of super-citizens, but disparages other citizens, say like Peace Corps workers, or even the medical volunteers for 'Doctors without Borders'. The sure sign of a sick, low -jen society is none other than one for which the glorification of the military is paramount. And the more money we cast into its maw the worse it will get, including manifesting in outbreaks of irrational gun violence.

Keltner is basically correct, but he needed to extend his net of low jen culprits a bit wider!