Since I plan on using this platform to write about moral issues, I thought I’d sketch out as best I can some approximation of my moral framework as it stands at the beginning of 2024.
Beings with feelings ought to feel well. Their feeling well ought to be in consequence of their being well. To the greatest extent possible, their well-being ought to be on their own terms. The weight of suffering is immense, and the world should be optimized to alleviate it for all. Thoughts, impulses, actions, and social structures working toward these ends are good.
It might seem surprising that I begin with feelings, but in some way, that’s what morality is all about. In a universe without anything with feelings, I don’t think anything could be morally good or bad, because no matter what happened, no one could get hurt.
However, it is not ideal for good feelings to only be possible when one is detached from reality. Pleasant distractions from suffering and unmet needs do not constitute wellbeing. The ideal is for one’s feeling well to be the product of one’s good circumstances.
To the greatest extent possible, the power to sort out what circumstances facilitate a community’s or individual’s being well and feeling well should not be pressed upon the community or individual, but determined by them.
The human being is, first and foremost, a needing thing, as are all living things. Unfortunately, our cognitive process for meeting needs uses the experience of suffering to give weight to problems. While this is not a perfect indicator, we should not expect people to invest an unrealistic amount of their resources in denying our wiring when we could instead insist on having a world in which all our needs are met.
We must not have a world in which people exist for systems, but one in which systems exist for people, in order that the needs and the well-being of the people always be prioritized. If exceptions must be made to the rules that govern a system in order for people to live and live well as understood above, then the rules are unacceptable and the system must be challenged.
Challenging that which prevents, constrains, or imbalances wellbeing begins with interrogation. The means of interrogation, in this context, are reason, skepticism, and curiosity. The impulse to imagine one’s own feelings as more important than another’s must be interrogated. One’s sense of the “obvious” that elevates one’s own perspective over others must be interrogated. The systematic valuing of some bodies and/or minds over others must be interrogated. The illusion that someone’s suffering is perfectly fine must be interrogated. The notion that wellbeing only belongs to those who prove they deserve it must be interrogated. Your economy must be interrogated. Your government must be interrogated. Your culture must be interrogated. Your ideology must be interrogated. Your privilege must be interrogated. You must be interrogated.
While this is not a perfect breakdown of my moral compass, it is a good start, and that’s sufficient for me at this time. If I’m torn apart by a moral conundrum to which their is no especially good answer, this moral treatise may not provide a resolution, but does at least highlight precisely the tension that makes it a moral conundrum in the first place, which is useful in itself.
by J.D. Hansel
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