Is morality ultimately a form of ignorance?

TheMadMan

Adam and Eve ate the apple.
Now we know good and evil, right and wrong.
Morality is born.

To guide ourselves, our behaviour, we created this unwritten law called morality.
Different people, different cultures, different times have had different morality.

'This is good!' 'That is bad!' says our(own?) morality.

When we act by our morals we are always making a decision.
A decision taken is always against one or more other options that are not taken.
This means that a decision is never 100% otherwise it wouldn't be a decision. An 100% decision means choice-less action.

i.e a person is in flames
goal: put out the flames
options: water vs gasoline
Would you say that you made a choice?

So morality, which is a chosen behavior towards X situation is never total, complete in itself.
It is not total understanding but rather a calculated decision based on past knowledge, which makes a moral act always partial, thus partially ignorant.
One would say then that morality is partial understanding and partial ignorance but I would put into question if there is such a thing as partial understanding.
One can have partial knowledge but understanding to be called as such must be in itself complete.

In case you believe that there is not such thing as total action I remind you of the phenomenon 'Flow State/Wu Wei'.
A martial artist in the flow state is not choosing what to do but rather is just doing.
The river flowing down is not choosing which way to go but follows the nature of its gravity.
A mother does not chose to love the child and do good by it but simply follows her nature.

Morality that acts by the knowledge of the past is always limited and thus it is partial knowledge.
With such morality one is meeting the everchanging reality of life.
We know how much humans cling to their past tradition and knowledge and judge the fresh and new situation through morals that are no longer just and appropriate.
Simply look at a history book.

But then, one might ask, how do we guide our behaviour if not through this morality?
I would answer: by virtue.
And what is virtue? I say it is the transcendence of morality.

Unlike morality, virtue is not cultivated. It is not something that you practice.
'What I did was good' says morality.
'I only acted through my understanding of the present situation' says virtue (although virtue would prefer to remain silent).

So we have the moral person who acts through the traditions of their organized belief system and we have the person of Heraclitus, of Chuang Tzu, of Christ and of many old wisdom who acts spontaneously through their understanding.

I admit that such a person is the highest goal, not something easily achieved and for many, unrealistic.

So we got banished from paradise for gaining the knowledge of good and evil but maybe through our own evolution we can create the garden and be as gods.

T Clark

So we have the moral person who acts through the traditions of their organized belief system and we have the person of Heraclitus, of Chuang Tzu, of Christ and of many old wisdom who acts spontaneously through their understanding. — TheMadMan

Sounds like you are familiar with the Tao Te Ching. This from Verse 38, Stephen Mitchell's translation.

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos. — Tao Te Ching

Although I am mostly in agreement with what you've written, I think you've laid it out too starkly. Most people don't make decisions based on a formal system of morality. For me, that's what conscience is about - it includes internalized learned rules, but also empathy and compassion.

T Clark

↪TheMadMan

And welcome to the forum.

TheMadMan

Most people don't make decisions based on a formal system of morality. — T Clark

It is true that in modern times people base their morality less and less on formal system. I took into consideration the whole history of mankind.
But still I observe that people, consciously or unconsciously, create a structure of morality for without it they feel at a loss.
When self-understanding is lacking, a system of belief takes its place.

TheMadMan

↪T Clark

Thank you.

T Clark

It is true that in modern times people base their morality less and less on formal system. I took into consideration the whole history of mankind. — TheMadMan

I'm not a good enough student of history or anthropology to be definitive, but I think my description of how most people make moral decisions probably applies during all times.

But still I observe that people, consciously or unconsciously, create a structure of morality for without it they feel at a loss. — TheMadMan

Most people probably do to some extent, but I think there's a lot of wu wei in how even regular people treat other people.

TheMadMan

I'm not a good enough student of history or anthropology to be definitive, but I think my description of how most people make moral decisions probably applies during all times. — T Clark

I think whatever the age people adapt their behaviour to the standard of the culture. In other words, people were/are generally conformist. So they followed the morality of the tradition otherwise the price to pay was too high.
The best of them are those who defined the structure and obeyed their conscience but I believe that was uncommon. Maybe that is why they are the ones we remember and admire.

Joshs

↪TheMadMan

I only acted through my understanding of the present situation' says virtue (although virtue would prefer to remain silent).

So we have the moral person who acts through the traditions of their organized belief system and we have the person of Heraclitus, of Chuang Tzu, of Christ and of many old wisdom who acts spontaneously through their understanding — TheMadMan

Isn’t acting spontaneously still a making reference to one’s accumulated experience, which is shaped by their culture?
Is t the immediate ‘now’ always a synthesis of past and present?

TheMadMan

↪Joshs

What you are pointing to I would call it reaction not spontaneity.
Accumulated experience, which is conditioning, is mechanical reaction which is of the past, be it emotional or intellectual reaction.

Is t the immediate ‘now’ always a synthesis of past and present? — Joshs

That's how it usually is. The 'now' stops being 'now' and becomes the future through the past.

The question is: Is there a 'now' that is not mechanically determined by the past, a 'now' that is constantly refreshing?

T Clark

The best of them are those who defined the structure and obeyed their conscience but I believe that was uncommon. — TheMadMan

I don't think that's true, but, as I noted, I can't provide more specific backup for that belief.

Joshs

↪TheMadMan

That's how it usually is. The 'now' stops being 'now' and becomes the future through the past.

The question is: Is there a 'now' that is not mechanically determined by the past, a 'now' that is constantly refreshing? — TheMadMan

A number of schools of philosophy, as well as researchers in perceptual psychology, believe that a ‘now’ divorced from memories of a past is a now with no content and no meaning. For instance, to recognize the words on this page , or any object in your environment, requires the filling in of what you see with all sorts of information from past experience. Otherwise nothing would makes sense. As a other example, it would be impossible to enjoy music if all we ever experienced was each note in the pure ‘now’ of its appearance. Following a melody requires that we retain in memory the previous notes as the next one is being played.
I would argue that the key to optical moral judgement has to do with what sort of larger framework of interpretation we use to guide our experience of the moment, not cutting ourselves off from that background understanding, which would not only be impossible but would render our world incomprehensible to us. This relation between past and preset is not mechanical, because we subtly reinterpret our past in each fresh moment of experience.

TheMadMan

↪Joshs

A number of schools of philosophy, as well as researchers in perceptual psychology, believe that a ‘now’ divorced from memories of a past is a now with no content and no meaning. — Joshs

I do not mean that in spontaneity the 'now' is divorced from the memories of the past. I should have made clear that being free from the past does not mean forgetting it, but rather not being conditioned by it.
For example, a tall blonde man has hurt you in the past. In the present you come into contact with a tall blonde man. The hurt, which is the past, triggers you and influences your relationship, thus the past creates the present.
I'm asking if it is possible that you divorce yourself not from the factual memory but from the hurt (emotional memory) and thus you meet the situation fresh.

Joshs

↪TheMadMan

I'm asking if it is possible that you divorce yourself not from the factual memory but from the hurt (emotional memory) and thus you meet the situation fresh. — TheMadMan

I think that’s difficult to do because one has to have a reason and a way to modify how one approaches the situation. All we have to go on is how we have previously understood it. In order to behave freshly , we have to be able to come up with a new insight, and we can’t just will that.
There is a psychotherapeutic approach called focusing (developed by Carl Roger’s colleague Gene Gendlin) which enables us to tap into our bodily feelings in such a way as to allow new understandings to emerge. Rather than verbally rehashing a stuck situation, we non-judgmentally sense it as a whole from a holistic bodily felt perspective, being on the lookout for shifts in meaning.

TheMadMan

↪Joshs

I think that’s difficult to do because one has to have a reason and a way to modify how one approaches the situation. All we have to go on is how we have previously understood it. In order to behave freshly , we have to be able to come up with a new insight, and we can’t just will that. — Joshs

I agree that it is difficult and one needs to work a lot on it from different perspectives.

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadMan

In some ways you frame the idea of morality within the Christian mythic assumptions. This has an underlying Nietzschian stance, with the idea of 'going beyond good and evil. He was speaking mainly of the customary expectations of so-called 'virtues'. However, if the idea of going beyond morality was taken to the extreme it would be ethical chaos. The underlying premises of morality are based on social factors, such as the principle of the golden rule of treating others as one would wish to be treated, as well as morality existing socially as a form of social contract.

180 Proof

Adam and Eve ate the apple.
Now we know good and evil, right and wrong.
Morality is born. — TheMadMan

This preamble contradicts the title of your thread which otherwise doesn't make much sense to me. And the discussion so far doesn't help. Homo sapiens are a eusocial and metacognitive species, after all, so our moral concerns are adaptive and, to the extent we codify them into normative judgments and conduct, they are habits (i.e. virtues) developed by trial-and-error (i.e. praxis). Thus, morals are performative forms of understanding (re: empathy, eusociality, human health-fitness-ecology), not just abstract rules or emotive preferences.

TheMadMan

↪180 Proof

This preamble contradicts the title of your thread which otherwise doesn't make much sense to me. — 180 Proof

There is no contradiction.
Knowing good and evil is ignorance in duality.
An animal is not ignorant in that sense.
Ignorance is not the lack of knowledge but of understanding.

TheMadMan

↪Jack Cummins

However, if the idea of going beyond morality was taken to the extreme it would be ethical chaos. — Jack Cummins

What may seem to man as chaos to the universe it is natural order.

180 Proof

↪TheMadMan

Whatever. :roll:

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadMan

I am not sure if you are trying to advocate moral anarchy. If you are, that is in itself prescriptive to some extent.

As far as chaos is concerned that may be the general background from which all development emerges, but even chaos theory points to patterns of order. Human beings develop moral ideas, which are different from the instinctual behaviour of animals. This involved the evolution of language in culture and is the basis of conceptual thinking and rationality. So, to say that morality is ignorance is contradictory because to cast morality aside would be the abandonment of reason in favour of irrationality.

TheMadMan

↪Jack Cummins

I am not sure if you are trying to advocate moral anarchy. — Jack Cummins

I'm pointing to no-morality, neither anarchic nor hierarchic.

As far as chaos is concerned that may be the general background from which all development emerges, but even chaos theory points to patterns of order. — Jack Cummins

Exactly my point.

So, to say that morality is ignorance is contradictory because to cast morality aside would be the abandonment of reason in favour of irrationality. — Jack Cummins

In accordance with you what you said above on chaos, what's appears as irrationality may be beyond rationality.
As I said before I'm not speaking of the ordinary man but beyond it. I pointed to the man of Chuang Tzu, Zarathustra's etc.

As far as we ordinarily are we live in chaos thus we need reinforcement of order which we call morality. Which is why I conclude that forcing the system of moral codes because of lack of understanding is ignorance.

One doesn't cast aside morality but rather drops it, just like the music expert drops the music score and reaches the rank of virtuoso by unbounded creativity.

Tom Storm

So we have the moral person who acts through the traditions of their organized belief system and we have the person of Heraclitus, of Chuang Tzu, of Christ and of many old wisdom who acts spontaneously through their understanding.

I admit that such a person is the highest goal, not something easily achieved and for many, unrealistic.

So we got banished from paradise for gaining the knowledge of good and evil but maybe through our own evolution we can create the garden and be as gods. — TheMadMan

I have never considered that there is much to the idea of good or evil. There are behaviours which harm the flourishing of conscious creatures and we can judge those behaviours accordingly. Generally I think humans create morality to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred forms of order.

In the jails I have visited I am often curious how many prisoners are sincere Christians. The idea that following a religion makes one behave morally is not just contradicted by jail populations but also by history and the egregious crimes committed by believers of all persuasions across time.

TheMadMan

↪Tom Storm

Agreed.

Agent Smith

This preamble contradicts the title of your thread which otherwise doesn't make much sense to me. And the discussion so far doesn't help. Homo sapiens are a eusocial and metacognitive species, after all, so our moral concerns are adaptive and, to the extent we codify them into normative judgments and conduct, they are habits (i.e. virtues) developed by trial-and-error (i.e. praxis). Thus, morals are performative forms of understanding (re: empathy, eusociality, human health-fitness-ecology), not just abstract rules or emotive preferences. — 180 Proof

That is to say there's a reason. I like @TheMadMan's POV too. He seems to be saying that one must look Beyond Good and Evil (Freddy Nietzsche). That, of course, runs counter to what we've been making a big fuss about (God).

It seems, either there never was a God or one is being created.

180 Proof

That is to say there's a reason. — Agent Smith

"A reason" for what? I don't see a connection to what I wrote in reponse to the OP.

Agent Smith

"A reason" for what? I don't see a connection to what I wrote in reponse to the OP. — 180 Proof

Apologies, my bad. I seem to have barked up the wrong tree mon ami. Carry on.

TheMadMan

↪Agent Smith

It seems, either there never was a God or one is being created. — Agent Smith

If you'll allow me to be "contradictory" (but not really):
If one sees God, there is no God.
If one cannot see God one can start believing in it.

For example. For Jesus there is no God when he is alone.
When those who cannot see ask him of God he has to bring the truth into a word and make it a relative one thus creating the image of God.

Agent Smith

↪TheMadMan

Superb inferences mon ami!

Apologies you had to be contradictory.

TheMadMan

↪Agent Smith

No need to apologize for what one takes joy in.

Agent Smith

↪TheMadMan

:up:

Agent Smith

Knowing good and evil is ignorance in duality. — TheMadMan

Interesting. Care to expand on that.

Is morality ultimately a form of ignorance?

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