All is not lost

Our evolving moral compass

The Sacrifice of Iphigenia - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770)

I’ve been reading The Quest for a Moral Compass by Kenan Malik. It presents a history of moral thought from Ancient Greece, to Christianity, the Enlightenment, and up to more modern ethical philosophers such as Sam Harris. But the book also offers the Eastern view of Confucianism, and what happened to that venerable code when it came up against modernism. [Short story, it collapsed hard.]

I’ve generally enjoyed taking the ethics classes required for my massage therapy education, and the ethics class I took at Cherry Hill Seminary while I was a student there. I find how people decide what is right and wrong fascinating.

While every culture is different, there are some remarkable similarities in the moral codes of various religions. For example, every religion agrees that murdering one’s fellow practitioners is unacceptable, as is lying, and stealing. The fact that we can all agree those things are bad are moral codes.

Ethics are what we do when no one is looking. It’s the meat and potatoes of how we treat others.

And both these things have changed over the span of written history.

There was a time when human sacrifice was entirely acceptable. There was a time when someone killing a kinsman meant a blood feud. There was a time when slavery was normal for nearly every culture

Human sacrifice is now rare, and illegal nearly everywhere, and is explicitly forbidden in both the world’s major religions and in Ancient Greek polytheism. [The only such incident in mythology is the death of Iphengia, and this is not described in a positive light, or the girl is saved and Artemis replaces her with a doe.]

Blood feuds were forbidden as a point of law in the Ten Commandments [Thou shalt not murder] and condemned much earlier in the story of Cain and Abel. To kill other humans without justification [ie., self-defense or war] was to show contempt for the creator who made us in his image. Violence outside the battles of caste warriors is condemned in the Mahabharata, one of Hinduism’s sacred texts.

Slavery was the norm in the ancient world, except for India which solved the labor problem with the caste system. [Whether or not that was a better solution is debatable.] But Christianity originated the abolition movement, and slavery is no longer legal, although it still exists underground in various forms.

Over time, our morals have changed, and in profound ways. This change has been for the better. I also think that the arc of these changes is an indicator that humans have access to an indefinable power that will guide us toward better behavior if only we are willing to listen. But only we have to have the humility to listen.

It’s far better to start listening early in life. The longer one goes not paying attention to that small, quiet voice, the further off-track one can get. Bad ethical choices become who we are, and changing course feels like death. [It’s not.] We’ve all known people who are dug into opinions, or behaviors that have no basis in truth or goodness.

But however solidified opinions may be, change is possible. If we listen to the unseen world, and to each other, we can find the path to make the world better.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; four boyz and one cranky gurl. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, and the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition.