Moral (Personal Experience and Understandings)

Moral is, from my understandings, the values buried under our skin that we will never desert.

Personal Experience

As a student who studies oversea for over 4years, I have been paying subtle attention to values and morals outside of my culture, namely Western culture. I believe what Richard Rorty said was true that "there is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves". Hence, the belief that our 'moral' is but values that are taught and reinforced over and over during childhood, and we do not necessarily need to follow the rules made by ourselves and the environment. That is where the sense of lost comes in.

Back in the old days, as a 17-year-old high school kid living in a completely new and different environment, I had tried to overthrow some of my beliefs (those that do not lead to a decent, virtuous, and happy life), and I called this process as 'finding myself'. It is a rather violent process. You basically suspend most of your judgments, and do not rely on your values. Instead, you learn from the culture outside of your own. Anyways, this process is highly dependent on age, timing, situations, and people around you. The best way to experience this process is to move to a new place and start a new life.

4 years later, after 2 years of high school, and 2 years of university, I transit from 'finding myself' to 'merging new self with old self' to 'knowing who I am'. I understand that indeed "there is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves", but what we put there is carved into our bones. Human is highly flexible and adaptive, and as the existentialists would call, 'a nothingness'. Human is a nothingness, a being-for-itself, which means the core/ essence of human is a mere consciousness who strive to become something (e.g. a doctor, a singer, a waiter etc.) but will eventually fail, because the human mind is not a particular thing, it is ever changing.

My Understandings of Moral

The mind is ever changing, especially for those philosophical minds and free thinkers. But our mind, including the rational self and emotional ego, is not totally in our control. That is the subconscious part of us: things that we automatically say or do opposite to our initial intention. Here is where moral comes in.

Moral acts as our base values, which we can consciously rely on to judge everyday situations. Also, on a subconscious level, moral is the bottom line where we do not give in anymore. For example, it is inhumane to not feel sympathy for people who severely suffer from natural disaster such as earthquake or flooding. It is almost impossible to not feel grateful for people who offer us a helping hand when we are in great need.

Moral is not necessarily universal. Although the world is getting closer and closer together, moral still varies from one culture to another. But that is not the point. The point is that moral defines who we are. People are different, and moral is one of the reasons why. It is great to have universal values such as human life is valuable, and happiness is an essential part of life. That gives us the most basic foundation of human interaction. However, it is also significant for us to have individual or communal moral. Communal moral gives us a sense of belonging, and individual moral defines our characters.

Conclusion

This article does not teach moral lesson, but it tries to explain the nature of moral. I hope this understanding can provide a base line for interaction between Asian culture and Western culture. I do find some differences in the two main cultural traditions. For example, Asian culture believes in a gentle way of living, and Western culture believes in "living dangerously", do-what-you-want way of life. No matter what, moral varies between individuals even within the same culture. But the fact is that our universal human values are the same: treasure life, be kind, help people in need, work hard, be happy, be honest etc.. After all, we are human, no matter what race.

Side note: I decide to put this article in the New Journey rather than the Idealist's Journal, because this is an effort of trying to clarify any confusion getting in my way. And the best way to do it is to write it down, not only for my own use, but also as story telling and share thoughts with others. Therefore, I wouldn't consider it as wasting time to spend my evening writing this article. But I shouldn't. :)

#Ethics #IdealistsJournal