The Right Thing
Taking money out of your father’s pocket is wrong. Taking money out of your own pocket is right. Why? That’s what the societal norms tell us. There are notions of what is right and what is wrong for different situations. An act done in compliance to these notions is deemed “the right thing” to do. An act that violates these notions is labeled bad. If everyone lives by the norms, things more or less work fine. If someone acts different, clashes happen.
Stopping at a green light is wrong. Stopping at a red light is right. Why? That’s what the established traffic rules tell us. If everyone follows the rules, traffic moves more or less smoothly. If someone acts different, accidents happen.
So the point is that we are all better off if we follow what is considered right according to the society, which I will refer to as the “right thing” or the “moral” act.
What about the “free will” then? What about choice? Why should I subscribe to a norm, when I know for sure that the alternate way I want to do a thing is no worse than the accepted “right thing”?
This is like asking why must I drive on right-hand side in US, when I can prove that a left-handed driving systems is as good as a right-handed driving system. Truth is that in many cases like this, the various choices are all equally good. It does not matter which one has been chosen. What matters is that one of them needs to be chosen and then followed properly. Having both in parallel will ruin the traffic for everyone. Similar is the case with social norms. Several things that are prohibited by the society may actually be, in absolute terms, no worse than the accepted norms. The “right thing” in that case just happened to be one of the options that was chosen. But once chosen, it needs to be followed by everyone.
Isn’t that unfair? Why do I have to follow the option that some other people felt right? What if they didn’t have the prerequisites to even consider my option.
It’s like the condition of a Porsche driver with a top speed of 200mph, who has to stick to a 65mph on the freeway. Even though he knows he can control his car well at 150mph, and while accidents may happen, they will probably be because of the mistakes of other drivers who are not used to driving close to such fast cars. When cars of different abilities move on the same road, the rules are made to satisfy as many of them as possible, but it is inevitable that some will be left unsatisfied. Setting the norm at 150mph or at 30mph would have caused much more trouble. Unless I can find a solution that could better accommodate everyone, I must stick to the existing rules.
This leads to the next question. What if the alternative I am suggesting is actually better than the existing “right thing”? Doesn’t whole human progress depend on new thinking, by breaking the existing norms and finding something better?
A parallel question is, how can traffic situation improve over time. What if someone finds a better way to regulate traffic that requires drastic changes in the existing traffic rules? A better way to allow a wider range of speeds? That is great. That must be done. But it has to be done properly. Let’s say I found that alternative way. I can’t just go on the freeway and start using it; that will cause accidents. The new way needs to be recognized and incorporated into the traffic rules, before it can be safely used. Same for social norms. I need to convince people around me. Ofcourse, not the easiest thing to do, but can be done. Raja Ram Mohan Roy did it, so did Dayanand Saraswati. The social norms do evolve with time, partly by the inputs of such people, and partly by the gradual impacts of technology and interaction with different communities.
[ See newer posts on the evolution of morality, and its context dependence ]
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Disclaimer: (1) There are just my observations regarding the concept of morality/ethics in the world – my perception of “how things are”, and have nothing to do with “how things should be”. (2) I do not intend to claim any moral prowess here by stating these views – I am very likely more immoral than an average person.
ps: Thanks to Ankit, whose recent posts (here, here and here) got me into thinking today and gave the much needed impulse to actually write down something.
I seriously feel that society is perfect the way it is because in any other way, it would be almost as screwed up. It would require a long space for me to explain what I really mean by this. Here, I would just say that I do not think anything needs to be changed in the society. If you do not need to change anything in the society, the concept of “right thing”, according to me, never arises. Same is the case on the personal front. I feel that no one needs any conscious effort towards a change because there is no better place to go in a life which is quite meaningless. All the books which teach that there is a purpose to life are most probably lying. Gita included. I do not mean to offend you but thats how I honestly feel.
By “right thing”, I mean what is considered right according to the social norms. There is no right or wrong in the absolute sense. At any point of time, whether or not the society is changing, there are certain things that are considered “right” and others that are wrong in that instance of society. Point is that the society could run more smoothly when everyone acts according to these norms. (added a sentence in bold, to make the point clearer). If someone feels a different alternative is better than an existing norm, the proper thing to do (for the sake of a smoothly running society) is to convince other about the alternative than just adopting it in isolation.
More about Gita later in a separate post.
Interesting post. I agree on the whole with what you say about societal rules keeping our lives safe from chaos. However, societal “rules” as they exist today seem to be in two layers- one is the “ideal” layer were our “rights” are decided by what leads to decent functioning of the society and our systems on the whole. The other unsaid “rights” are almost “tricks” which bend existing rules just enough to benifit those who bend them, a little more than the average “ideal” rule follower. Not all of us openly acknowledge these “right/tricks” but use them to our benifit anyway. Examlple: A porsche speeding well above 65, but not getting a speeding ticket. The porsche owner probably recognizes the extra risk of speeding, but is confident of “getting away” with it. Or even think of small rules we break to make things easier for us, or bribes and “personal contacts” that people use to beat established systems.
I might be deviating from your main idea, but what do you think of these two layers? Should we be more critical of people who bend the “rights” a little, keeping them at par with those who don’t? Or is it ok to bend the rights a little, as long as it does not have a noticeable effect?
@Aditya: That’s precisely the reason, I think, that notions of ethics/morality were defined. There is only so much that can be controlled by rigid laws. For other things, that are subtler and harder to put within the purview of laws, morality/ethics are meant to guide the actions in the “right” direction. To answer your question, I guess one should be critical of “immoral” actions, just like “illegal” actions.
But I agree that there are just too many possibilities to what humans can do, and no system can define in sufficient detail which of those actions are right or wrong. But that does not mean we totally abandon the system. It just means we must keep refining it (in the “proper” way
) to include the new scenarios.
It’s like the constitution of a democratic country. It always has shortcomings and new amendments keep coming in, But we don’t abandon it because of these limitations. Instead, we have to follow whatever constitution says at a given moment, if the country is to be run properly. Not to say that the country runs perfectly with that constitution, but it may get much worse in absence of it.
It seems to me that this is where religion comes in then? If you and I took it upon ourselves to enforce _strictly_ the _ideal_ methods of smooth functoining, not more than a few dozen people at best would obey. But religion seems something “above” peers, something with more power than “mortals”, because it attributes reasons to things that our knowledge and reasoning cannot explain. It is easy to “convince” and “direct” a huge chunk of our society using stories of gods, conepts of “punya” and “paap” because this “power” makes them obey?
Waiting for your post on Shrimad Bhagwat Gita. Though I’m no expert on it, I’m a fan.
Yes, I think religion is a way of making people do things more coherently in the society, whether by their loyalty to the religion or through the fear of God. Religion puts down a framework for how to live a life, combining laws and ethics with rites and rituals, so as to make it easier to follow and provide a more wholesome experience for a common man. I can imagine it would be much more difficult for a man to consult a reference book of morality everytime he is doing something, than to be brought up in a religion getting acquainted with “rights” and “wrongs” gradually and implicitly.
Hmmm…. So you see relativity is ubiquitous!
What is wrong for me, may be perfect for you and vice versa…
I suggest that you should also plan a post on Relativity after the one on Bhagvad Gita!
I realized one or two posts will be grossly insufficient to write about Bhagwat Gita, Instead, I have created a whole website for these discussions. Check out Bhagwat Gita 2.0.
[...] Posted in philosophy by Nitin Gupta on February 28th, 2009 (Here is an earlier post on my concept of morality, before reading this [...]
[...] Posted in philosophy by Nitin Gupta on February 28th, 2009 [ See earlier posts on the concept of morality, and its context dependence [...]