How far should our moral responsibility extend?
Last week, we talked about the Nahuas’ moral philosophy and their belief in rootedness. This week, we are moving on to Mengzi, who interpreted the Confucian Way. Similarly to Aristotle and the Nahuas, Mengzi’s philosophy supports a virtue-based ethics, emphasizing intention right along with the acts themselves as well as repetitiveness of those acts as the way to emulate good virtues. He focuses on benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom as the four main virtues, and says that each human being has “sprouts” of these; if we grow these sprouts, we will be on the way to becoming our best selves (2A6). While we all naturally lean towards being good, environment and circumstances matter:
“As for the people, if they lack a constant livelihood, it follows that they will lack a constant heart. And if one simply fails to have a constant heart, dissipation and evil will not be avoided.”
Mengzi 1A7
Human nature naturally tends toward goodness, but our circumstances can hinder or get in the way of that nature. Once our environments are stable, we can stop focusing on basic needs and begin to reach outside of our immediate environments to extend goodness to others. Mengzi says that part of human goodness comes from the care and compassion we feel for those close to us. Thus, in order to be good to others, we must extend those natural feelings and treat others with the same care and compassion we usually reserve for those close to us:
“Treat your elders as elders and extend it to the elders of others; treat your young ones as young ones, and extend it to the young ones of others; then you can turn the whole world in the palm of your hand.”
Mengzi 1A7
The best way to know whether or not we are on the right path, we must reflect in order to keep the greater good in mind. While we all have the capacity to be good, sometimes our circumstances can lead us astray from that and we must reflect in order to learn from our mistakes and stay on the right path.
A Pandemic Dilemma: Grandparents’ health or BLM protests?
“I’ve always considered myself politically active, and when Black Lives Matter protests started happening, I really wanted to be a part of the movement. However, because of the pandemic I’ve been living with my immuno-compromised grandparents. Is it my moral responsibility to help the movement like I want to, or should I prioritize my families health and wellbeing? It kind of is a matter of life and death.”
Priorities. That’s always the question, isn’t it? For this specific case, our protagonist is torn between their familial responsibility to protect their immuno-compromised grandparents during the COVID-19 pandemic and their responsibility to their community to advocate for social justice with the Black Lives Matter movement. While our protagonist would love to attend the BLM protests, they must also consider the health risks to their grandparents that may result from this decision. They’ve turned to us for help in answering this life or death question: “Is it their moral responsibility to help the [BLM] movement like they want to, or should they prioritize their family’s health and wellbeing?”
According to Mengzi’s ideology, benevolence should be extended to others in order to be considered a good person and one should fulfill their four sprouts (natural tendencies). In this prompt, the individual asks whether or not going to the BLM protest is her moral responsibility or whether she should prioritize her immuno-compromized grandparents. From Mengzi’s perspective, there is an order of nurture when extending. In order to extend benevolence, one should start with the people closest to them. In this case, the individual would start by taking care of their grandparents. Additionally, Mengzi would say that because the individual chose not to go to the protest, they are showing proper action and their sprouts have been properly nourished. If they had gone to the protest, they would have risked their grandparent’s health for the greater good of the protest. Compromising one’s grandparents for what may feel like the best way to show support for BLM seems to be unethical, especially because there are plenty of ways to show support for the BLM movement and still be politically active in ways that don’t require going to the protests. Even at that, they run the risk of spreading COVID-19 to even more people at a protest! Not just their grandparents!
Outward Extension: Exactly how far outwards?
“Of course we have a duty to act ethically, and it’s ethical to work to make the world better – but how far does our duty to work towards improving the world extend? How much, or how little, should we work towards improving the world and not acting directly in our own interests?”
To what extent must we act in an ethical manner? “How much, or how little, should we work towards improving the world and not acting directly in our own interests?” This is our protagonists’ dilemma. If one chose to act in a manner that benefits their personal life, will they be frowned upon for not spending their time on actions that have impacts on a larger community? In other words, should our goal be to always make a change in a large manner or is it acceptable to focus on smaller change?
Mengzi’s philosophy remains centralized around the fundamental theme of hearts for capacities for virtue and the underlying goodness of the human person. While big questions like this may be difficult to answer, using Mengzi’s philosophy, the “answer” becomes more evident. As every individual already possesses the proper tools to become a virtuous person, the question about morality in the greater community starts here. To do what is best for the community is to do what is best for the individual. A closer investigation of this may clarify the point; if one expends all their energy just to accomplish tasks to better the community but consequently results in worsening the individual themselves, as a whole, the community is not really better off. Even with the extra attention on the community, it is the individuals within the community that determine its moral standing. Maintaining a moral life will result in a moral community, it is not something individuals have to try to reach.
Conclusion
Both prompts ask the question of “Should I focus on the moral issues in front of me or should I focus on the larger and more complex issues out in the world?” Where the first prompt focuses on a smaller scope and asks about whether or not they should compromise their grandparents’ health or attend a Black Lives Matter rally, the second prompt extends this outwards and asks just how much they should be working towards assisting the world, rather than focusing on the problems directly in front of them (acting in their own interests). The second prompt assumes that the problems in the world are not in their own interests, but, depending on the issues within the world, these problems could be directly affecting that person and their own interests.
If we want to ‘make the world a better place’, one way to do this is to act with compassion towards other people, regardless of their characteristics. Not only will we actively be working on our own characters, but also extending our moral characters to serve our communities. As stated in the first prompt, it is easier and generally more helpful to work on the issues directly in front of us. By thinking about the world as our loved ones, we serve both ourselves and the world.