Morality has become a complicated issue in the multi-cultural world we live in today. It affects our behavior, our conscience, our society, and our ultimate destiny. Turn on the news. Moral issues and judgments are everywhere. Oppression and revolutions in the Middle East, social and political battles in the mid-west, Wikileaks, financial crimes, abuse of children and women, corporate abuse, environmental issues and let’s not forget politics.
Politics & morality are not words that are usually uttered in the same sentence, although we often pretend that our political values are based on moral principles. I’m not just talking about the morality or ethics of our elected officials; or the crimes we hear about daily. I’m also referring to the moral values upon which we, the people, base our own lives, and the politics within our social groups, organizations, corporations, and religious institutions. Politics consists of relations involving power or authority and refers to the methods and tactics used to control the decisions and actions of the unit, whether political or social.
In politics, many seem to consider that what the majority wants or likes is moral and immorality is what they dislike. But that can’t be possible since our decisions change so frequently. Can the majority be immoral? Can the majority have wrong values? These questions are as valid in our social situations as they are in government. If ethics are just the will of the majority, they merely represent the whim of the moment, just another form of fashion.
We are all faced with moral decisions every day, and everyone adheres to a moral doctrine of some kind. Immanuel Kant said that moral judgments are binding on all human beings no matter what kind of society they live in. Morality is the core of our personal philosophy, our attempts to define right and wrong, what we ought to do as distinct from what we may in fact do. It begins with our personal behavior; how we conduct business, how we interact with our friends, how we treat strangers, how we care for the needy, how we vote, and how we live. “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness."
We must decide for ourselves where the conscience originates and how we form our personal code of conduct, Many people hold to the idea that the conscience is a matter of our hearts, that concepts of right, wrong, and fairness are "programmed" in each of us, hopefully based on sympathy, education and social ties. In reality many base their moral decisions solely on their personal “needs”, the desire for wealth, health, pleasure and recognition.
Each one of us is the judge of our own daily behavior, whether we are conducting business, playing cards with friends, leading a group event, or any other personal interaction. If we believe in an ethical code of conduct, and practice it in our personal lives, we will also judge the morality of our political positions and votes, whether Democrat, Republican or Independent. Hopefully all these judgments will be based on ethics, not our finances or personal welfare.
The world we live in has become complicated. It is full of conflicts and angst, often putting our moral compass to the test. We should be as concerned about morality as we are about cholesterol. Then perhaps moral courage would not be such a rarity.
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