Like I've said, when I was in HS I had morality class, with Sister Rose. It was very interesting. I learned a lot of moral terms in there like dilemmas and supererogatory. We also, like I said, covered the topic of moral engagement and disengagement. (I could have sworn that she called it moral involvement. But I don't remember. It's been 40 years.) Do they have this class today? In grade schools or HS's? And should they? I think they should. The purpose of the HS class was to teach us moral terms and develop correct moral reasoning. It did have kind of a Catholic bent to it though. We passed the class by answering the question "is abortion murder?" If we answered correct, we passed. I liked most of the rest of the class, like I said. It was informative. And I think the last abortion thing was the only time they tried to indoctrinate us. I liked Sr. Rose too. She was very sweet natured. She had almost a childlike approach to life. She told us the Sunday comics were sometimes where she got her best moral advice. She also marched for racial justice in the 1960's. This was the mid-80's. So she must have passed on by now. But I think we should have it. And could they present it in a non-biased way?
I had never heard of this supererogation thing previous to your writing...so I looked it up! From Wikipedia: In the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, "works of supererogation" (also called "acts of supererogation") are those performed beyond what God requires.[1] The Roman Catholic Church holds that the counsels of perfection are supererogatory acts, which specific Christians may engage in above their moral duties. Similarly, it teaches that to determine how to act, one must engage in reasonable efforts to be sure of what the right actions are; after the reasonable action, the person is in a state of invincible ignorance and guiltless of wrongdoing, but to undertake more than reasonable actions to overcome ignorance is supererogatory, and praiseworthy.
Perhaps we should all endeavor to be at least 10% kinder than we think is necessary, to account for confirmation bias.
I'm working out the networking systems logic for how our neurons make decisions. Morality without epistemology is merely dogma, while my book now covers epistemology based solely on demonstrable facts and physics. Churches, judges, and others can argue all they want with the laws of physics, and their own machines will laugh at them.
So if you agreed that abortion was murder you passed the class? Otherwise you failed? What a B.S. class.
Actually, I think you passed and Sister Rose flunked--unable to see beyond the dogmas of her church. I think I've probably shared this at least once before. The earliest thing I can remember of my childhood was at age 5: Sister Lauentia's lecture on Original Sin. It seems like yesterday. It was dramatic and made a lasting impression. Alas, I didn't exactly flunk, but the nuns told my parents I'd be better off in the public school. And I was! And I don't exactly believe in original sin anymore, but I think it's a useful metaphor for the anti-social propensities we all seem to have.
I'm remembering more and more of that morality class. I took it in 1985/6. When someone stabs you with a knife or shoots at you, you have the right to block the blows. But if it is clear, there is no doubt, it's their life or yours, and you decide to kill them, that's a moral dilemma. OTOH, if you figure it would be easier to just shoot them in the leg and disable them. Or even if you had to possibly cripple them with the bullet, that's not a moral dilemma. I think that would be called the lesser of two evils. I don't know if we brought up that subject in Sr. Rose's class. Because that's the only name I've heard that called. Eddie Murphy brings up this subject, that you might have to shoot someone in the leg if your life is in danger and you have no choice, in the 1990 movie "Another 48 Hrs." I thought about that subject, the lesser of two evils, when I saw the movie clip on TV in 1990.
That morality class I took in HS told us how to form our moral views, and how to question moral views too. To see if those views are right, in society. To just see if our views are correct. Most people agree that you should always defer to whoever is in power, your government IOW. And follow what they say. Except some say, in very extreme situations. Some people say World War II and the Nazi Holocaust was such a situation. I was watching on satellite TV once, a young Jewish mother was in a concentration camp. And she knew what the Nazis were about to do to her and her children. (The strange thing to say is she was unique that way. Many of the Jewish people in concentration camps didn't even know what was about to happen to them.) And when she found out, she went to a room in the concentration camp, and got some cyanide. And she gave it to her children and then took it herself. Most people would agree it is always wrong to do that. To anyone, especially your own children. But some would say she had no choice, or at least that her decision was understandable. What I just said above is interesting. Deferring to whoever is in charge. In the Nuremburg trials, that's what many Nazis said. They did the things they did because they were just following orders. But courts like Nuremburg disagreed. You should never do things like that ever. Not even if your government tells you to, not even if you are just following orders.
