Ben Compton refers to a conversation he had with the following conclusion.
I quote Ben:
>I concluded the conversation by stating that the moral dilemma he should
>solve is that he had so quickly abdicated his moral beliefs when confronted
>with logical arguments. Without hesitation I indicated that it seemed to
>me that he had not integrated his "moral beliefs" into his life. He walked
>away confused and frustrated."
Though painfull IMO Ben had the right moral intuition and said what was
necessary to say.
>Which brings me back to my original question: What is moral? How do we
>know what is moral? These are important questions to answer before we say
>that we've experienced "moral decay."
IMHO I don't think that one can KNOW what morality is. Knowing is
understanding with your head, and at the best one is able to come up with
a general and therefor abstract defenition of morality. Morality is a
phenomena which is experienced = felt as a form of emotion on another and
deeper level of our human consiousness. Morality can not be experienced
'by itself' but only in relation to an occurance or as a recollection of
an occurance . When the recollection is 'filled' with f.e. a feeling of
shame or pride, than this shame or pride is the result on emotional level.
>From there it can be transformed into hope and fear for future occurances.
So in order to get an answer to the question "How do we know what is
moral?" we need the following ingredients or steps: 1.) an occurance in
the past tense, 2.) an understanding of what happened, 3.) the abillity to
"fill" this insight with emotions/feelingsubstance (shame/pride ) and the
abillity to transform it into fear/hope, 4.) the willingness to change,
5.) new circumstances where one is allowed to do it different.
1. and 2. are connected to the past with its histories and stories.
3. is what you experience 'now'. Feelings are only momentaneous. They don't
exist in the past nor in the future.
4. and 5. are related to the future with its dreams and expectations.
Morality is not only a matter of transparancy (knowing what it is) but
also of transformation (changing in time). Moral decay arises when humans
with responsibillity for institutions are less and less capable of making
judgments in the morality-area.
For my own 'moral health' I regularly do this exercise in Self-reflection:
I 'd like to share with you a recent experience.
* * * * *
I try to remember something I did to somebody: f.e. this co-worker that I
threw out of my office last week.
I try to create an inner 'video' of the situation as clear as possible. (1.)
*
When the full image is there I try to remember what my drivers were that
let me do what I'd done. (I was angry with her because we'd lost a client)
(2.)
I call this the level of 'Imagination'.
*
Then I allow myself to fill this image with feelings. In this case I felt
really shamefull, because this girl had not deserved to be threated like
that by me. ( I wont explaine the reasons here)
Though I'd rather run away from it I more or less force myself to dwell
with this feeling of shame,whilst the situationimage evaporates more and
more. What's left is this feeling of shame in me. (3.) The exercise is
ready when I am fully alive of the feeling without any kind of hypocrisy.
*
In the day's after the exercise this shame then transforms itself more and
more in a willingness to change the situation that I created by doing
SOMETHING. (4.) I call this the level of 'Inspiration'.
*
Very often this 'SOMETHING' comes as an unexpected opportunity in which I
am able to say or do the right thing. (5.) In this case it happened
yesterday (Saturday). Unexpectedly I literaly almost run into her while I
was jogging. (i spare you the details, but I appologized to her for my
behaviour at the office. If I hadn't been "prepaired" I am shure the
incident had made things worse.).
I call this the level of 'Intuition'.
* * * * *
I share this example here with you because it is so 'fresh'. Ben Compton's
example and his questions about moral decay brought it up front again and
made me clear how important it is to deal with integrity-dilemma's in all
honesty.
I give this exercise to managers that are coached by me over a longer
period. I am especially concourned with step 3 of the exercise. Exercises
in Self-reflection where step 3. is non-existing or omitted cause in the
long run moral decay.
Greetings from stormy Holland,
Winfried
Winfried M. Deijmann
Deijmann & Partners
tel.: +31 (0)575-522076
Human Resources and Communications Consultancy fax.: +31 (0)575-527310
Het Zwanevlot 37
NL 7206 CB Zutphen
Netherlands Email: Winfried@universal.nl
"An educated mind is useless without a focussed will and dangerous without
a loving heart" (unknown source)
--winfried@universal.nl (W.M. Deijmann)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>