Ethical conditioning

I tend to believe that ethics is a sort of sense, a faculty that is developed by making sound and unsound choices and gaining experience from living through the results.

Those aspects of an action (mental, vocal, or physical) that lead to benefit of any sort for any being push the action toward the ethical end of a scale, while harm of any sort to any being push it towards the unethical. In this sense most choices have some mix of the two and it is often the case that we find ourselves having to compromise, though generally through lack of awareness of the true nature of the situation.

This is a very karmic view of ethics and I freely admit to being heavily influenced by Buddhist thought and the experience of my own meditation practice.

It is also an optimistic view, in that it leaves the creation of the ethical self up to the individual. The individual is capable of, and responsible for, becoming an ethical person. The change or lack thereof is really a matter of conditioning.

When I make unethical choices, I harm myself first. Since I never tend to keep harm to myself, I end up acting it out on others. The opposite is also true. The more I expose myself to ethical choices, the greater the benefit to myself and, by extension, to others. As I open myself to either of these streams, I condition my mental response and train myself to be more of one or more of the other. By taking a good look at the process, it becomes obvious to me that I want the benefits that come from choosing the ethical path.

Benefits rock!

The side effect is that this close observation of myself generates a great understanding of human fallibility. As I watch myself fail and succeed, I begin to notice other beings as they are, going through the same process as me. Compassion then makes it next to impossible to generate any sense of hatred toward another being, even for making dumb and damaging choices. As I attempt to support the ethical choices of another being, we generate a feedback loop and mutual benefit arises.

This is called love and it is both the most selfish and the most selfless thing you can do.

And the world needs it. Now.

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2 Responses to “Ethical conditioning”

  1. Hi Sean,

    I found your URL through your freegeek e-mail account. I love this entry so much that I am going to quote a bit of it in my “quote of the day” in my own blog (birthingway.livejournal.com).

    I am not sure if we’ve met at FG in person yet? I think maybe yes–at the Xmas party?
    In any case, thank you for sharing.
    blessings,
    d.

  2. sean says:

    Hi Dina!

    Thanks for the compliment. Nice to see my words reached someone. Plus, it tickles me to know that I was quoted on the same page as Thich Nhat Hanh and xkcd.

    Just checked out your photo at birthingway.ca. Not sure if we have met… I was at the Xmas party. I have a pretty erratic visit schedule to FG these days. Perhaps we’ll meet one day!

    :o)

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