4. Do you believe your personal feelings are the best indicator for what is right and wrong? Do you believe that you know you’re doing the right thing when you feel good inside about it? Are a set of stable, external values and expectations necessary in life?
I think that it’s a slippery slope to use phrases like “feel good” when you’re talking about ethics and morality. Ethics and morality shouldn’t operate at the level of the feelings of the giver. They cannot adequately be relied upon. It’s like relying on donations to run a cultural museum. Maybe you’ll make people happy enough that they’ll give enough that you can pay your staff, but what if you don’t? What if they’re not moved by enough feelings of good will for you to meet your operations budget? I’m not saying museums have a moral right to exist, I’m just making the point that good will based on good feelings alone is not always sufficient to get a job done, including, I would argue, the job of leading a moral life.
I’m not saying that there is only one reliable set of external values that we should all rely on. There are many. Some are in conflict. And that’s OK. But life has been going on for a good long time now. I think we could all do well to rely on the experiences and efforts of people who have come before us and done a lot hard work considering what it means to lead an ethical life. If you want to call some of those efforts inspired by God, that’s cool, but you don’t have to in order to benefit from them.
Here are a couple of ways this plays out for me: I feel that if I go too many days without praying, whether I feel guilty about it or not, that I have made a moral lapse. I have not lived up to the religious requirements I willingly signed on for. I don’t feel I need to be punished. I’m good with asking for forgiveness and getting back on the wagon. But nevertheless I have erred. Let me repeat that I don’t feel bad for not praying, in fact sometimes it’s a relief to dodge that duty for a few days, but I believe that it’s wrong because my religion tells me so. I’ve internalized those values, to my own betterment I believe.
And sometimes my internal compass is a great guide. If I give the “in” presents to Toys for Tots and feel good about that, I’m not saying that’s invalid. But I value my volunteering time as an English language learning buddy with the Refugee Development Center more. Even though I have to do a lot of small talk (talking is the whole point), and I’m bad at small talk, and often run into issues with social anxiety. Even though I’m tired after work and have to push myself to go. Even though it runs late and I’m often dragging the next morning. None of that is great. Based on how I FEEL, I’d just give more cool Legos sets to Toys for Tots. But I don’t believe that’s what the hokey pokey is really all about. I said here once that to those to whom much is given, much is expected. And it’s not all dollars and cents. My work with the RDC is part of me evening the scales of my life. I evaluated my skills. I evaluated my community’s needs. It’s not about making me feel good. And I believe I have a duty to give back.
So, in short, while it’s tempting to think, “I feel good about X, therefore X was the right thing to do,” I believe we do need a set of stable, external, specific values to help guide us.
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