Page 36 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
Conclusion. No one doubts that an act of generosity, kindness and benevolence, that the beauty of the virtues of congeniality, of grace, of etiquette, as Hume posits, benefit others and cause immediate pleasure in our lives because they are naturally attractive to self and society. Hence, we foster them in our children. Yet, reflective equilibrium is not enough. Though Hume claims the me-they mirror is self-regulatory, meaning that we naturally disapprove of barbaric acts, his definition of virtue does not stop anyone from acting viciously. Morality as a spectacle sees action after-the fact. The key is to prevent harm to self and others, first and foremost. However, historically, the so-called orthodox virtuous- majority in their time forced their ideals and mass murdered, in their vast crusades and inquisitions beneath the sword of justice, millions of innocents. Today, the virtuous minority is powerless against the rampant destructive forces of chaos: suicide bombers, drive by shootings, incinerations, etc. We are challenged by globalization, extremism, wars, ingenuine tolerance, poverty and hunger, teen suicide, alienation, and economic bankruptcy. The spectacle is now no longer displeasing, but macabre. What do we value? What are our duties to self and others? How are we to resolve our own tensions? Orthodox ideology and orthodox morality have been historically dangerous and violent. So, who are we becoming? Where is our humanity? “Such a powerful and invisible thing is the nature of man. For how can a vine be moved to act, not like a vine, but like an olive, or again an olive to act, not like an olive, but like a vine?”115 This was thought impossible, but facts show otherwise. We are not vines: we are complex socio-political-religious and secular beings that oscillate among atheism, theism and a plethora of philosophies as diverse as eastern Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen and western Platonism, Aristotelianism, Humeanism and Kantianism. Yet beneath them all there is one basic underlying principle: the ethics of reciprocity or the golden rule in many variations and
115 Epictetus. Diss. 2.20.18.
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