Ethics, Life

Guts

I studied philosophy at Oxford, and in ethics was drawn to John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism.

Human happiness as a basis for morality seemed more attractive than rules and commandments, and all the thought experiments seemed to suggest the ‘right’ thing to do drops neatly out of weighing all the consequences of your actions and choosing the course with the best or least worst consequences. Great.

The problem is, I’ve increasingly realised, for me, it doesn’t work…

Why? In truth I have to admit I first realised I had a problem because utilitarianism simply ‘looks bad’. When people see you weighing ‘secular’ values, like money or resources against ‘sacred’ ones like values or rights or fairness it ‘feels’ wrong to them. And here is the clue I think. Utilitarianism does ‘feel’ wrong.

Listening to a Philosophy Bites podcast, I heard someone say the job of ethics is to accurately describe our innate ‘felt’ sense of what is right.

When I first heard this, I thought it was plumb wrong. I had always thought that the job of ethics was to lay down a rational, internally consistent code of behaviour, and then to win everyone round to living by it.

The trouble is like bills of rights and codified legal systems and indeed utilitarian calculations it’s all too hard; there will always be exceptions and situations and messiness in human affairs are important and don’t always fit.

So I’m coming round to the view that it’s a lot simpler than I thought…

Our minds are Bayesian probability engines. We take the sum total of all we know, have seen and done and form instinctive ‘gut’ judgements on things, which we then test against new data. That’s how we work.

Following your gut on something you’ve never seen, done or know anything about may not be the best approach – get some data or ask someone else.

But on things you know a great deal about, people, what’s right and wrong, what you should do and what you shouldn’t, we all have an amazing storehouse of knowledge and experience accumulated over a life, plus the cultural and biological inheritance of the entire human race since we evolved.

On the great moral questions and the big ethical choices in our lives, the ‘right’ thing to do is follow your gut; ignore utilitarian calculations and rationalism – your gut gives you answers to the big questions.

Life

Achilles

Within hours of setting up this blog and posting my first post I was gripped with a pang of pure fear.

What if someone mad, bad or sad takes an interest in me, seeks to contact me, meet me or hurt me or my family?

Natural human reaction to unknown unquantifiable risk – flight. Must put privacy around the blog, make it invite only or better still just write for myself and only let others see any of it when I’m 100% sure it’s safe and correct and good.

But then Achilles came to me. When I thought of the concept, Aristotle was the Greek for me. Achilles – like Brad Pitt in Troy – was too flashy and reckless and gym-toned and beautiful.

But on reflection Achilles has qualities I value too. Bravery, action, leadership, courage and the capacity to stand tall and be counted.

So I changed the name of my blog to Achilles and Aristotle not or. I may not have his looks, torso or divine protection, but I can have some of his courage, boldness and strength.

The desire to retreat to the purely cerebral, to my own cave and away from the uncertainty of people is strong within me. But the rewards of family, work and friends require constantly stepping out from the shadows.

So what’s to hide? If I attract some spam, some barbed comments, even some people I don’t want, I can have the strength within to ignore, forgive or say no.

So I’ll follow Achilles, set aside fear and just write.

Life

Day one

Where to begin. I’ve blogged elsewhere for a couple of years now, so I know the score. Write what’s in your mind and go with the flow. It’s the day before my 42nd birthday and I’m typing (a little clumsily) on my brand new iPad which I’ve waited over 9 months for. Lovely.

As Arthur C Clarke said the only thing which differentiates any sufficiently advanced technology from magic is the ability to understand the technology. The iPad like the iPhone is magic.

I decided to start writing because I’ve been thinking about it for a year or more. But I feared starting, and in any case could never get my hand on the laptop – an iPhone is too fiddly for WordPress. So today is day one and what is in my mind? Mainly cancer.

Just thinking the word is enough to create tension in my chest. I had malignant melanoma over 15 years ago and had a big chunk of my left thigh chopped out. Strangely I can say melanoma more easily than cancer – I’ve said it more often to explain covering up in the sun or the large scar I have which shows in shorter shorts.

Cancer riddling me is the sum of all fears. And one I’d long forgotten. But David Servan-Schreiber has reawakened my angst with his excellent book Anti Cancer. I think everyone over 35 should read it.

His curse is to scare me into going to the doctors. In rare cases melanoma returns and I have a couple of things to get checked out. His gift is to make me see – as I’ve been working up to for months, that looking inside yourself, caring for your own wellbeing and writing it down are all well worth doing.

I had started a ‘to do’ list for my 50th birthday. The advice of a good friend, Anti Cancer, and the fear of not making it to 50, suggests just getting on with it.

Writing this is a start.