On Morality in the 21st century (A)

An old man gets on the bus on a cold Wednesday afternoon. He relies on a heavyset frame/trolley combo to keep balance, there are no available seats. He stands blocking the aisle expecting a seat to be given up for him as the patrons look on in apathetic detachment. No-body moves to give this man a seat and eventually he has to get off the bus and wait for the next one. Elsewhere a drunken man falls over at a bus station and gains a nasty gash across his head, not deep but bleeding profusely. He is asking for help while people again go about their business as if he did not exist. Help eventually came (thanks to one Good Samaritan) but for the most part people ignored this bleeding man.  Both cases are true and both are unsettling to me. I want to take a moment to say that I am in no way about to rant about how ‘the people of today are immoral sadists’ or get on a high horse about how everyone else is immoral. I was a witness to both these examples and in both I pretended to be on my phone. I am no better or worse than anyone else and so I can’t judge others unfairly when I’m guilty of the same thing (don’t throw stones in glass houses and all that).

It all comes down to incentive nowadays. People don’t act unless they gain from it in some way. That’s the mantra of our age, ‘what’s in it for me?’ and honestly that’s pretty fair enough. Why would someone want to bend over backwards for someone they’ve never met, who they don’t know the character of and who may never repay the favour. Immanuel Kant proposed an idea of Duty for duties sake. In which our ‘duty’ was to act in a way perceived as morally good. However there is argument to exactly how far this sense of ‘moral obligation’ stretches. If I hold the door open for someone am I then ‘morally obligated’ to hold the door open for every person to walk through, or every time I use the door? If I then relent from holding the door open for someone have I failed at being moral? With all the effort it would take to uphold the standards these seem to set it is no wonder many people would rather not bother.

Not all good deeds are done for a good reason. Aquinas called these interior and exterior acts. If a young man helps an old lady across the road to impress a girl then this is indeed a good exterior act but the interior act (or intention) is wrong because it is only for personal gain (which goes back to the incentive point). Likewise someone could do a good exterior act for an honest reason but the intention could be misinterpreted by a witness (for no-one can truly know someone’s intention). For example a young man could help an old lady pick up her handbag if she drops it, but the old lady could misinterpret this as him trying to steal it and so calls for help. An innocent action of good will does nothing positive to help and only damages the reputation of the good boy.

This is probably one of the other main reasons people today are wary to act benevolently. We are afraid of how we will be perceived for it. Society and the media has made us paranoid of our neighbour and our fellow man to the point of ridiculousness. As long as we don’t stab them in the back or steal their child that is acting morally, everything else is excessive. In the workplace if someone brings up an issue they feel is wrong or causing a problem they could be branded a ‘troublemaker’ and hit the formidable glass ceiling, unable to gain a promotion. The distractions that we surround ourselves with daily also contribute. Not to put too fine a point on it but morality needs social interaction to function properly and it can be argued that isolation prevents someone doing what is morally wrong it also prevents them from doing things that are morally right.  People are complacent with simply not acting in any way that can be misconstrued and leaving others to fend for themselves.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. There are many charitable people on this planet they probably outweigh the immoral and complacent too. Only it’s easier to notice when people aren’t being good. During the London riots the worst part of society was revealed but it also created a snapshot of some brilliant people. In many communities people banded together to clean up the mess and defend their livelihood. I couldn’t help but smile at how fantastic it was that apparently there were no words said, people just got to work helping one another for a sense of community. All I hope for is that if we truly need an incentive then let the sense of fairness and community be enough.