Ensaio vencedor - Guilherme Eufrasio Pinheiro
"Old were the days in which either Bacchus or Phebo prevailed…"
Topic 2
“ Now morally practical reason pronounces in us its irresistible veto: There is to be no war, neither war between you and me in the state of nature nor war between us as states, which, although they are internally in a lawful condition, are still externally (in relation to one another) in a lawless condition; for war is not the way in which everyone should seek his rights. ” - Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1795)
In the spectrum of influence of morality over social action (those terms will require further specification), little importance does morality play on contemporary society mainly because of the fluidity of values and rising competition. I will argue that such shift from taking into consideration what ought to be done (meaning morality) to, in certain evidences, not considering it whatsoever, indicate a dangerous future for humanity as a result of the absence of grounding principles and non-legal binding terms in which individuals shall agree to live in a respectful and sustainable society. We will see that Kant’s influence towards creating what is today known as Human Rights is extremely valid, but at the same time pose as a paradox in terms of the ends of its very own concept of Universal law in modern society.
I would like to clarify a few critical concepts that will be used throughout this work: first, by approaching the Universal law, Kant’s concept to define guiding principles that one should do expecting that others would do too so harmony and peace would rule, I am not questioning by no means the essence of this idea but rather how it has been shaped and literally used by individuals. Secondly, Weber's social action is being used here as a mere concept to define whatever response did an individual have to a social stimulus in its perceivable environment.
In this paper my aim is to display, through examples of the contrary, the importance of the renovation of classical schools of thought to maintain a positive development of society.
- General dispositions
One might argue that my positioning is quite conservative if I expect to foresee and prevent a change in morality that does not corroborate to society’s previous work on this topic, and for this reason that I understand the necessity to separate moral changes into two different categories: organic moral change and ambiguous moral change. The first is related to the development of notions that will ultimately contribute to optimizations in the way humans interact amongst themselves and towards nature, such as international treaties on environmental protection or gay marriage, as conflicts are avoided and no personal freedom is transgressed. The latter, on the other hand, is the very opposite: changes that harm social life in favor of exacerbated individuality, such as the current profit logic.
- Causes and Pathways
A few historical facts will help us to shed light on how western society first started to empty in values. It was in the 18th century that gender was used as a matching-factor for academic fields and technique started to matter more to the detriment of critical thinking and creativity. In this context, a pedagogic program exclusive for boys was implemented in Europe, the so-called Quadrivium, that involved subjects related to mathematics. It was regarded with high importance and influence in comparison to the Trivium: program related to Social Sciences especially for girls that was not exactly referred to as actual evidence-based science. Up to this day, remnants of this system corroborate not only to the development of capitalism (as the growing industry requires specialized workforce) but also to the empowerment of sexism on almost every aspect of the interaction between men and women. Consequently, little effort has been put towards “ updating “, or simply maintaining individual's concern to practical moral questions in their everyday life, and that is why values today are no longer constant and invariable, but indeed working for ephemeral needs of millions of individuals; what I like to call the Era of Ethics. Three possible outcomes are generated out of this context: It is understandable that human society is still adapting from a millennial tradition of strong moral values to a liquid (as a clear reference to Zygmunt Bauman’s work on interpersonal relations) and, for the sake of not compromising and anticipating my concerns with the future, simply different way of living, or the consequences of this scenario are very much connected to the development of ambiguous moral change. I am inclined to believe in the third hypothesis – both of the previous premises are true, as behavioral indicators today show clues of a society that is heading in this direction.
2.1 Further Clarification and Justification
I would like to recall my initial point on the next paragraphs in order to justify my previously mentioned inclination. I argued that the contemporary individual no longer appeals to morality in order to make decisions that are concerned with others, and for this explanation, I aim to illustrate with hypothetical cases the foundations of my arguments.
Abdicating your expectations of moral practical reason (meaning literally the exercise of using morality to guide one’s actions) to greater institutions has been done throughout history and in many different cases; from patriarchal family settings to State-individual relationships, yet today a different kind of bond operates. Individualism has deprived people of owning the responsibility to exercise good habits that will grow to a satisfactory society, depositing this responsibility on political figures that will allegedly improve living conditions in a given country overnight. As a result of emptying individuals of the blame of the consequences of their actions, different degrees of importance were naturally established to publicly recognized stakeholders and ordinary people, originating what I called the spectrum of influence of morality. It translates into different weights of the same given value according to different agents present in contemporary social life: the contrast of social disapproval between institutions of power deviating from standards of morality and individuals doing the same is as drastic as ever before, and such behavior demonstrates characteristics of society that contribute largely to my concerns that motivated this essay. Take, for instance, a country withdrawing from an international treaty on the environment protection: The reaction caused in people is widespread condemnation. However, it is socially acceptable to question whether climate change is real or not to individuals, and if one does indeed position themselves as a “non-believer “, or as a flat-earther, etc, they suffer, if any, little coercion from society.
- Broadening and Final Considerations
This is a topic that lacks the experience of time to provide clear answers. Over the next paragraphs, I will expose a few commentaries that not only evidence the scarcity of responses but also touch a few other facets not properly covered up to this point.
- Exercising moral thought construction has proven to be beneficial (not only under the academic realm but in everyday life too), or at the very least useful to society as we expanded our standards of inclusion and protection of different social groups. On this note, one might question if there are ways in which morality can be developed without cultivating experiences and habits that promote it. I do agree with this point and also find interesting to notice how society has been dealing with taboo-questions/behaviors with relative goodwill in the past decades without relying so intensively on metaphysical beliefs (such as morality itself), which is the case of minorities across the western world: the rising and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community, feminist movements and many more.
- For it is true that my bases fall under contractualism, I shall disagree with Kant when he mentions the existence of an irresistible veto on morality, especially under the circumstances I have presented so far. Indeed, I interpret legal bureaucracies (meaning laws) as tools to avoid the evoking of human's destructive nature, yet such bureaucracies have been used in the name of peace, anti-corruption policies and international security to justify crimes against Human Rights, which is why I believe this theme is worth ponderation as it fails to comprehend possibly unpredictable outcomes in the future for morality given the current exacerbation of individuality, as presented by Bauman.
In this essay I have applied Kant's meditations to the contemporary world. As I have shown, morality today bends to attend the interests of an individual, or dominant group, in a very specific moment in order to obtain whatever interest that is subjected to the benefit of such actors. Then, I have drawn a historical outline explaining the background that led society to its current notions of morality and good. I continued with an allegory to better illustrate my argument, along with tangible factors that are intrinsically connected to the process of Moral Emptying. Finally, I briefly expatiated on counter-arguments against Kant and my division of moralities, especially the ambiguous morality.
Considerações dos Corretores:
SINTETIZANDO -
Autor da citação: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Obra da citação: A Metafísica dos Costumes (1797)
Posição em relação ao autor: discordância
Tese do ensaio: Demonstrar o enfraquecimento da moral no mundo moderno e a consequente problemática do individualismo pós-revolução industrial.
Autores usados em suporte: Max Weber (1864-1920) e Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017).
NOTA FINAL: 7.5
Obs. O autor há de receber a correção completa de cada um dos critérios, assim como comentários e sugestões de ambos corretores pela sua conta de e-mail.
Bons estudos!
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