The
word map is frequently used when we want to create a visual image of the
physical relationship between different phenomena. When we use it for the environments in which
we live, it can be used for everything from the whole world to a neighborhood
in a city. A map can be used to focus on
different features like the topography of different geographical entities. Maps are used in biology as well to diagram
different aspects or different features of an animal or human body. Nowadays, we map out the genes on
chromosomes, and we map out the brain, determining which sections of the brain
carry out which cerebral functions. And
maps are also used in dealing with our solar system or the universe.
Within
the context of the philosophical model that has been presented in this column,
I would like to focus on using the notion of a map in a slightly different
context. It is my contention that
morality is not just about moral events: doing moral things and not doing
immoral things. It is not simply about
our freely-made moral decisions to do moral things and not do immoral
things. Rather it is also about the
influence of our fields of experience, our configurations of stimuli to create different
predispositions for different kinds of personally viable and socially viable
behavior. How can we maintain a basic
human essence within and sometimes in spite of the surroundings in which we
dwell?
Our
evolving modern technological living environments are creating fields of
experience, configurations of stimuli that are very different from the fields
of experience and configurations of stimuli of the traditional living
environments in which traditional moral systems were created. These fields of experience and configurations
of stimuli elicit very different kinds of responses, very different behavior
from the kinds of responses and behavior found in more traditional
pre-industrial living environments. So
the spectrum of available human responses for treating other people as well as
ourselves in a good way is also shifting.
In short, the traditional moral map no longer fits very well the
experiential territory of modern humanity.
Traditional
morality is based on developing rules to rise above the grounding of more
natural environments, a grounding that has an abundance of flowing blendable
continual stimuli that tend to blur into a person and cause him to lose control
of his behavior and to undifferentiate into his animal desires such as
violence, lust, gluttony, greed, and sloth.
To control these desires, he develops firm defined discrete behavioral
boundaries: moral rules that, depending on the person and the situation,
proclaim moderation or even abstention.
But extreme animalistic behavior has to be reined in not only because it
can hurt oneself and other people, but because it tends to swallow up a person
and undifferentiate his sense of self.
And it is the uniqueness of a human sense of self, so much more
developed than in other animals, that separates him from other animals and
allows him to survive.
Traditional
religions have been developed on the basis of creating rules for stable
affirmative behavior among the members of a society. With the non-measurable non-controllable
flowing blendable continual stimuli in traditional more natural environments,
people are stimulated to misbehave in relation to the standards of traditional
morality. Using their unique cognitive
faculties, people learn how to regulate their behavior and how to hold
themselves together. The map of hypothetical
life situations in which people can slide away from their defined human sense
of self is laid out in the holy books of traditional religions. Connected to this map are behavioral answers
so that a person doesn’t slide.
As we
move into the era of modern technology, we need different kinds of rules to
survive with our human essence intact.
The problem today is no longer as much the danger of undifferentiating
into an animal. Modern technology
creates what I have called vacuum and tension-pocket environments: environments
of understimulating numbness with pockets of overstimulating jolts to our
nervous system. To live and function in
such an environment, there is a tendency to organically unbond from one’s
living environment and to function to a great extent as an overly defined
figure – a robot. So in order to restore
a human balance, one has to find a way to restore sources of flowing blendable
continual stimuli and to reground oneself.
Rather than have a morality that focuses exclusively on preventing
animalistic excesses, one has to develop a morality that focuses more on
preventing robotic numbness and jadedness.
From
another perspective, the organic surfaces of traditional more natural living
environments are fine for making and receiving the organic imprints that allow
us to feel alive. But because of the
strong tendency towards organic perishability in those environments, they are
not as good for preserving the imprints that are made and, in this way,
allowing people to create a surrogate immortality with the imprints they leave and
thus prepare for death. On the other
hand, modern technological living environments, existing as they do above and
apart from nature, are terrific for preserving imprints. Notice how many museums are constantly
sprouting up today. But modern
technological living environments lack a lot of the organic surfaces necessary
for making organic imprints.
Patterns
of experiential surfaces may not be suitable for making precise measured
defined visual maps. But, if nothing
else, we can make impressionistic descriptive maps. Just as impressionistic descriptive maps can also
be made of patterns of experiential phenomena and patterns of stimuli. One might ask what does all this have to do
with morality and with ethical decision-making.
The whole point being made here is that people don’t exist as phenomena
that are isolated and separate from their surroundings. People exist within different kinds of living
environments that impinge on them in different ways, that influence their behavior
in different ways, and that present different kinds of challenges and threats
to their human essence. So sometimes a
person’s behavior towards himself and other people is a reflection of what he is
experiencing in his living environments.
And sometimes a person’s best behavior towards himself and other people
is a behavior that protects both himself and other people from the dangers in
the living environment – in particular, the dangers that threaten to attack the
integrity of the human sense of self.
This
is why what I am calling moral cartography is so important. Humans can move among different ecosystems,
among different living environments, far more easily than most other animals. But the fact that they can move among them
does not mean that they are immune to the influences of the environment in
which they are living. And profound
differences in technology over time can mean that the configurations of
behavioral influences from a modern technology-oriented environment can be very
different from the influences of a more traditional nature-oriented
environment. And different
configurations of behavioral influences can elicit different kinds of harmful
behavior that would be considered immoral.
So in
making different descriptive maps of these configurations of behavior
influences, we can gain a better understanding of what could be considered
immoral in a particular environment, and we can try to develop behavioral
responses that can be protective of the human essence both of ourselves and of
the people that surround us related to that environment.
One
last point. Not all of what is
considered immoral is going to shift as people move into technologically more
advanced living environments.
Fundamental crimes like murder, physical assault, rape and robbery
remain the same as immoral actions no matter what the living environment. Crimes like these symbolize fundamental
attacks not only on real live humans but also on the human essence in any
living environment. However, they can be
generated by different kinds of patterns, depending on whether they occur in
more traditional natural environments (crimes of passion) or modern
technological environments (crimes of numbness). In the first case, a person is swallowed up
by his emotions. In the second case, a
person is trying to generate enough emotions to feel alive.
© 2016 Laurence Mesirow
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