PureX
Well-known member
An interesting thought has come to my attention, through a conversation on another thread, with Town, regarding personal moral responsibility. And that is … that I don't believe that we have full control over our own moral choices in life, and so should perhaps not be held fully accountable for them.
Let me try and give an example of what I mean by our not having full control over our own moral choices.
As many of you know, I am a recovered alcoholic. So I believe I can speak to the dynamics of this path with the authority of my own personal experience. And here is what I know of it: I was born with an inclination to become an alcoholic, by the way alcohol effects my particular brain structure (which I received via my genetic history). When I first drank alcohol, I experienced an intense feeling of euphoria that 'magically' relieved me of an otherwise constant existential discomfort that I'd felt from as far back as I could remember. I understand that other people feel that freedom from self-consciousness, too, when they drink, but not nearly to the degree and intensity that myself, and most alcoholics that I've met, do.
The result was a kind of doubly powerful incentive to 'fall in love' with experience of drinking alcohol, in that it not only relieved me of the constant discomfort of my hyper self-consciousness, but it replaced it with a feeling of freedom, and joy, and expansiveness that was truly euphoric. And together these motivated my drive to drink, and to drink more and more, to a very powerful degree, indeed! It was pretty much an unstoppable drive, as I recall it.
And to counter that very powerful drive to drink was only some vague admonishments from adults about the dangers of drinking. Admonishments that did not seem to stop them from drinking alcohol. And so did little to dissuade me. Such that by the time I was able to comprehend the true nature of the threat of alcohol addiction, I had long since become addicted to it.
The point of all this is to say that I had no real idea of the immorality I was engaged in as a drunkard when I entered into it as a way of life, and by the time I finally was able to recognize the immorality of it, I was powerless to extricate myself from it. (Fortunately for me, there was a way out, eventually, with the help of God and others.) And so I'm forced to question the degree of responsibility that I bear for a choice that I didn't really even make. Or certainly did not make in any "conscious and informed" way.
And the same can be said even of my choice to extricate myself from such an immoral lifestyle, as I was not personally capable of doing so without the help of others, even when I wanted to. So I'm not sure I can take the credit for that, entirely, either.
So I'm wondering, now, about the presumption that we are totally and absolutely responsible for our own moral failings. Are we? Especially when we seem to have so little control over our own choices, and so little information about the eventual outcomes of the choices that we've made?
And if this is the case, then why do we go around assigning moral responsibility to ourselves, and to others, as if it were some sort of moral absolute? And as if we and they had a real choice in the matter?
Thoughts?
Let me try and give an example of what I mean by our not having full control over our own moral choices.
As many of you know, I am a recovered alcoholic. So I believe I can speak to the dynamics of this path with the authority of my own personal experience. And here is what I know of it: I was born with an inclination to become an alcoholic, by the way alcohol effects my particular brain structure (which I received via my genetic history). When I first drank alcohol, I experienced an intense feeling of euphoria that 'magically' relieved me of an otherwise constant existential discomfort that I'd felt from as far back as I could remember. I understand that other people feel that freedom from self-consciousness, too, when they drink, but not nearly to the degree and intensity that myself, and most alcoholics that I've met, do.
The result was a kind of doubly powerful incentive to 'fall in love' with experience of drinking alcohol, in that it not only relieved me of the constant discomfort of my hyper self-consciousness, but it replaced it with a feeling of freedom, and joy, and expansiveness that was truly euphoric. And together these motivated my drive to drink, and to drink more and more, to a very powerful degree, indeed! It was pretty much an unstoppable drive, as I recall it.
And to counter that very powerful drive to drink was only some vague admonishments from adults about the dangers of drinking. Admonishments that did not seem to stop them from drinking alcohol. And so did little to dissuade me. Such that by the time I was able to comprehend the true nature of the threat of alcohol addiction, I had long since become addicted to it.
The point of all this is to say that I had no real idea of the immorality I was engaged in as a drunkard when I entered into it as a way of life, and by the time I finally was able to recognize the immorality of it, I was powerless to extricate myself from it. (Fortunately for me, there was a way out, eventually, with the help of God and others.) And so I'm forced to question the degree of responsibility that I bear for a choice that I didn't really even make. Or certainly did not make in any "conscious and informed" way.
And the same can be said even of my choice to extricate myself from such an immoral lifestyle, as I was not personally capable of doing so without the help of others, even when I wanted to. So I'm not sure I can take the credit for that, entirely, either.
So I'm wondering, now, about the presumption that we are totally and absolutely responsible for our own moral failings. Are we? Especially when we seem to have so little control over our own choices, and so little information about the eventual outcomes of the choices that we've made?
And if this is the case, then why do we go around assigning moral responsibility to ourselves, and to others, as if it were some sort of moral absolute? And as if we and they had a real choice in the matter?
Thoughts?