Action
Reality is now composed of things, and those things can communicate. What can they do? Lets approach this in a roundabout kind of way.
Perception and Communication can only happen between like objects, i.e. natural things can only perceive and communicate via natural means, supernatural things can only perceive and communicate via supernatural means. You can feel a natural rock by reaching out your physical hand and touching it. You can feel loved only because you have a soul that can perceive it.
But what happens when you reach out and touch a rock? What about other deeds? Well, the first thing we can say for certain is that actions have consequences. This is true in both the natural and the supernatural world. Lets understand the natural world first. Throwing a rock into a pond is a natural deed, governed by the laws of physics. The rock sails only so far, sinks so deep, with such force, as dictated by the force with which you threw it. There are a number of consequences to this, among them being waves in the pond as the water is displaced and subsequently restored to equilibrium. Action and consequence[1].
Another example might be eating candy. As our body metabolizes the sugar, our body has an insulin response and our chemical makeup is altered to give us energy. If we eat too much candy, we store too much energy and gain body fat. The action had a chemical consequence that can last for hours, days, or years after the fact. Likewise with supernatural interactions, they affect our soul. Praying raises our soul to the divine. Good deeds affect our souls positively. Bad deeds (sins) affect our soul negatively.
The Essence of Action
Deeds of all kinds have accidents and essences, too. We can logically determine what things are essential to a deed. Consider giving money to the poor. What is the intent of the subject, the person giving money? We have likely all seen the trope of a wealthy man throwing coins disdainfully at a panhandler. We likely all have given money to a street-corner panhandler with the earnest hope that it will be the last dollar they need. Every deed is done with some intent or other–it is impossible for a deed to be done ‘neutrally’ or without intent, because one must intend to do it for it to be done. Intent is essential to action.
The means of effectuating a given deed are also essential to it. consider again our example of giving money to the poor. How do you do it? Do you give cash, check? credit card? Do you give them a table-sized game-show check? Do you employ a destitute soul in your business so that you can give them money in exchange for a days work? Every action takes some form, you can’t give money to the poor without, in fact, giving money to the poor. The means are essential to action.
As stated previously, all actions have consequences. What is the result of your deed? Does a panhandler turn around and walk into a liquor store? Do they finally get enough to get back on their feet? Another way of saying it would be, what are the fruits of your action? Every action has some consequence, so the result is essential to action.
Finally: Do you know all the information required to make a good decision? If a panhandler is sitting amid empty liquor bottles, can you claim ignorance of what he will likely spend his money on? You can’t make a decision you don’t know you need to make; you can’t make a good decision if you don’t know the information required for it. Your knowledge is an essential quality of an action.
Morality of an action, then, is dependent upon these essential qualities: Intent, means, result, and knowledge.
Virtue or Vice?
We turn now to the differentiation of deeds by determining whether they are virtues or vices. The list of traits essential to a deed acts as a sort of checklist for us in this evaluation. The checklist looks something like this:
- What did I actually do?
- What did I intend to do?
- What happened as a result of what I did?
- Did I know what would happen before I did it?
Let’s consider this common philosophical dilemma. Is killing morally wrong? A street murderer 1) Kills someone, 2) they intended to kill someone, 3) that person died as a result, 4) which they knew would happen. This is clearly morally wrong.
Manslaughter, however, is when 1) A driver hits someone who runs out in the road 2) but they did not intend to kill them, 3) they died nevertheless, 4) the driver did not know that would happen. The person did not have the intent or the knowledge of those consequences, and so cannot be held fully responsible for the victims death.
What about a soldier? 1) They shoot at enemies, 2) intending to kill them, 3) they do in fact die, 4) and they knew that would happen as a consequence. This is superficially an identical situation to the one we started with. But this might not be considered morally wrong. Why? We have here a person not fully in control, because they are following orders of a commander who ordered them to war.
In the latter two examples, there is this idea of “responsibility” or “control”. This is the concept of culpability. Cuplability is the degree to which you are responsible for the morality of what you have done. A soldier isn’t responsible for being shipped to a war zone; a street murderer is responsible for random killing. A driver who killed a distracted pedestrian isn’t responsible for their death, because they were not trying to kill them.
Consequences
So now that we have a basic framework for determining whether a deed is morally good or morally bad, why must we choose one over the other? Good deeds have the consequence of enriching us spiritually (and sometimes physically). Bad deeds have the consequence of harming us spiritually (and sometimes physically). Our soul, while supernatural, is still an intrinsic part of us. The great struggle of our lives is to unite ourselves with the Divine. A damaged soul is wounded, is made imperfect, because it has chosen a deed contrary to the Divine. A damaged soul is thus separated from the Divine, but there is a means of reparation and reconciliation. Virtue gives vitality to the soul, nourishes it and preserves it. Virtue brings the soul more in union with the Divine. These concepts I will have to expand on later, but the premise is this: Union with the divine is an infinite reward. The Divine has opened for us a means of entering union, and we have a predisposition to break that union. Thus we are tangent to specific theological concepts, which are important to Philosophy but we aren’t there yet.
[1] I know the physicists call this something else, but for our purposes here the wave is a consequence of throwing the rock.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Original) | Part 3 (Revised) | Part 4
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 