La construcción afectiva de la realidad social

Gobierno Sánchez: Impunidad, corrupción y crisis moral

Amnistiar la mentira: 

https://twitter.com/JulioCalvoIgle1/status/1774404651279917262/photo/1

What is moral and what is not

 

José Angel García Landa

garciala@unizar.es

 

There is a curious dichotomy in the word "moral," understood as a noun and as an adjective. "The morals" of a society, for example, versus "this is moral, or immoral." The adjective "moral" is evaluative, it introduces a positive valuation, and perhaps the noun is also implicitly evaluative, since there is no society without morals.

 

To define what is moral we must proceed by levels of complexity, or centrality. A refined, complex or problematic morality is built on the foundations of a more basic or elementary morality. Thus "moral" behavior is, in principle, behavior that conforms to the generally accepted morality of a social environment—and all the more so if it involves personal sacrifice. There is here an element of generality, or mere "grammaticality" of morality, which follows established rules in principle, even in the case of notable or morally heroic actions.

 

But a more individualized analysis of an act may find that a given action is moral even if it (apparently) contradicts the values generally accepted in a social environment, or (conversely) that it is immoral even if it abides by them. One possible reason for this, among others, would be to declare an entire cultural morality as "immoral" from the point of view we adopt: thus, the act of Huckleberry Finn helping black Jim to escape is immoral for his slave-holding society, and even for the part of himself that has internalized those values, but it is moral for "us," the implied readers of Mark Twain's book, and for us, the implied readers of the present text.

 

This notion of "generally accepted morality" has a certain sense at the operative or regulative level, in order to define an act against a social background that is always complex or conflicting, especially in modernity. It has a genetic sense also insofar as primitive or ancient societies share more widely a morality and religion common to all members. But even in ancient Greece, Socrates is problematically both moral (as an ethical hero) and immoral, as a corrupter of youth. The point of view we adopt to describe an act as moral or immoral requires a cognitive, as well as a sociological-historical analysis.

 

In modernity we contemplate as moral heroes those who distance themselves from a social consensus that we ourselves contemplate with distance (Greek piety, for example) in order to explore a more universalistic, complex or philosophical moral path. There may nevertheless be problematic moral heroes, such as Nietzsche, and even downright immoral ones, such as Baudelaire or Sade. Appraisal in these cases involves a degree of paradox, and is often bracketed, so to speak. We love to read Sade, but to endure him in person would be an act of moral masochism.

 

There is therefore a certain moral imagination to be taken into account, and a certain moral evolutionism. This would go, according to the current interpretation, in the direction of an intellectual consensus of respect for public space, for mutually recognized rights and obligations (along Kantian lines) and for the free self-determination of the individual, within these parameters. However, it is also characteristic of the moral universe of modernity to recognize the sometimes irreconcilable tensions and paradoxes that arise between the different moral requirements imposed on the individual, for example between group tradition and this free self-determination. Moral heroism can be attributed either to acts of self-determination (in the style of James Joyce's non serviam) or to the self-limitation of this self-determination in search of social consensus, or of a historically rooted identity. (Take for example Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, or a contemporary American equivalent, Rebecca Goldstein's 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (2011), where a skeptical rabbi nevertheless takes his place in his community and its rituals, overcoming his personal skepticism and his desire to escape from them by seeking a more open world.)

 

I will not go into the difference between morality and ethics, for it is clear that each tradition or author uses these terms as he pleases. In Postmodern Ethics, Zygmunt Bauman opposed grammaticalized social "ethics" to individual and creative "moral" heroism. Gustavo Bueno tells us instead (in his lecture on "Ethics and morality") that by etymology "morality" refers to social customs, and "ethics" to individual character.

 

 

 

 

References

 

 

Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.

Bueno, Gustavo. "Ética y moral." Video lecture. YouTube (fgbuenotv) 30 Nov. 2009.*

                  https://youtu.be/dm3WCZud0UQ

                  2017

Goldstein, Rebecca. 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. 2010. London: Atlantic Books, 2011.

Mark Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995.

Unamuno, Miguel. San Manuel Bueno, mártir. 1930. Ed. Jesús Carmena Martínez. (Biblioteca Didáctica Anaya, 14). Madrid: Anaya, 1986. 2004.

 

Translated using DeepL.com (free version)

No Matarás (según a quién)

Un comentario a este artículo:

Malo, Pablo. "El gran salto a la humanidad (entrevista a William von Hippel)." La Nueva Ilustración Evolucionista 19 Sept. 2022.*

         https://ilevolucionista.blogspot.com/2022/09/el-gran-salto-hacia-la-humanidad.html

2022

Muy interesante. Podría decirse que se dio un gran salto hacia la humanidad, pero que aún seguimos saltando... no se sabe bien si hacia más humanidad o hacia una posthumanidad. Lo de la cooperación con el propio grupo y rivalidad/competición con los grupos ajenos permite entender mejor los mandamientos de la ley de Dios del Antiguo Testamento: "No matarás" quiere decir, por supuesto y no hace falta decirlo, "No matarás judíos" ("sin motivo político justificable"). Esto por supuesto no lo explican mucho en clase de Religión, pero es aclaratorio. El cristianismo fue en ese sentido un gran paso adelante en la prosocialidad extendida o la ética humanista global.

 

Ultrasociety: Somos Hijos de la Guerra

 

—oOo—

The discontinuous mind

On Dawkins on abortion.  Richard Dawkins's critique of idealism and of 'all-or-nothingism' includes a critique of essentialism in personhood which is essentially a justification of abortion, one which incurs in some egregious abortionist sleights-of-hand under cover of dispassionate logical analysis. 

Let's quote:

Essentialism bedevils moral controversies such as those over abortion and euthanasia. At what point is a brain-dead accident victim defined as 'dead'? At what moment during development does an embryo become a 'person'? Only a mind infected with essentialism would ask such questions. An embryo develops gradually from single-celled zygote to newborn baby, and there's no single instant when 'personhood' should be deemed to have arrived. The world is divided into those who get this truth and those who wail: 'But there has to be some moment when the fetus becomes human.' No, there really doesn't, any more than there has to be a day when a middle-aged person becomes old. It would be better—though still not ideal—to say the embryo goes through stages of being a quarter human, half human, three-quarters human... The essentialist mind will recoil from such language and accuse me of all manner of horrors for denying the essence of humanness.

There are those who cannot distinguish a sixteen-cell embryo from a baby. They call abortion murder, and feel righteously justified in committing real murder against a doctor—a thinking, feeling, sentient adult, with a loving family to mourn him. The discontinous mind is blind to intermediates. An embryo is either human or it isn't. Everything is this or that, yes or no, black or white. But reality isn't like that. 

(Richard Dawkins, "The Dead Hand of Plato", in Science in the Soul (2017),  290)

 

Now this is a self-defeating analysis, or a self-consuming artifact if you prefer. A curious example of the 'mind infected with essentialism' that it is supposed to be denouncing. The passage really needs some close reading and deconstruction, as it exhibits a degree of bad faith and one-sidedness which is all too typical in the current abortionist Zeigtgeist—I hope we can at least agree that abortionism, i.e. not just the toleration but the public promotion, the subsidizing, and the active defense of abortion as a moral good which should not be attacked or criticized is one of the hallmarks of current Western ("progressive") ideology and political practice. Dawkins's passage is one such defense of the legitimacy of abortion, under the pretense of criticizing the opponents' arguments as allegedly simplistic and essentialist. Note it is not the abortionists' (the "pro-choice" as the euphemism goes) arguments that he is trying to refute or denounce as based on logical fallacies. It is only one side, and you know which one it its, that rests its case on logical fallacies. As to Dawkins, he is not of course an abortionist, he presents himself as just a dispassionate observer of the presuppositions used by people while they present their arguments—and look which side is using lopsided arguments!

Essentialism bedevils moral controversies such as those about abortion and euthanasia. And there is no way it can ever be purged out of them, because our very way of thinking is essentialist in that it works with concepts, which are defined by their essence, not by the essence of their contraries... At what point is a brain-dead accident victim defined as 'dead'? Well the victim is a person, and a person's brain may be 'dead'—well not really DEAD you know, but failing to generate conscious or significant brain activity—while the person is not dead, because a person is a social identity, and to define or decide at which point that social identity is dead, ay, there's the rub, this is something no scanner can decide. You can forgive essentialists and relatives to be confused, anxious and distressed when the dead person's body is alive, not very much alive but certainly alive. Much of this no doubt Dawkins gets, though sometimes he is surprisingly callous to common human understanding of respect and ceremony, for instance in that egregious video where he discusses with Peter Singer whether you might be justified in eating human corpses as 'roadkill'. And now we get to abortion, where callousness gets more support from current practice and politics: At what moment during development does an embryo become a 'person'? Only a mind infected with essentialism would ask such questions. The rhetoric of the phrase shifts the attention from the problem of personhood, deflecting it to the question of the moment, concentrating the logical attack on the absurdity of there being any one moment, one given second when personhood is suddenly generated. Dawkins does a curious argumentative trick here: on the one hand and on the face of it he of course defends the notion of gradualism etc.—but on the other the drift of his argument seems to deny the problem altogether: "as there is no ONE moment, there is no moral question and the whole discussion is absurd—only a mind infected with essentialism would ask such questions. The embryo's an embryo, not a 'person', and that's it. Only minds infected with essentialism would attribute ANY qualities or dimensions of personhood to an embryo". Which is of course fallacious. First because the embryo becomes a fetus which becomes a baby. And then because a person being a social construct, the construction of the construct begins of course before the full-fledged person acquires citizenship rights, and quite often before birth, depending on who does the construction. "Only a mind infected with essentialism" would fail to see that there are no black and white positions to discredit here. Actually I do claim that this is part of what Dawkins claims before unclaiming it: An embryo develops gradually from single-celled zygote to newborn baby, and there's no single instant when 'personhood' should be deemed to have arrived. Note however that for some constructivists like Peter Singer —and Dawkins too seems to be sorely tempted by this anti-humanist position— this phrase might also mean that personhood never actually arrives along this process, because personhood will be slowly and gradually constructed as the individual grows up and becomes socialized, mentalized, educated, culturized.... and that newborn babies are actually less of a "person" than a fully socialized Great Ape. That is, Dawkins's phrase means, in the wider abortionist context, both things: that a newborn baby (or the same baby, unborn ten minutes before) both is and is not a person. Birth itself as a rite of passage through dire straits is of course the basic "moment" of acquisition of personhood, especially in cultures that have developed a notion of the dignity or the sanctity of human life. But these rituals, these beliefs and these dignities and sanctities tend to be played down by relativists like Singer or Dawkins. Or indeed by many current defenders of 'free abortion'—note that these self-styled 'feminists' systematically shun the issue of whether it is legitimate or ethical to abort fetuses of six, seven or eight months. It is with a puzzling single-mindedness that this issue is avoided, then declared a non-issue, then, in the last line of defense, "YES, I DO JUSTIFY AND WANT TO SUBSIDIZE WITH PUBLIC FUNDS THESE END-OF-TERM ABORTIONS, TOO, YES I DO SINCE YOU INSIST THAT I MAKE MY POSITION CLEAR. WE DO JUSTIFY AND DEFEND ALL ABORTIONS. ABORTO ES SAGRADO". I'm being black-and-whitist here myself, but honestly I haven't seen much in the current 'pro-life' field to make me put the issue otherwise. The world is divided into those who get this truth and those who wail: 'But there has to be some moment when the fetus becomes human.' No, there really doesn't, there really doesn't. A fetus is NEVER among the humans who count for the abortionist frame of mind. It may be a female fetus, but "it/she" is definitely not a girl, or a woman. Indeed, it may be a human fetus BUT IT IS NOT A HUMAN. That's where the drift of our thinking goes. It is not a human because we don't want it to be a human, or a human-in-process, or a half-human, because we don't want to have a half-problem or a half-wrongdoing or a half-subsidy for those abortions. (Because everyone knows that abortions should be fully subsidized for the welfare and protection of women, excluding aborted half-women, we're speaking here of women who choose, ethical courageous women who won't allow biology to interfere with their lives, and who are certainly never manipulated by men into choosing abortion). In sum, there needn't be a day when a fetus becomes a human, any more than there has to be a day when a middle-aged person becomes old. 

It would be better—though still not ideal—to say the embryo goes through stages of being a quarter human, half human, three-quarters human... would it? Would we (abortionists) then admit that we are destroying a quarter human, a half human, a three-quarters human...? Fat chance. The essentialist mind will recoil from such language and accuse me of all manner of horrors for denying the essence of humanness. There are certainly some logical horrors here, as I have tried to show. And there are most certainly unspeakable horrors going on in the abortionist clinics, subsidized with your money and with mine. As to the essence of humanness, there is not, of course, one essence beyon dispute. And that is why you cannot dismiss it as a pseudo-problem, or assume in your arguments that the "pro-life" arguments about the humanness of "unborn babies" or of "viable fetuses" or "abortion survivors" are irrelevant or nonsensical or Trumpist.

There are those who cannot distinguish a sixteen-cell embryo from a baby. I doubt any such people exist. One could also argue that there are those who can distinguish an eight-month unborn baby from an eight-month biological residuum whose removal is to be simply accepted and not frowned upon... perish the thought, it should be subsidized and praised! The invidious exaggeration of the example, the "all-or-nothing" balancing of Dawkins's example between a sixteen-cell embryo and a baby with all its diapers and connotations contradicts the whole problematic issue of transition and development. And it dismisses the whole ethical quandary of abortion as a pseudo-problem created by minds so Bible-Belted and so obtuse that they cannot "distinguish a sixteen-cell embryo from a baby". These are the kind of people whose views should be dismissed in an Enlightened republic, and we've seen of late how this is done. It is not coincidental that Dawkins is himself an obtuse and unreliable Trump-hater of the most simplistic kind—as are so many academics.

They call abortion murder, and feel righteously justified in committing real murder against a doctor—a thinking, feeling, sentient adult, with a loving family to mourn him.

Now you see, all those people with their Bibles and their Belts, and their Guns, THEY SHOOT DOCTORS, DON'T THEY? The hundreds of thousands of abortions performed every year are put on a balance with the extremely rare event of an abortionist doctor being shot by a fanatic. Who would doubt, from the drift of Dawkins's argument, that pro-lifers support, as a rule, the shooting of sentient adults, or, indeed that they would shoot doctors themselves if they had their way?  It is "they" who do call abortion murder. But abortion is never murder, according to Dawkins's drift. There's no transition there—in that one case, we are well justified in applying the discontinuous mind, to keep our concepts clear.

And to end with one more jab at Dawkins's tendentious rhetoric. I'll just note that there are in the world all kinds of thinking, feeling, sentient adults, with loving families to mourn them. And some of them —a tiny minority, mind— are callous, cruel, selective killers, those who get the job done —the everyday agents and journeymen of the banality of evil. A discontinuous mind is much to wished in these professions. But their loving families' voluntary blindness, or their own, does not justify or dignify the disgusting and immoral work they are paid to do.

Matanza libre de personas

 

—oOo—

Bergson, tout simplement

Promoción de la pederastia

Cooperate with people who cooperate

Cooperation is the universal function around which morals culturally evolve https://t.co/9lBdDd9O6l@tvolmag @EvoInstitute @Oliver_S_Curry @David_S_Wilson pic.twitter.com/7WqmW93SQs

— Sage Gibbons (@Sage_Gibbons) January 26, 2020

There seems to be Kantian maxim lurking here: "Cooperate with people who cooperate".

There is a recursive whiff to that, and that's one of the keys to human interaction. Actually, a more precise formulation of this "cooperative principle" (pace Grice) is even more recursive:

"Cooperate with people 

who cooperate with people 

who cooperate with you".

Because our enemies, rivals and adversaries also cooperate with one another, and that doesn't make them more morally desirable for us, or more cooperative in the right sense. That's what Kant did not get at all.

 You Kant cooperate with criminals

—oOo—

Roger Scruton on Moral Relativism

El pin parental

Tipología de la violencia

Artículo que analiza la tipología de la violencia de Donald Black, una tipología que ha recibido poca atención. Black divide la violencia en
-violencia moralista, enraizada en el conflicto
-violencia depredadora, enraizada en la explotaciónhttps://t.co/9b7GpwXk3H

— Pablo Malo (@pitiklinov) 1 de mayo de 2019

La prostitución desde el punto de vista moral

Seminario de Filosofía Moral SAF; Tema: la prostitución desde el punto de vista moral. (Y legal). El lunes, 10 de diciembre, a las 17´30, en el edificio Interfacultades II (que es el barracón al lado del Interfacultades), aula 2.3. Entrada y participación libre.

(Esto es en la Universidad de Zaragoza).

—oOo—

Learning from Gossip about Free Speech

Wilson, David Sloan. "Learning from Gossip about Free Speech." 10 April 2018.*

         https://evolution-institute.org/learning-from-gossip-about-free-speech/

         2018

Retropost (13 de mayo de 2008): Incestos—¿en el mismo cesto?


Tras su defensa del suicido como (el) acto que nos hace más humanos, Víctor Gómez Pin protesta contra el apelativo de "monstruo" aplicado al ogro Fritzl, y arguye que el hecho de la consanguinidad de violador y violada es (prácticamente) irrelevante. El incesto es puramente cuestión de relaciones legales entre roles familiares legalmente definidos, no realmente entre parientes consanguíneos en primer grado, arguye. Lo contrario sería para Gómez Pin (una vez más) someternos a la facticidad del hecho biológico y renunciar a la ley social que edificamos como algo diferente de las leyes biológicas:

"desde luego esta variable cuenta... pero cuenta en menor grado. Estamos obligados a que cuente en menor grado; lo contrario equivaldría a tirar por tierra lo que caracteriza a la sociedad humana en relación a las demás sociedades animales, a saber, que la ley prima sobre el orden biológico. Por decirlo llanamente: el caso Fritzl no sería menos tremendo si Elisabeth fuera hija adoptiva, y no biológica, de Joseph."

Y yo, como siempre, disiento y comento:

Creo que no son totalmente exactas estas apreciaciones sobre el incesto. Obsérvese que la ley social presupone la biológica, aun en los casos en que parecería escapar a ella. Edipo no se acostó con su madre "oficial", ni mató a su padre "social", pero sí a los biológicos— y por tanto a los sociales, q.e.d. Es una de las lecciones del mito: que lo social no puede escapar totalmente a lo biológico ni anularlo, o, si se prefiere, que no podemos trascender totalmente nuestra naturaleza animal por mucho que la sociedad pretenda edificar un orden puramente humano. No hay tal.

Y puntualizo además que, diga lo que diga el Filósofo, desde luego que Herr Fritzl es un monstruo—un monstruo moral. No es que a Fritzl se le llame monstruo metafóricamente, como parece creer Gómez Pin, sino al contrario muy literalmente. No tiene, en efecto, una trompa en la frente. Pero desde luego no ha desarrollado ciertas potencialidades humanas que muchos consideramos mínimas, mientras que sí ha obtenido un título de ingeniero (como nos recuerda el filósofo). Y allí está la monstruosidad, en esa descompensación muy real—y peor que una microcefalia.

Dicho esto, me parecen muy interesantes (conceptualmente hablando) todas las zonas de gris entre incesto y sexo legal, así como entre la normalidad y la monstruosidad—que quizá sean todo tonos de gris. Así, por ejemplo, los incestos entre hermanastros de padres y madres distintos, en parejas recasadas, que se crían como hermanos pero luego se casan ellos al divorciarse sus padres. O los morreos entre hermanos. O el caso Byron. O el caso Woody Allen, otro monstruito según quien lo mire. Monstruos hay, pero lo que no hay es una frontera tajante entre los monstruos y los no monstruos. Algún monstruito más o menos grande siempre se pasea por nuestro interior. Y los monstruos también son gente normal en gran medida, o muchas horas al día. Que le pregunten si no a los vecinos de Fritzl.

¿Qué nos hace sujetos humanos?

—oOo—

The Geography of Morals

From the New Books Network: 

 

Owen Flanagan

The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility

Oxford University Press 2017

December 15, 2017 Interview by Carrie Figdor

What is it to be moral, to lead an ethically good life? From a naturalistic perspective, any answer to this question begins from an understanding of what humans are like that is deeply informed by psychology, anthropology, and other human-directed perspectives as these are constrained by evolution. In The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility (Oxford University Press, 2017), Owen Flanagan sets out to clarify the landscape of moral possibility for actual human beings. He defends a perspective on human morality that he describes as an “oughtology” based in naturalism, gleaned from comparing Western, Chinese, and Indian moral traditions. Flanagan, a professor of philosophy at Duke University, considers how diverse moral traditions converge on some features basic to moral psychology, such as compassion, yet differ in other ways, such as whether anger is a justified and beneficial moral emotion or whether it should be extirpated. He also examines different views of the self, including the Buddhist view in which there is no self.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:48 — 59.6MB)

—oOo—

Intellectuals against 'evil'

Against evil, or against 'evil'? A comment to a piece by Madelon Sprengnether in Psychology Today, "Against 'Evil'—the Las Vegas Massacre".

Sprengnether writes 'against 'evil'"—meaning not that she is against evil deeds, but rather arguing, instead, she is beyond good and evil, and rejects the use of the term 'evil' to characterize any action, given that it is morally and intellectually simplistic.


My comment, then:

STRONGLY DISAGREE. 

 The piece seems aimed at discrediting the judgement of "good" or "evil" even in the face of such heinous acts as the Las Vegas massacre. In this sense, I am sorry to say, the piece largely qualifies as "evil" to me.

While there is much of the reasoning that can be understood and shared, the basic assumption is that we should ALWAYS try to empathize with the others who commit evil acts, and try to understand their motives. The assumption is that this is the only decent, intellectually and morally acceptable response.

Well it isn't. There are many contexts for human judgement and human positioning, and they cannot be exhausted. While I do not deny that part of the response to evil acts or massacres or genocides etc. may be an effort at understanding circumstances and motives etc., and (not for me though) an effort at empathizing with the perpetrator, in most cases, and for most ordinary purposes, the shorthand evaluation of EVIL is useful enough.  And it is NOT to be rejected or discredited in favour of the 'fallacy of the only context', i.e. the context of the writer of the present piece.

Fortunately, while educated intellectuals try and make their best efforts at blurring good and evil, and empathizing with criminals and psychopaths, most ordinary and decent human beings will stick to the decent shorthand of calling their acts plain EVIL.  It may not be an elaborate or publishable attempt at moral philosphy, but it is the basic decency on which human society is built. It is not to be discredited, least of all in favour of an empathy with evil.

The use of the term 'evil' positions us, indeed, with or against the person or rather the action being qualified. The person might have other qualities, e.g. beautiful hair, but the act is evil, and qualifying it as such only positions you with common humanity against a psychotic and nauseous action. You prefer equal distance, as a rule? Well, please yourself. But do not pass this as a universal moral criterion.

This piece is, sorry to say, an instance of the kind of writing and the kind of reasoning that gives "academic" its worst possible sense—and it is actually a fine example of 'la trahison des clercs', failing to stand on the side of basic human decency against what is commonly recognized as evil.

You Kant Lie to Criminals

—oOo—

William Flesch - Comeuppance

Retropost #1649 (9 de junio de 2007): Encontrarse casados por inercia

Aquí hay un bonito estudio sobre cómo llega la gente al matrimonio, o a sus variantes como estar "casados" en el sentido de "casa / dos", vivir juntos:

"The Inertia Hypothesis: Sliding vs. Deciding in the Development of Risk for Couples in Marriage", de Scott M. Stanley, Galena H. Kline y Howard J. Markman. (Llego a ellos vía Wonkapistas, que parte de un artículo de The Economist).

Presentan sus reflexiones en el marco de la teoría del compromiso (commitment): diferentes grados de compromiso por parte de una pareja pueden llevar a soluciones digamos... de compromiso: la cohabitación como una situación ambigua en la que uno de los dos se considera más "casado" que el otro—para un miembro de la pareja (típicamente la mujer) están al menos avanzando hacia un compromiso estable, mientras que para el otro (típicamente el "marido") la situación es sencillamente algo indefinido, un arreglo cómodo pero que no significa haber tomado ninguna decisión trascendente sobre la pareja.

De hecho en las parejas que comienzan conviviendo poco a poco es frecuente que las decisiones trascendentes no se encuentran en el futuro, sino en el pasado: retrospectivamente se da cuenta uno de que llegó a ellas, pero es algo que sucedió sin planificación activa, simplemente por la línea de menor coste o menor resistencia. El tomar la decisión de casarse en serio supone un coste, pero para estas parejas aún es mayor el coste (psicológico, económico...) que supondría una ruptura, y así la situación se mantiene. Es lo que los autores llaman "sliding versus deciding", llegar a una situación difícil de cambiar, sin una decisión previa de llegar a ella.

El resultado, según los autores, es que se encuentran así casadas (a veces en modalidades "light" de matrimonio) muchas personas con otras personas con quienes de otro modo jamás habrían tomado la decisión de casarse—una situación que sin embargo es más fácil de mantener que de romper. No quiere decir que no se rompa: las parejas así formadas tienen más altos índices de inestabilidad, de relaciones alternativas, etc. También es significativo el status económico y social: hay menos matrimonio y más divorcio en las clases de bajos ingresos, y más matrimonio y menos divorcio en las clases más acomodadas. A su vez, como señala el artículo de The Economist, la estabilidad en la pareja es un elemento de éxito social y prosperidad tanto para la misma pareja como para sus hijos. En un proceso de realimentación.

Todo esto tiene una interesante dimensión narratológica que está a medio explorar. Hace poco hablaba de cómo nuestras vidas son estructuras narrativas. Pues bien, la decisión de  formar pareja, casarse, tener hijos, etc., es una de las que más estructuración narrativa dan a nuestras vidas. La dialéctica prospección / retrospección tiene muchas posibilidades de aplicarse a una semiótica del matrimonio: ¿vivimos en una pareja prospectiva, o retrospectiva? Parece obvio que las parejas con planes claros de futuro, y una narratividad más prospectiva, tienen en principio más posibilidades de seguir juntas que las que simplemente "llegaron a ser" por circunstancias a, b y c. Lo que no quita para que luego estén las circunstancias sobrevenidas que dan al traste con los planes de mice and men and women. O con su falta de planes—pues la vida en sí es la principal de las circunstancias sobrevenidas.

Stupid Cupid

—oOo—

Qué es moral, y qué no

Qué es moral y qué no

Hay una curiosa dicotomía en la palabra "moral", entendida como sustantivo y como adjetivo. "La moral" de una sociedad, por ejemplo, frente a "esto es moral, o inmoral." El adjetivo "moral" es valorativo, introduce una valoración positiva, y quizá el sustantivo también sea implícitamente valorativo, pues no existe sociedad sin moral.

Para definir qué es moral hay que proceder por niveles de complejidad, o de centralidad. Una moral refinada, compleja, o problemática, se edifica sobre los fundamentos de una moral más básica o elemental. Así "es moral", en principio, el comportamiento que se atiene a la moral generalmente aceptada en un entorno social—y tanto más si conlleva sacrificio personal. Hay aquí un elemento de generalidad, o de mera "gramaticalidad" de lo moral, que sigue unas reglas en principio establecidas, aun en el caso de acciones notables o moralmente heroicas.

Pero un análisis más individualizado de un acto podrá hallar que determinada acción es moral aunque (aparentemente) contradiga los valores generalmente aceptados en un entorno social, o (inversamente) que es inmoral aunque se atenga a ellos. Una de las razones posibles para esto, entre otras, consistiría en declarar a toda una moral cultural como "inmoral" desde el punto de vista que adoptamos: así, el acto de Huckleberry Finn ayudando al negro Jim a escapar es inmoral para su sociedad esclavista, e incluso para la parte de él mismo que ha interiorizado esos valores, pero es moral para "nosotros", los lectores implícitos del libro de Mark Twain, y para nosotros, los lectores implícitos del presente texto.

Esta noción de "moral generalmente aceptada" tiene un cierto sentido a nivel operativo o regulativo, con el fin de definir un acto frente a un trasfondo social que siempre es complejo o conflictivo, en especial en la modernidad. Tiene un sentido genético también en tanto en cuanto las sociedades primitivas o antiguas participan más de una moral y religión común a todos los miembros. Pero incluso en la Grecia antigua, Sócrates es problemáticamente a la vez moral (en tanto que héroe ético) e inmoral, en tanto que corruptor de la juventud. El punto de vista que adoptamos para describir un acto como moral o inmoral requiere un análisis cognitivo, y también sociológico-histórico.

En la modernidad contemplamos como héroes morales a los que se distancian de un consenso social que nosotros mismos contemplamos con distancia (la piedad griega, por ejemplo) para explorar un camino moral más universalista, complejo o filosófico. Puede haber sin embargo héroes morales problemáticos, como Nietzsche, e incluso francamente inmorales, como Baudelaire o Sade. La valoración en estos casos supone un grado de paradoja, y muchas veces está puesta por así decirlo entre paréntesis. Nos encanta leer a Sade, pero aguantarlo en persona sería un acto de masoquismo moral.

Hay por tanto una cierta imaginación moral que hay que tener en cuenta, y un cierto evolucionismo moral. Éste iría, según la interpretación actual, en la dirección de un consenso intelectual de respeto al espacio público, a los derechos y obligaciones mutuamente reconocidos (en la línea kantiana) y a la libre autodeterminación del individuo, dentro de estos parámetros. Ahora bien, también es propio del universo moral de la modernidad el reconocer las tensiones a veces irreconciliables y paradojas que surgen entre los distintos requerimientos morales impuestos al individuo, por ejemplo entre la tradición grupal y esta libre autodeterminación. El heroísmo moral puede atribuirse tanto a los actos de libre determinación (al estilo non serviam de James Joyce) o a la autolimitación de esta libre determinación en búsqueda del consenso social, o de una identidad históricamente enraizada. (Sirvan de ejemplo San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, de Unamuno, o un equivalente norteamericano contemporáneo, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, de Rebecca Goldstein (2011), donde un rabino escéptico ocupa su puesto sin embargo en su comunidad y en sus rituales, sobreponiéndose a su escepticismo personal y a su deseo de escapar de ellos buscando un mundo más abierto).

No entraré en la diferencia entre moral y ética, pues está claro que cada tradición o autor usa estos términos a su gusto. En Ética posmoderna, Zygmunt Bauman oponía la "ética" social gramaticalizada al heroísmo "moral" individual y creativo. Gustavo Bueno nos dice en cambio (en su lección sobre "Ética y moral") que por etimología la "moral" se refiere a las costumbres sociales, y la "ética" al carácter individual. Y en el hablar común español sí parece seguirse más bien este uso: se nos dice que tal acción es ética aunque no sea legal, o aunque sea juzgada como inmoral, indecente, etc.—si responde a una reflexión y decisión consciente deliberada e individual, y especialmente a resultas de un un conflicto ético… y especialmente si valoramos positivamente dicha acción o la respetamos como tolerable dentro del margen dado a la autonomía moral. En cambio, en el hablar común, "moral" o "moralizante" nos suena a sermones, a convencionalismos, a costumbres antiguas que no responden a la realidad de las acciones e intenciones y valores contemporáneos, o propios de una sociedad abierta. Todo ello sea entendido con las salvedades y peros antes expresados.

Por último, sólo apuntaré que desde una perspectiva sociobiológica-evolutiva (la de E. O. Wilson en The Meaning of Human Existence) hay dos tendencias inherentes, e inherentemente en conflicto, en el comportamiento humano, resultantes respectivamente de los principios de selección natural (que potencia el individualismo) y selección social (que prima a los grupos solidarios y con individuos mutuamente altruistas). En la mente de cada cual hay una tensión o equilibrio entre impulsos egoístas e impulsos altruistas, y en unas personas (o en determinados órdenes sociales) priman unos más que otros. Es moral o "ético" en principio el altruismo, la primacía dada a lo social (incluidas las normas generalmente aceptadas, la heteronomía moral); es inmoral el egoísmo, y lo son sus formas derivadas como la manipulación del altruismo ajeno, el maquiavelismo, el parasitismo, etc.

Pero, como antes hemos indicado, la interacción compleja de diversos grupos sociales complica bastante la valoración de lo que puede ser un acto moral, habida cuenta de que puestos a ser altruistas, hay que elegir a qué otros, a qué grupo de otros, apoyar con nuestras acciones altruistas, visto que hay muchos otros con intereses encontrados. Una acción que beneficia al individuo perjudicando la coherencia de su grupo bien puede por otra parte beneficiar a un tercer grupo o potenciar la cooperación altruista o mutualista entre grupos antes enfrentados. En cada situación hay que tener en cuenta, cómo no, el posicionamiento del analista, pues no hay actos intrínsecamente morales o inmorales al margen de su valoración. Y las diversas valoraciones sociales recibidas por el acto en cuestión son a su vez valoradas por el teorizador moral a un nivel mayor de distancia, complejidad o abstracción, y siempre desde un posicionamiento distinto al del sujeto y al de sus demás evaluadores morales.

Proyecto de Seminario de Filosofía Moral

 

 

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Ética y moral (Gustavo Bueno)