Let’s begin with another inquiry from the morality survey mentioned in the last essay. Here is the scenario:

It is war time. Your country has been invaded by a ruthless army (picture Genghis Khan and there is no Geneva Convention, Rules of Engagement or other constraints on protection of civilians) and are hiding in the basement of a building. You are in a group of 12 or 15 refugees all seeking to avoid the certain death, rape or torture that has befallen every other civilian captured by the invading army. The enemy is searching for those like you and are within ear shot of your hiding place. Any sound made by your group will, without a doubt, alert the soldiers to your location and lead to the killing of all in your group. Your group contains a 3 month infant child. It was found by one of the people in your group and, since it was unconscious from malnutrition, was brought into the basement for protection. The parents of the child are known to be dead. The infant has been quiet for 12 hours, about the same length of time your group has been in seclusion. Suddenly, the infant awakes and starts crying at the top of its lungs. Hurried measures to try and silence the infant or to muffle the screams have failed. If the baby is not heard, I might add embellishing on the initial inquiry, all those in hiding have an excellent chance of living; the soldiers are not taking the time to search each building without provocation. You are moments away from one of the soldiers hearing the child, discovering your group and instant death - or worse.

Question: Would you smother the child to death to protect the lives on your group?

Of the several items on the survey (the trolley scenario, the lifeboat scenario), this one seems to elicit the deepest and most disturbing emotional response. And, for our purposes, it can open the door to further examination of "situational ethics." On the site where I accessed the survey, some 40,000 readers had responded and the split was 55% against killing the infant, 45% could or would smother the foundling. One might propose that 55% were "transcendental moralists" (absolute principles of morality exists) and 45% were "utilitarian moralists" ("the greatest good for the greatest number of people").

[N.B. I am reminded of the tragic and heart-wrenching movie, Sophie’s Choice, which (if you ever are so inclined to view it) is one of the most "morally questioning" movies ever made. It will, for anyone sensitive enough to question his own moral compass, cause you to spend (as it did me) the next several days in an attempt to stabilize the wild swings of your compass’ needle as to what you thought you knew was "right." If you have any interest in what we have discussed in this series, I urge you to view the movie and discuss it with your friends. It can reveal much to us: human nature, a mother’s love and, more poignantly, the devastating impact that life’s choices - sometimes made under less-than-ideal circumstance - can have on us in later life.]

When I began asking this question of my clinic staff and selected patients during their visits, The responses were, not surprisingly, quite varied. Some would assent to killing the infant but would not do it, actively, themselves. Some would protect the baby at all costs, denying anyone in the refugee group even the possibility to kill the child to save the other lives. It seems that (I am somewhat reluctant to admit) I was the lone respondent who admitted I would kill the baby to save my fellow refugees. Perhaps, as I prefer to think, I was the only one being honest with myself since, as mentioned earlier, who is asking the question has a great impact on the respondent’s answer. In any case, it lent a modicum of comfort in telling myself that.

Thus, I am a Benthamite, a cold-hearted utilitarian. At least, in this one example. To further assuage my crumpling sense of the correctness of my moral compass, I took it upon myself to tweeze out what other factors are in operation in this scenario. I added the following caveat:

Question #2: Suppose, instead of an infant, the noise maker was an elderly demented man who, in the throes of active hallucination brought on by his confinement, begin screaming at the top of his lungs and cannot be appeased. His yells will soon lead to the same fate threatened by the crying infant. Would you be able to kill the old man to quiet him and save the group?

Suddenly, the answers do not come as easily to those asked. The percentages change. Those who were adamant that they would personally protect the infant at all risk often said, with the old man, they would not only participate but would actively participate in "quieting" him. For some, now about a 60-40 split again, it would be easier to kill the old man than the infant. When asked why, most responded with the shop-worn "The old man has already lived a full life; the infant has not." I purposefully refrained from stating the obvious: "Either way, if the baby or the old man lives, you all face inevitable death." This is an example of how we can actively pursue self-deception when moral issues are allowed to be evaluated by the conscious mind, cluttered with so much self-righteous, "politically-correct" societal "baggage." In either instance, when the debris of conscious thought is pealed away - murder is murder. We might deceive ourselves and rationalize our choices to retain our weak grasp on what we want to believe ("I am a good person!) but it is merely the pastime of man to actively - yet unconsciously - participate in self-deceit.

It is the same rational that we categorize, label and pigeon-hole everything and make value judgement to justify our human failings. We hold that "white-collar crime" (think Governor Elliot Spitzer) is less serious than selling drugs. Selling drugs to adults is not as serious as selling to minors. Child molestation is worse than rape. Rape is tantamount to murder (or should be). And, then there is the penultimate cloak of self-deception (and an oxymoron to boot): "victimless crime" (prostitution, bigamy, adultery, gambling, and the like). The use of the term begs the question as to whether there is, indeed, ever crime without a victim. Is not the person committing such a transgression a "victim?" But we will leave this inquiry for greater minds that this author.

As we, as a civilization, trod along in rationalizing, explaining and "rating" the degree of seriousness of the many acts of crimes against our fellow man, are we not losing sight of the specific point? That is, whither goes our ultimate sense of morality? If we can say "Oh, it’s just a drug (or a drunk and disorderly or pandering or assault) charge; all the stars do that!" or "I don’t care what a politician does in his personal life as long as he does his job as my Governor (or Senator or President)." Even more tragically, how can we say things like: "Africa has always been a continent with tribal genocide and mass murder; we can’t do anything about Darfur!" or, closer to home (temporally and geographically): "Inner city violence, black-on-black crime, is a legacy of slavery and can only be addressed by white society taking responsibility."

If we can make excuses and rationalize immorality and inhumanity, what, ultimately, does that say about us? And, more importantly, where might this slippery slope end? Is there any place we can throw a grappling hook and stop our inexorable slide into the abyss? Have we already proceeded too far to hope for arresting our decline?

At the risk of sounding like some "new age" charlatan, hawking their latest book on how to live a happier or (more likely, these days) wealthier or "more fulfilling life" (whatever that may mean), I am lately convinced that the answer to this epidemic of our modern era lies solely within each of us. There are few living that can give us the answers we so desperately seek, so it is ourselves, alone, on whom we must rely. And, rightly enough, that is where we should look. We all know what is required to be truly human and, thus, to live a moral life. It is, after all, an innate and primal light in all of us. It is a difficult process since our attention has become distracted by the white noise of an incessant societal barrage and the vision of our mind’s eye is blurred by self-imposed manic lifestyles, rushing hither and thither for unsound reasons. Yet, we may still be saved.

I often observe the activities of my fellow humans (yes, I am that weird) that reflect their hierarchies of what is important to their lives. It seems to me that we are desperately seeking to be noticed, acknowledged and respected. And we go to great lengths to garner these eternal affirmations. We drive ostentatious cars (the lower the gas milage, the higher correlation with self-importance), purchase grand houses that we cannot afford (but are sufficient to impress our neighbors and friends that we are "successful" and "worthy" of their respect), buy all the latest high-tech gear (after all, a house is not a home without a 60" high-definition, flat-panel TV) whether we have a honest need for it or not, and preach to our children and buy into it, ourselves, that making money is the goal of life on earth. We recoil at the ongoing horrors of our world but our conversations are often: "That is horrible; somebody should do something! Does my outfit make me look thin?"

We go about out superficial lives intently focused on the least important and ignoring that which is essential to our salvation. We concentrate more on external cues that we do on our inner compass. But is only our inner voice that we need attend. When we seek quiet (instead of chaos), our true voice will make itself heard and it is the one, in these times, that we would be wise to listen to. For when we run away - rather than race to - the pandemonium that is modern society, then that voice speaks to us. When we walk "beside the still waters," and simply listen, priorities become clearer and redemption beckons. Clarity strips away all "situational ethics" and "practical morality" and reveals what is truly important to us, both as individuals and as members of mankind.

Marcus Aurelius, last of the "Five Great Roman Emperors," wrote in his Meditations:

"Stop letting the guiding principle within you be tugged around like a marionette by the strings of selfish impulses."

Two thousand year later, it remains good advice.