Our ethics expert Mark Matousek is author of the just-published book "Ethical Wisdom: What Makes Us Good." Here is an excerpt from "Ethical Wisdom" you can download for free Download PagesfromMato_9780385527897_5p_all_r1-1.
From the brisk sales and all the ordinary people and influentials contacting Matousek, there seems to be a hunger for discussion of the right thing to do.
This week Matousek looks at the scary underbelly of those people and institutions which claim, explicitly or implicitly, moral certitude.
From primitive times, there have been dominant individuals who appointed themselves - or were selected by the tribe - to lead.
Among other key survival duties, they reinforced the laws and social customs of the group. It was verboten to sleep with your fellow caveman's woman when he was out hunting for madodons. The females at home were obliged to help the woman who was giving birth. Wasting any part of the kill such as the teeth or horns would get you driven from the cave. Disobedience of these rules could get an unruly caveman banished. In fact, the words "testament," "testify," and "testimony" come from the same root as "testicles," since ancient humans put their hands over their genitals to swear oaths of obedience.
However, that was then - and this is now. Our tribes today are dispersed all over the world. Still, there often remains that assumption of moral certitude. It can spill over to the legal system. The classic example is for the court system, perhaps in violation of constitutional rights, to impose a sentence of attending Alcoholics Anonymous on someone convicted of DUI or even just weird behavior. Since the alternative is jail, the choice seems not to constitute an authentic choice.
The irony is that our justice system does not reflect what science is now telling us about mirror neurons. Those mirror neurons are in the brain and actually affect behavior. We learn by imitation. Place a person already having difficulty with navigating life with others experiencing the same, or worse than he is, and the odds do not point toward moral or behavioral improvement. More likely, that person will end up stuck in a dead-end prison term, learning nothing and doing more harm.
As for the legal community, you members of it might file test cases to question the nature of what's framed as help in America.
You are invited to visit my blog http://ethicsguerrilla.typepad.com, Facebook wall http://facebook.com/mark.matousek, and where I tweet http://twitter.com/markmatousek.
I'm all ears for your thoughts about ethics markmatousek@gmail.com or please leave a comment.
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