Morality

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Brad W

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I've been listening to a podcast every morning walking the dog. (The Catechism in a Year, by Father Mike Schmitz)
This morning's edition for me was day 236, titled "The Morality of Human Acts"

I bring this up only because just before listening to it this morning, I had read a thread here that seems to have been closed...Something about pilots being rude on the radio. I think that thread had been locked...and I reckon this is a stand-alone topic anyway...

So in the podcast, Fr Schmitz mentions a study that was done by a university Sociologist named Christian Smith (UNC Chapel Hill / Notre Dame). It was a study of the moral life of young adults in the US.

One of the findings was that 60% had no ability and no categories to make moral decisions. The meaning is that they have lost the language of "good" and "evil". They have lost the definitions of those concepts.

These young adults wouldn't say that something is "wrong" or that it's "bad". Instead, they say that it's "stupid". Or they might say that that person "sick" or "pathological"
Father's point as I understood it is basically they aren't seeing things in terms of right or wrong. These young adults aren't equipped to choose between good over evil.

It just struck me that this is certainly not a surprise to most of us, but it is kind of an interesting way to think about it. I see it as yet another example of how language or definitions in some ways change over time with subtle shifts in culture and morality. Sometimes it's for good but often it seems it's not good.
 
Yep. As someone else said,

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the laws. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Indeed. What's to become of us?
 
This discussion is similar to to the thread about Civility. That thread talked mostly about manners not morals, but aren't they linked?

Add on: The Civility thread was locked by the MC for review. No further comment, no explanation. Be careful what you say here or the THOUGHT POLICE might come after you next!!
 
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While there is certainly "grey area" in almost everything I feel that the grey has become so very wide that most folks are only willing to call right/wrong when it is clearly obvious. It's so rare for folks to recognize that's there's simply evil people in our society and one does not need to try to make an excuse for them.

I remember reading somewhere that in the old west, "He jus' needed killin'" was a viable defense for murder. But really what I've noticed is too many folks have never been told "no" nor faced consequences for their actions. Or been punched in the face. This leads to the behaviors we're seeing from the younger generations.

Certainly not the case for all cultures. The Japanese, for example are still overwhelmingly polite and respectful. This was most recently on world display at the Olympics when the Japanese fans cleaned the stadium after a soccer match. Conversely, I went with my son to see a movie yesterday and the theater was a mess and people were loud and disruptive for most of the film.
 
Let me preface this, I am not deeply religious, despite being raised in such a family.

Today's society has moved away from organized religion. Less people attend a church regularly than in year's past. While I'm not saying you have to have religion to learn right from wrong, I think it helps establish a base. I believe if we go back in human history, we see this is a metric that ebbs and flows. Kind of like the saying, "Bad times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create bad times" Want to guess where we are in that cycle?
 
midlifeflyer said:
Yep. As someone else said,

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the laws. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Indeed. What's to become of us?
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Yes, Socrates - “kids these days…”
 
Eric Brunelle said:
Yes, Socrates - “kids these days…”
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It’s interesting that nearly every generation says this. It seems, as we get older we “learn” things, then look at the younger generation and say, “kids these days…”

That made me think of this Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
 
Without having listened to the podcast, I supect it's yet another attempt to rail against " the moral decay" of today's youth. But I am tangentially familiar with the study he refers to, and it's more about young people's tendency to be less judgemental than in the past in a culture that encourages and values absolute freedom of expression. IMHO, It's less about not knowing the difference between right and wrong, between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, than it is about couching the criticisms in traditional theological terms.

I think the case against the youngsters being amoral is grossly overstated.
 
I used to work with some guys that had lived, and were living, some pretty rough lives. Part of morality requires having a conscience, and that’s something we’re born with; the ability to know right from wrong. Even with those guys, if I had to step in I would simply say, “Dude, that ain’t right.” And it was a non-confrontational statement of fact. Almost always it would end in a short moment of reflection, followed by, “Yeah.”

In too many cases, the knowledge of the difference between right and wrong is there, but what seems to be missing is the ability to care.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Yep. As someone else said,

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the laws. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Indeed. What's to become of us?
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Kids those days!
 
As a recent survivor of what passes for a public education system, I would add that in my short lifetime there has been a concerted attempt by educators to eradicate the terms "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong" in post elementary grades. But none of the teachers / administrators / board members that I know of have the wisdom of Socrates (or Plato, or Aristotle), they seem to be unable to find a rational balance between acknowledging that in most cases there is no 100% black and no 100% white and saying that all colors are medium grey.

I live in an imperfect town, in an imperfect state, in an imperfect country full of imperfect people. But my limited experience tells me that my town, state, country, and neighbors are overwhelmingly good. I'm going to buy part of a 70-something year old airplane. It is an overwhelmingly good machine. That doesn't mean that I should just say "it's good" and not monitor it and its systems. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't make sure that it remains an overwhelmingly good machine.

The attack on words doesn't help in this regard. In my school district those students who "required additional help" had been called "slow learners" in the past, then they were called "special", then "gifted". Seriously, we had "gifted" students who didn't graduate but went from middle school to college and "gifted" students who went from high school to sheltered workshops.

But changing or eradicating the words only confuses things. I have teachers who would disagree, but as an example, what the Empire of Japan did 83 years ago yesterday was empirically bad, immoral, and cannot ever be justified. There is no moral equivalency between what the United States of America did between say 1940 and 1946 and what the Empire of Japan did. And most of the people who live in my town, when hearing this nonsense, simply come to the conclusion that the speaker is "gifted" (the second, not the first definition).

Sunday Dec 7, 1941 about 7:55 AM
Piper J3C 6119 NC35111 owned by K-T Flying Service was "shot down by Japanese fighter aircraft at the start of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Crashed into the sea between Pearl Harbor and Barbers Point. Pilot Sergeant Henry C Blackwell and passenger Sergeant Warren D Rasmussen, of the California National Guard, both killed."
Piper J3C 4270 NC26950 also owned by K-T was "shot down by Japanese fighter aircraft at the start of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Crashed into the sea between Pearl Harbor and Barbers Point. Pilot Corporal Clyde C Brown of the California National Guard was killed."
(Aviation Safety Network)
Robert Tyce, co-owner of K-T, was killed on the ground that morning by a strafing Japanese aircraft that also strafed a Hawaiian Airlines DC-3. These are just four of the millions of people murdered by the Empire of Japan. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and China are its only moral equivalent.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Today's society has moved away from organized religion.
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What is ''organized'' religion? Our church is organized, that is we hold services every Sunday and Wednesday,

But correct. People, mainly men, have failed in family. Men create babies then abandon that family. It is up to the men to teach their children and be regular church goers, but don't. It is time for men to stand up and take charge of the family and take the family to church.

I could go on but will stop here because of respect for the RoC, and the fact that some folks do not like religion forced on them. A person has total freedom in believing in God or not. (at least in the USA)
 
Eric Brunelle said:
Yes, Socrates - “kids these days…”
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For that matter, what proof do we have that anything has *changed*? What would have been the result/conclusion of a similar analysis performed in 2000? In 1940? In 1800? In 1200?

Some really bad stuff has come down over history, stuff that, at the time, was deemed "normal" or "moral." Check out the actions of the good Belgians in Africa. The highly-civilized Britons in India ("Revolt against our rule? We'll strap you over the barrel of a cannon and fire it"). The Spanish Inquisition (whether you expected it or not). The Crusaders (Who used to "warm up" on the way to fight the Muslims by slaughtering Jews living in the Christian towns on the way... an act made easier since the Jews were prohibited from owning weapons).

Tell me again how much better things were, back then. Sure, the '50s seem idyllic...if you were white, male, and Christian. About 50 years ago, I had my first experience with racism; me and a Black airman happened to enter a small-town bar in North Dakota. Nothing overt, nothing violent, just some obvious hatred in the stares. We made our purchase and got out of town, fast. About two years ago, I encountered an almost identical situation at an EAA meeting, when one attendee (a visitor, not a chapter member) realized the night's speaker was trans.

Hard to tell how much society has lost its morals, when it didn't have many to start with....

Ron Wanttaja
 
midwestpa24 said:
Let me preface this, I am not deeply religious, despite being raised in such a family.

Today's society has moved away from organized religion. Less people attend a church regularly than in year's past. While I'm not saying you have to have religion to learn right from wrong, I think it helps establish a base. I believe if we go back in human history, we see this is a metric that ebbs and flows. Kind of like the saying, "Bad times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create bad times" Want to guess where we are in that cycle?
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i dont want to say its religion, but religion instills a sense that you are going to be judged for your actions, and that you have a responsibility to a higher power. its that idea, not religion specifically, that is missing from the word today. you cannot have morality, if you feel you have no responsibility to anyone or anything.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
it's more about young people's tendency to be less judgemental than in the past in a culture that encourages and values absolute freedom of expression.
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Many young people are quite intolerant of freedom of expression. Our universities are trending towards intellectual monoculture, and students and faculty are ostracized, 'cancelled', if they don't toe the party line.
 
KE5BM said:
But really what I've noticed is too many folks have never been told "no" nor faced consequences for their actions. Or been punched in the face. This leads to the behaviors we're seeing from the younger generations.
.
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I'm grading final projects, next weekend will be the CAP funeral and grading exams. Not looking forward to any of this except....4 separate computer science classes, each a different level (first 4 semesters of the degree). The final project assignment was posted a month ago with very specific directions. I reminded the students more than once that I would not accept anything after midnight, Friday, Dec 6, as that was the legal end of the academic year. Yesterday (Sat) I get a begging email...the student finished the project but forgot to submit to the online LMS (Learning management system).

Nope. It's a zero.

If you learn nothing in this class, you will learn to read and follow directions. Most of them still don't understand this.

Side note to Ron's comment about the 50s....I stopped wearing my Star of David many, many years ago (I practice Zen Judaism...I sit zazen and kvetch the whole time) because of the "environment and culture" that has permeated the US. Not a problem on campus (it's very multi-cultural, over 30,000 students, and a large percentage of international students) but I often got strange looks at the grocery store, hardware store, etc.
 
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Putting aside the effects of religion, as that discussion is against the rules...

Without absolute truth, morality means nothing.

Without morality, the primary concern is looking out for Number One before all else.

A "me-first" mindset leads to "anything goes, as long as I get to control what happens to me". This is not actual tolerance or a tendency to be less judgmental. It is just a narrower sphere of concern. It is easy to say "Anyone should be able to love whoever, take whatever drugs they want, etc." if you have no greater concern than me, myself, and I and the right here and now. It is only when a person is concerned about family, society at large, or the future that they become "judgmental" or "intolerant", as a person is now concerned about providing a safe, healthy, and sane cultural environment for those around them. For example, a few years back, there was a push for "destigmatization" of being caught consuming 'adult content made with children' and an attempt to remove that offense from the list of what puts a person on the offender registry. I am incredibly intolerant of those people and believe they should be on the registry for life after being caught at that because I someday wish to have children and I have no desire to accidentally move in next to a person who fantasizes about assaulting and violating my children and destroying their innocence. There is nothing good about being so tolerant that nothing makes your stomach twist in revulsion as there is plenty in the world that is truly evil and should be hated by everyone.

To bring it solely to my generation and the next - in my personal opinion, there is nothing inherently worse about today's crop of young people than about young people in the past. Selfishness, laziness, irresponsibility, pride, and arrogance have been issues for millenium. One of the only differences is that the young people of today have received a lot less parental behavioral guidance and teaching as a general rule, and they have little to no societal pressure to regulate those behaviors until they become adults. Lessons that used to be taught in childhood are now being learned the hard way in adult life. What used to be common sense and common civility in culture is eroding simply because the societal compass is shifting and when values shift, so do behaviors.
 
bbchien said:
What has happened is Micheal Brown from Ferguson Mo. "well who's going to make me?".
We AGAIN need compulsory military service, 2 years. It needs be part of our common experience.
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The Israelis get this right.
 
Matthew said:
In too many cases, the knowledge of the difference between right and wrong is there, but what seems to be missing is the ability to care.
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Not a health care professional, but I have noticed over the years that some who appear to lack much empathy are actually in a state of depression. That and anxiety are all too common these days.
 
Youth are a reflection of their parenting. It isn't the responsibility of a school to teach morality. If the perceived morality of school environment is what is most impactful on a child, it is from a deficiency in parenting. Full stop.

Now, we can ask what happened to make instilling good morals by parents change? Well, you can look at people not being religious. Ok, then why is that? Quite possibly/probably from the very public moral failings of various clergy leaders.

Possibly the substantial decline in Scouting among youth? Again, see the very public moral failings of past leaders.

So, right there you have two major influences on youth, which historically had positive moral influences, heavily removed.

I won't even bother bringing up the moral deficiencies of our political leaders.

Parenting time. A significant increase in the number of either single-parent households or households where both parents need to work (sometimes multiple jobs) to make ends meet. That leaves TikTok and YouTube to fill the void. Maybe all those increases in worker productivity that lead to great stock market gains have a societal cost?

I also see a lot of parents who don't understand the importance of setting an example for their kids. It is incredibly difficult to get Millennial/Gen Y parents to volunteer to support activities that benefit their own kids (sports, scouts, anything). This will result in another generation who don't understand personal sacrifice. I don't agree that we need a form of mandatory public service, but there should be ways to better incentivize volunteerism.
 
The most difficult(not complex) class I would teach is undergrad ethics. Required in most all business majors, and in some pre-law, pre-med majors. We're not allowed to stray into morality, but we can thematically reference moral behaviors as a balance point, or underpinning of ethical business actions. I use the case study method with the students reading and coming up with directly who is to blame in the case, and what their culpability is due to the unethical behavior.

I bring this up, maybe for a small ray of sunshine in what is often a dark view of 'todays' youth. I haven't noticed much change in the ability of students to figure out and identify ethical/moral problems, and who is at fault. I believe there is a human instinct to know even without formal training what is 'right' and 'wrong' when dealing with business, or in one's personal life. Why it's such a difficult class is getting the students to agree that ethical treatment is expected from each party, and each party expects ethical treatment in response.

Where I see things have broken down, and it's a cultural change, because if I framed it in political terms that would be against the rules. Culturally, where I teach in a large metro area, comprised mostly of one voting block, it's not that they can't see the unethical behavior, and how it plays out, but they seem to think that this applies only in one direction. Thus - the supplicant must treat the applicant in an ethical way - but the applicant has no obligation to operate in any way that would reduce their hold on power, or authority. More or less - 'might makes right', and that we got to this point by playing fast and loose with the rules, and bending things to our point of view without negative consequence, therefore - the ethical equality of effect is not required on our(establishment, power structure) part.

I tend to call this the "inverse Noblesse Oblige" concept. That, we are allowed to get away with unethical behavior, because it is our due. A sense of invulnerability from recourse for their poor behavior. It's usually pretty easy for me to tell which students are from an upscale, metropolitan, egalitarian family, and which kids come from a more rural, principled, 'there will be hell to pay' family where respect for ethics and morality is much better embedded.

The current transformations in our cultural leadership may make this point better than I ever could in a small university setting. Some kids need a wake up slap, and sadly, in many cases that won't be delivered until it's too late, and the unethical jackwad is facing 15-20 years for defrauding the US, using hard drugs, and videotaping their antics with hookers and blow, then saving it for posterity on their own laptop.:thumbsup:
 
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Chip Sylverne said:
Without having listened to the podcast, I supect it's yet another attempt to rail against " the moral decay" of today's youth. But I am tangentially familiar with the study he refers to, and it's more about young people's tendency to be less judgemental than in the past in a culture that encourages and values absolute freedom of expression. IMHO, It's less about not knowing the difference between right and wrong, between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, than it is about couching the criticisms in traditional theological terms.

I think the case against the youngsters being amoral is grossly overstated.
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Indeed. It's just another theistic hail mary (see what I did there? :rofl: ) at trying to corner/appropriate the "absolute morality" market. If my tax advantaged status was threatened, I'm sure I too would be making such proclamations as a humanist. Alas, no nice little tax break for my world view. As I said, nice little gig if I you can get it.
 
bbchien said:
We AGAIN need compulsory military service, 2 years. It needs be part of our common experience.
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As a veteran, I am not sure I agree. Maybe. But I am curious about your service, Bruce. Which branch? How long? Apparently, it was a positive experience. Mine was, in spite of getting shot at.
 
bbchien said:
What has happened is Micheal Brown from Ferguson Mo. "well who's going to make me?".
We AGAIN need compulsory military service, 2 years. It needs be part of our common experience.
Click to expand...

Military service certainly did wonders for Timothy Mc Veigh, Eric Ruldolf and and Jeffrey Dahmer,
 
some things have improved. some, not so much.

Where I grew up, we could leave our front door unlocked. Doing that now would be stupid.

actually, POA ROC prevent me from detailing some of the things that are definitely worse now, much worse.
 
GaryM said:
Many young people are quite intolerant of freedom of expression. Our universities are trending towards intellectual monoculture, and students and faculty are ostracized, 'cancelled', if they don't toe the party line.
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I am of two minds on this. On the one hand I believe in freedom of speech in the public square, to express one's ideas in using rational rhetoric but on the other I see no obligation for anyone to sit and listen quietly granting tacit approval to speech that is morally and ethically abhorrent.
 
unsafervguy said:
i dont want to say its religion, but religion instills a sense that you are going to be judged for your actions, and that you have a responsibility to a higher power. its that idea, not religion specifically, that is missing from the word today. you cannot have morality, if you feel you have no responsibility to anyone or anything.
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Fear vs empathy

I don't believe anyone who tells me they know what happens after you die. But I do believe that people can be negatively or positively impacted by my actions.

I'm not sure if it's more difficult to teach a child morality by making them fear some kind of eternal retribution, or by making them understand other people's feelings. But I raise my kid to understand the latter.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I am 60 years old. This event happened in my lifetime.
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Was in grade school at the time, in North Dakota. We were told that segregation existed because the *Black* people wanted it.

This was a Catholic school.

You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught

Ron Wanttaja
 
I don't want to point the finger, but yeah - there's a couple of religions that are not exactly covering themselves in moral righteousness these days. And throughout history as well.
 
wanttaja said:
For that matter, what proof do we have that anything has *changed*? What would have been the result/conclusion of a similar analysis performed in 2000? In 1940? In 1800? In 1200?

Some really bad stuff has come down over history, stuff that, at the time, was deemed "normal" or "moral." Check out the actions of the good Belgians in Africa. The highly-civilized Britons in India ("Revolt against our rule? We'll strap you over the barrel of a cannon and fire it"). The Spanish Inquisition (whether you expected it or not). The Crusaders (Who used to "warm up" on the way to fight the Muslims by slaughtering Jews living in the Christian towns on the way... an act made easier since the Jews were prohibited from owning weapons).

Tell me again how much better things were, back then. Sure, the '50s seem idyllic...if you were white, male, and Christian. About 50 years ago, I had my first experience with racism; me and a Black airman happened to enter a small-town bar in North Dakota. Nothing overt, nothing violent, just some obvious hatred in the stares. We made our purchase and got out of town, fast. About two years ago, I encountered an almost identical situation at an EAA meeting, when one attendee (a visitor, not a chapter member) realized the night's speaker was trans.

Hard to tell how much society has lost its morals, when it didn't have many to start with....

Ron Wanttaja
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“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
 
Who gets to decide what is moral and what isn’t. If there isn’t universal agreement on what is moral then how do you test to see if people are more or less moral than in the past.

Your priest/father is just pushing his own personal views on how people should be moral. It doesn’t mean he is right or the only source of truth on what’s moral. He is a priest and it’s his job to push people to align with what he believes.

If you get enough people aligning around a set of moral views they call it a religion and as we know, Catholicism isn’t the only religion out there. It’s also a declining religion so it’s not surprising that from his point of view people are less moral today than in the past. It doesn’t mean those people are somehow wrong or immoral. It just means that they have different perspectives and thoughts on morality than the Catholic Church does. Maybe something me morals are aligned such as murder being bad but maybe others like gay marriage or women being priests aren’t. Does it mean those people are less moral or do they just hold different moral beliefs?
 
Ed Haywood said:
Speaking on behalf of career military professionals, find someone else to babysit your kids. We have wars to prepare for and fight. Volunteers only, thank you.
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This. I'm currently on active duty in a leadership position, and I'll be blunt enough to say that some of the recruits we're getting are a net negative on the service. They chew up more hours and energy than they contribute, and we'd literally be better with an empty billet. Some of those folks are salvageable. Some aren't, but the current regs make it a nightmare to kick 'em out again. Mandatory service would only make that worse. We still have some great folks joining, but there are some who should never have made it into uniform.

In a free society, I'm opposed to mandating things unless absolutely necessary (especially not "for the greater good"). Freedom of choice is fundamental to our society. My opinion is that we would be better served with a policy which requires public service for public support. Military would count, but so would other forms of public service such as local, state, and federal programs (with or without private partnerships, such as Habitat for Humanity). Two years of public service buys you a full ride to a state university, college, or technical school. Don't want to volunteer to help your community? Parents well-off? Cool, you can pay cash for a private school or even a state school, but the latter is going to be high-dollar to help subsidize the folks who did volunteer.

Nothing mandatory. If you don't want to do either, that's fine. You just don't get to access state or federal programs for loans or similar support. Ever. You support society, and society supports you. That's the deal.
 
I grew up with a very complicated understanding of morality… my mother was a very devoted catholic, my father was a very altruistic farmer (a deeply spiritual man, but with zero faith in organized religion). Through my mom I was taught compassion, empathy, and generosity. Through my father I was taught realities of existence. If times were tough he would not hesitate to cull down the breading stock of his pig herd. “They will all die of starvation if we cannot turn a profit to pay for their feed”, looking back my mother was a good person, but my father was a great one, he made hard decisions, ones that I could see visibly that were very painful to him to make, sacrificing a few for the betterment of the whole. The classic trolly switch question in sociology, he did it daily, and would always pull the lever for the greater good.
 
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