Vincent Kundukulam
Constant change of culture necessitates serious reflection regarding the transmission of values. All agree on the fact that the moral principles must change according to the changing culture. But the problem arises the moment one begins to decide up on which are the permanent to be kept back andwhat are provisional values to be dropped out.
Alasdair McIntyre in his book entitled, A short history of ethics, explain three currents of thoughts regarding this point. There are a set of philosophers who consider that moral concepts are time-less and unchanging and hence they cannot be altered according to the whims and fancies of people. There is another group of academics who consider that all moral principles are contingent and relative. To them, moral principles vary from time to time, from society to society and from ideology to ideology. For example, a conservative catholic would see obedience to authority as a virtue while a socialist may consider it as the worst of vices.
There is a third group of thinkers who opine that there are certainly continuities as well as breaks with regard to moral ideas because history is never like a museum (without any change) nor cells in human body (ever changing). We cannot share life with others without certain common values. At the same time, to live within a fixed moral vocabulary shall lead to an act of bad faith. Hence, their solution is to remain stable in vital morals and flexible in optional ideals. But then another question arises: how to fix the primary and secondary values? Answer is not easy because there exist numerous moral systems, each coherent in its world-view and life-vision. The concept of good and evil varies from people to people and from time to time.
As there is no agreement on what is intrinsically good and bad, the solution would be to let every person decide how one wants to be morally bound. Put differently, each individual must become ones’ own authority in choosing his/her morality. The fact being this, the effective way to ensure ethics in the life of individuals and society would be to focus on the formation of conscience. A matured conscienceknows what is good and bad in the changing situations.
Conscience needs due knowledge, due will and due freedom in order to take matured decisions on moral matters. We can educate conscience through education, experience and practice. It is a life-long task. From childhood onwards, individuals must be helped to listen to the law hidden in conscience. Yet, conscience may not always make a right judgement. It may be misled by bad examples, false teachings and lack of courage. Therefore, periodical self-examination and accompaniment are necessary to keep the conscience on the right track.
As regards the norms to follow in the formation of conscience I would follow the suggestion of French theologian Francois Varillon (1905-1978). According to him, man must receive light from two sources: secular and sacred, reason and faith, knowledge supplied by secular sciences and revelation given by the Sacred Scriptures. There is nothing new in this proposal. He goes in line with the position of Jesus. When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not?” he replied “Give therefore to the emperor things that are emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22, 19-21). If we take into account the recent developments in Cognitive science, we shall see that these two sources correspond well to the nature and aspirations of the left and right brains in us and hence fit for human development.
kundu1962@gmail.com
