1. Communal-Familial Moral Relations
The second structure of moral-emotional relations is the Communal-Familial, sometimes called the social. Logically second in the sequence (starting with Transcendence) it is the primary form of human relational attachment and begins at birth. It is the source of identity and the foundation for much of the way life will be lived. While it is of limited practical usefulness in many social circumstances, it is still common and the driver of much organizational motivation and the guide to many practices.
Figure 1: The bounded circle in the context of the great abyss of existence
One lives as a self in relation to others. The simplest relational dynamic is between the self and all others without distinguishing the unique nature of others. They are merely others as a whole, those outside of the self. The simplest visual metaphor for conceptualizing such ambiguous others is to imagine the boundary conditions as a single line enclosing space, i.e. as a circle (or in three dimensions, a sphere). When one considers the meta-relational dynamic of oneself in relation to all others the primal concern is whether one belongs, that is, is one inside or outside the circle. One is either inside the circle and all identity conditions of the circle apply, or one is outside because some significant component of the identity circle does not apply. One is like or unlike, part of or excluded from the set of the whole.
If one is on the inside of the circle one is a part of a collective identity. This perspective is a tool that allows us as individuals to work with the experience of being part of something and give it relational shape so that it is meaningful in larger terms that can be manipulated. The experience of belonging is not one with a great deal of nuance (due to or appropriately reflected in the metaphoric circle) but it is a very powerful emotional sense and an important way of understanding one’s relational existence. We all want to “belong” and find deep meaning in doing so. It provides a sense of location, safety, and coherence. Being part of the circle gives our often fragmented lives meaning, so some circles of inclusion, at some point, are important to each one of us.
The body of the circle is uniform, a space of containment and a place of constancy. This is normally the realm of the family or the intense affinitive social group. Members share a name or other symbols (or participatory experiences) of shared identity. Within the circle all is/are essentially equivalent, or of identical value in relation to the other component parts of the circle. Within the circle there is nothing to distinguish one part from another since there really are no parts.
As a guide to moral action the circle can be seen as having two cognitively useful characteristics, identity (boundary) and equality (internal state). It is the realm of economic relations of sharing, altruism, or self-sacrificial generosity since what defines one’s value is the boundary or one’s identity (Fiske, 1991). Guiding the moral behaviour of the members is the strength of the boundary in combination with the symbolic characteristics of identity. The more absolute the boundary (the steeper the entry threshold) the more those within will have a strong sense of identity, a feeling of inclusion, and a commitment to internal altruism. A well protected boundary is likely to produce a sense of security or place such as “home.”
From the vieszpoint of an active participant in the circle it has no external references. There is no meaningful “other” to which it relates. The rules of the circle only apply to the circle and are irrelevant to all outside the circle. Their meaning is found in their non-participation in the framework of real meaning. Thus there is a moral elimination of all those who are outside the circle. It is not a question of difference but of moral non-existence. This makes the identity-group in some respects a socially destructive moral presence. While it may be of value to its participants, it does not inherently encourage positive relations with others. Under some conditions it could be a source of violence toward others (Fiske, 1991).
While such experiences of identity are common, they are not routine. Even for families, for whom it is probably the dominant moral framework, much of their time is spent in relation to external bodies and larger social groupings through the use of other relational frameworks. While the family has a strong moral character, its members will be unlikely to perceive the world effectively through the boundary state. A more flexible arrangement of objects is needed in order to create the conditions for a more cooperative social state. More abstractly, the circle may be applied to any human conditions defining identity. This especially includes the nation-state or other important foci of group identity. Any context that leads to the expression of some sense of “I am _____” suggest this moral-emotional framework.
In terms of existing moral or ethical systems, this structure is essentially identical to what Fiske (1991, 2004) identifies as the relational structure of Communal Sharing. It also fits as the operant structure behind Haidt’s (2012) moral flavours of Sanctity/degradation and Loyalty/betrayal. Most religious moralities encompass or build upon this relational dynamic. As a source of identity and thus of motivation for many, it is a relatively accessible way to motivate collective action, especially in as much as it might trigger what Haidt identifies as our collective personal mindset—the place where we become a group rather than individuals. Thus it is possible its most powerful moral use is its extension to justify tribalism, nationalism or ethno-centrism. Still, regardless of its power to shape identity, on its own this moral metaphor provides little to guide complex interaction. Additional frameworks are required for any complex human encounter.
Table 1. Concepts and their place
In Circle |
Out of Circle |
|
Generosity |
Chaos |
|
Belonging |
Terror(ist) |
|
Name/family |
The ‘other’ |
|
Self-sacrifice |
Garbage |
|
Mother/Father-land |
Genocide |
|
Altruism |
Impure |
|
Us |
Them |
Virtue Ethics
Some forms of virtue and feminist ethics appear to be rooted in this moral-emotional framework. The ancient Greek, Aristotle (384-322 BCE), developed this school of ethics based on close observation regarding how groups of people decide what is good. As groups with a coherent identity and mutual commitments human beings identify what they believe to be good and bad behaviours and outcomes. From this it is possible to develop lists of what are good and bad things to do (lists of virtues and vices) tied to the perception of what creates the group’s boundary or identity. These lists of virtues are fostered through the stories groups tell about themselves and the world around them, and by the experiences of those groups that create their identity (MacIntyre, 1966).
Virtue ethics have been very popular with religious groups and are the basis for much of traditional tribal or clan life (Weiner, 2013) but they are also the basis around which many laws and regulations are developed and implemented in more complex social situations. Groups of all kinds have a strong interest in developing lists of both virtues and vices by which they can guide or control their members. Honour turns out to be an important way many human beings make decision about themselves in relation to the world as a whole.
In the contemporary world feminists have seen the virtues as a way of approaching a more humane ethics than that of what are identified as more patriarchal virtues inherent in other ethical approaches. While feminists may not necessarily share much with religious adherents to this perspective they do agree that identity is critical to how one behaves in all realms of life. Thus a feminist may say “the personal is political” while a Christian may say “God weighs every action” and disagree profoundly about the details of life. But what they have both indicated is that by participation in a certain identity, either womanhood or Christianity a moral and ethical claim is being made on everything one does.
Organizational Applications
While businesses do not normally formally invoke virtue ethics or ethics of identity in their ethical statements, all businesses call upon this form of moral-emotional relationship between organizational members. It is particularly useful for drawing them together in a relative unity as opposed to those in other organizations, especially competitors, or the world as a whole. It is expressed in language like “Let’s be part of the team,” or a question like “Is everyone feeling happy about where we are at?” It is critical for organizational success that this form of moral-emotional reasoning be a daily part of participant life as it keeps people focused on the values of the organization, reflective of and contributing toward keep points of image and identity, and looking out for the well-being of other staff without worrying about compensation. Typically, a group facing adversity will tend to emphasize its group cohesion and identity using this type of moral-emotional framework. Often it means taking on a name and being able to identify markers of common culture, such as clothing, language, or attitudes to specific others (other work teams, competitors, men/women, bosses, customers, etc.). The result can be strong esprit de corps and high productivity despite adverse conditions.
However, in organizational contexts communal-familial relational dynamics tend to breed in-group thinking and self-protective dynamics around sub-groups. A strong team has strong boundaries which make it difficult to integrate new members or react responsibly to problems generated by any one team member. It can become increasingly difficult, or even impossible, to obtain support of externally generated change which challenges aspects of group identity or well-being. There is a tendency to turn on outsiders including legitimate authorities, at such points. The result is that organizations need to ensure that all groups are closely monitored to ensure the negatives from strong group identity are being minimized. This may mean breaking up groups. Better yet is to ensure there is a larger and positive institutional identity with which to broaden the sense of group participation. Group members need to know they are there to serve the larger group needs and dependent upon that larger group for long-term existence.
References & Additional Readings
Etzioni, A. (1988). The Moral Dimension: Towards a new economics. New York: The Free Press.
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
Solomon, R. C. (1992). Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and integrity in Business. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiner, M. (2013). The Rule of the Clan: What an ancient form of social organization reveals about the future of individual freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Search Terms:
Aristotle, Virtue Ethics, Feminist Ethics, Religious Ethics
2. Hierarchical Moral Relations
The third structure of moral-emotional relations is the Hierarchical. While rarely recognized as a formal framework of moral reasoning, it is one of the most common and powerful forms of moral analysis human beings use to manage their existence.
Figure 2: The vertical array of relative order
As soon as a person senses distinct others with the possibility of unique relationships to the self then the simple moral-metaphor of the circle and its boundary conditions becomes inadequate. The immediate question upon realization of distinct others is that of their threat (implicit moral badness) or asset (implicit moral goodness) capacity. As visual relationships go, this leads to the metaphor of vertical relationship, of circles rising or falling (becoming better or worse) in relation to the self or the others. It applies in some respects to any situation more complex than that of identity formation. It is also a flexible structure since any two persons or groups may be ranked along or more scales of meaning.
It is easy to see this as the basic perceptual or relational framework for social pyramids or any hierarchical relations. It is a structure of dominance and a ladder to excellence. This sense of order can be interpreted in many different ways, from religious, social and military hierarchies in rigid social frameworks, to places of competence, growth, and good order in looser social frameworks. Since the morally positive direction is up, cultures with strong social hierarchies will validate power relationships as intrinsically good, though the sense of order will also lead to commitments of role related honour or noblesse oblige to those below, and corresponding obedience and service by lower participants in the structure. Alternatively, a social system of competence (role excellence) relations will reward performance with upward movement (promotion) and support a meritocracy.
Given the flexibility and effectiveness of this moral geometry in the context of complex and well-established group relations this is probably one of the most common of human moral geometries. It allows people to work together to accomplish goals, manage conflicts, have a sense of order, and maintain an upward openness leading to positive moral feelings under a broad range of conditions.
Many forms of ethics or social structures of meaning draw upon a hierarchical moral mindset. Fiske’s (1991) relational model of Authority Ranking is one such. Haidt’s (2012) Authority/subversion and Care/harm moralities flow out of hierarchical moral arrangements and probably represent universal instantiations of hierarchical mindsets rooted in fundamental human relational needs. Where this moral framework becomes vibrant is within organizational life. Be it the tribe, the corporation, the nation, or the religious congregation, a strong morality of roles regulates the goodness of human life. Clearly most ethics of duty are metaphoric applications of intuitive notions of hierarchical morality. Religious ethics, with a God or gods at the “top” find easy application as moral hierarchies. This is also the home of some forms of virtue ethics where moralities themselves are ranked.
With the capacity of hierarchical moral structures to flexibly respond to all aspects of life, at least insofar as they remain relatively static, this is the first moral-relational framework to have totalizing possibilities. While moral intuitions in the transcendent or familial frameworks may be very powerful, the ability of a hierarchical framework to organize and apply those intuitions at the detailed operational level through mechanisms of social learning and cultural traditions means the simplest way of turning insights of existence and identity into strong moral frameworks is through the applications of hierarchies. Any behavioural possibility can be inserted into a hierarchy, especially if the God or the God-king has so ordained. The result may be that in some social contexts hierarchies become all important social mechanisms. While not necessarily appearing rational, hierarchical moral structures ring of certain kinds of powerful truth as long as they reflect actual power structures experienced in daily life.
More Virtue Ethics & Deontology, the Clan
Almost every list of virtues ranks those virtues in a hierarchy thus while drawing primarily upon issues of identity for their ethics, most virtue systems also implicitly or often, as in religious systems, draw deeply from the well of hierarchy, to make sense of their ethical systems. But there are ethics of duty (deontology) which are deeply hierarchical. All hierarchies have a strong sense of duty attached to them and as people function in organized groups, whether a business or an agency of government, a team or a charity, they typically organize hierarchies with ranks and orders of belonging.
The virtues of hierarchy are those of obedience and conformity. They are also the roots of compassion and noblesse oblige. Typically, there is a great deal of comfort to being part of a strong hierarchy and fitting within its expectations. Most ethical systems developed in hierarchies such as a religion or the military seek to match a person with a place or role in the order that gives them room to move up and strong rewards for commitment to the order itself.
One particularly important arrangement of virtues and order emerges in the clan. This is one of the most powerful ethical systems known to humanity since it combines features of a strong ethics of identity with a hierarchical order that is deeply committed to the well-being of its members. A good clan is a relatively unitary body where members are equal in value and access to resources, and where there is strong obedience to the emergent hierarchies around clan leaders and sex roles. Like many hierarchies, clans use honour and shame as core moral markers. These emotions are used to regulate the behaviour of members and belong not to the individuals but to the group as a whole (Weiner, 2013).
Organizational Applications
Structures of order are essential to the moral lives of all complex organizations. They may be as simple as a memorized list of instructions or as complex as a massive list of codes and structures. What unites them is their development in response to situational demands that order them on the basis of priority or ranking in the organization. While many forms of moral reasoning arise in terms of situational demands, most are somewhat arbitrary and held together by marks of rank or organizational systems of priority. When a process is used because it is what has always been used (rather than a case-by-case assessment) then it is a case of a hierarchical moral-emotional system in action. To the degree that such an approach is enforced it can be a powerful form of moral motivation.
At a more neutral, and more useful level in most organizations, is the job description or the policy manual. These are typically rationally developed and carefully attuned to the needs of the specific role and rank in the organization. They are adjusted periodically, even receiving regular and required review. Acting in harmony with these systems of direction would be in keeping with a hierarchical moral-emotion.
Of course there are always processes that result because someone high in the organization’s rank has decided, this is so! These are the purest form of authority ranking or hierarchically motivated moral emotions and they can be highly effective at producing appropriate behavioural outcomes throughout an organization. One might hope that over time they are reviewed and integrated through a more rational process, but often they are not and instead move into the character of the culture and the role/rank expectations.
References & Additional Readings
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
Weiner, M. (2013). The Rule of the Clan: What an ancient form of social organization reveals about the future of individual freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Search Terms:
3. Equitable Moral Relations
The fourth structure of moral-emotional relations in brain sequence, though the third examined in terms of experienced order, is the equitable. At a very early point in life human beings develop a sense of perception of fairness, especially as it comes to the distribution of goods or punishments. This sense easily becomes a metaphoric sense of moral-emotional evaluation of a wide range of activities and social processes.
Figure 3: Equitable distribution of relational goods
Dynamic situations and those of high levels of complexity call for a more complex moral system than those of the familial or the hierarchical. While many different forms of visual metaphors might serve to function in more complex environments, it is not immediately obvious what the next visual-neurological step might be. Using algebraic conceptualizations of brain performance Fiske (1991) suggests that interval structures are the next step. Interval relations are those of reciprocity and turn-taking. In general ethical terms this is the realm of fairness, of distributive justice and the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Processed as a visual metaphor, distributive justice suggests radial relations based on the circumference of a circle and oriented in three dimensions, both radially out and vertically up.
The radius is the distance from center to the circumference of a circle and it is always the same. For those who form a moral-relational circle, fairness is the over-whelming moral emotion. Starting from one’s experience inside the familial circle where generosity is the norm, the equivalent idea applied to many individuals or groups is fairness. Fairness is the metaphoric equi-distance of the members from the universal point of orientation. For those who form the circumference the question is how far one is from the centre and consequently, whether the distance is fair—appropriate in relation to the distribution of resources in the group. The resources involved may be simple practical goods but can easily extend to abstract goods like justice or good government. If the distribution (positive rewards or negative punishments) is perceived as apt in relation to the group as a whole, then one feels a strong sense of moral satisfaction—it’s fair! The more fairness is experienced the higher one feels in moral terms, but any fairness is morally right. This sense applies not only to oneself but to all others on the circumference of the circle.
The same is true for the experience of punishments. Negative distributions can be tolerated if they are experienced as fair, that is equivalent to what others would go through in the same circumstances. It is as if we have a moral distributor in our head that takes turns sending out negative outcomes, and as long as they seem equal to all who get their turn, then the negatives are morally acceptable. However, if there is an imbalance in distribution then there is a profound sense of injustice and moral wrongness.
It is possible this moral-emotion is negatively skewed, thus oriented more to the elimination of unfairness than to the development of new types of fairness. The human brain with its intrinsic heuristics seems oriented more toward anxiety and the fear of loss rather than the possibility of gain (Gigerenzer, 2007; Kahneman, 2011). This suggests stronger moral-emotional intensity will arise around circumstances where current balances are negatively affected such as when justice appears to be violated rather than where justice is achieved. Certainly legal systems are drawn into disrepute far more quickly by a few bad decisions than by hundreds of thousands of good decisions. It’s probably true that all issues of fairness are more distressing when violated than satisfying when sustained.
Another psychological possibility to consider is that of dopamine release (pleasure) in the context of the perceived experience of radial distribution. This is due to how the sense of fairness develops in the brain over time. If the primary developmental context for this is childhood distribution of rewards and, less often, punishments, then it is possible that for some people the primitive reward structures of the brain will be linked directly to this moral-emotional mode. Later in life this set of circuits will be re-engaged when encountering fairness (or unfairness) is more abstract contexts. Regardless, this is likely to be a powerfully emotional experience for many.
A metaphor for justice
At this point it is not hard to understand that this moral sense is easily abstract rather than concrete. We have no problem standing in line if everyone gets an equal opportunity for service but physically standing spaced equally with others is not experienced as a moral act in itself under most circumstances. Where both the power and the abstraction of this moral emotion appear is when the geometric perceptions in the brain are applied to complex situations through metaphoric integration. Waiting for equal service at a restaurant or bank easily becomes the more important metaphoric waiting for equal access to democracy or justice or health care (in countries with socialized medicine). The result is an infinitely flexible moral measure, one that allows its holder to assess all social experiences of both self and empathically perceived others along an important moral scale—how are goods being distributed to all? Is what I’m getting the same as others?
The flexibility of this form of relational analysis is important. As individuals, groups and cultures assess social change the perceived radial impact of large scale change is easily intuited. If those around us are finding it harder to get justice, then we perceive it is harder for all to achieve justice. Conversely, if suddenly the sense of the quality of education for our children goes up we believe that the quality of education has gone up for all. In particular, it is easy to interpret how change leads to the addition of or displacement of participants from the sharing circle and thus how change is having a moral impact. Immigrants provide a sense of moral diminishment as a larger circle intuitively suggests the same social resources being distributed equally among more. Recognizing women as fully human means they emotionally belong inside the circle of distribution of rights.
As a radial metaphor the equitable has a relationship with the familial because for both visual metaphors the boundary conditions are important though it different ways. For the familial moral relationship participants are equal because they are all inside the boundary. For the equitable, participation is the boundary of the distribution, another metaphoric circle. This new kind of boundary explains the difficulty of human beings historically to identify new individuals for participation in the circle of distribution. Adding new participants violates the integrity of the circle in terms reflective of familial identity. Thus women and other minorities have traditionally been difficult to include in the circle of fairness. In more abstract terms, this is a critique Badiou (2001) applies to the ethics of human rights, one of the most sophisticated applications of radial distribution. Rights only apply to those who successfully pass the test for inclusion in humanity and human beings always exclude some from the circle of rights distribution. Thus fairness becomes a more limited concept in practice than in theory. The sense of fairness is shared, but only once one has been admitted to the distribution circle. Those outside must demonstrate the justice of their inclusion in the circle, something that does not always easily pass the brain’s inherent efforts to discriminate.
Ontology vs. Teleology
It is important to note that with Equitable there is a profound shift of moral emphasis from the Familial, and Hierarchical. The others are ontological relational structures in that they are inherent in being a participant in the relational network. This is the realm of identity, and thus of the intrinsic reality of Being. However, the Equitable, as is also the case with the subsequent moral-emotional relationships, is a teleological structure. It is a framework for action with implicit or explicit goals. The ontological frameworks imply a static or universal framework within which morality functions primarily through obedient participation in a given structure. On the other hand, a teleological framework applies universal dynamics to discreet moral goals in complex and dynamic circumstances. They invite rational discourse and planning. These are the moral frameworks able to orient personal and collective moral behaviour to create a mass sense of fairness, especially under conditions of social, technological, or ecological change.
Kantian Deontology, Rawls, Human Rights & Democratic Ethics
As a moral-emotional relational system this approach to ethics encompasses Fiske’s (1991) Equality Matching and provides the internal framework for Haidt’s (2012) Fairness/cheating moral flavour. However, this form of moral thinking extends far beyond these simple sets of inter-personal observation to complex and abstract ethical systems. This approach forms the basis of Kantian deontology or Rawls (1973) ideas of justice. Rawls’ “Original Position” is structurally identical to being unable to identify where one is in relation to the radius of the circle. This is also a political morality. For democratic cultures this is the measure of all social relations and it seems likely to underlie most conceptions of human rights in application (though the nature of specific rights must lie outside of the morality of their distribution).
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought a rigorous universal for ethics and thought he found it in the categorical imperative, act as you would have others act toward you. Kant believed that if all human beings acted in this way a universally better world could be produced. Since if one could find a universal ethics one had a rational duty to obey it this became known as Kantian deontology. The most brilliant follower of Kant’s perspective was the American philosopher, John Rawls (1921-2002), especially his A Theory of Justice (1971). Rawls, following Kant, worked to develop a theory of justice that could be agreed upon by everyone. He found such a position in the moral framework underlying liberal democracy and the recognition of universal and equal value for all persons and their equal status under the law.
Both Kant and Rawls could be said to be the guiding ethical forces behind first the idea of liberal democracy and then the social-democratic liberal state. Their ethics give many tools for evaluating actions and inherently accept the complexity of the human decision making environment. For organizations using deontological ethics, as many do, the moral question is, what must always be a right action for our organization? For example, it is always wrong for an organization to break the law (it acts as an equal constraint on all organizations) so most organizations have a moral orientation to being law abiding. Similarly, it is always wrong to lie because that places the legitimacy of all information in doubt and would damage the standing of any person.
The primary weakness of contemporary forms of deontological ethics is that the concept of reason which underlies Kant and Rawls is not by itself an adequate source for human ethics. While reason is extremely powerful as a tool, it does not by itself reveal objective reality, especially objective moral reality. Every moral system is built upon moral assumptions and these assumptions are then the framework upon which reason functions. Moral assumptions are not necessarily reasonable or universal. This complex theoretical perspective shows up very quickly in practices such as when there is a debate around which human duties or rights are universal and which are cultural. It turns out all human rights are in some respects cultural rather than fully or rigorously reasonable. Even the focus on law, a particular strong-point of deontological ethics, turns out to be problematic in a global world where cultures have profoundly different legal systems and ways of understanding what laws should lead to. For example, many Western countries have a basic reasonable premise of innocence until proven guilty. Other Western countries think the opposite premise, guilty until proven innocent, is just as basic and reasonable. Deontological ethics provides no way of determining which of these important cultural perspectives is correct.
One of the most valuable contributions of this way of thinking has been the human rights tradition. While it is not possible to argue ontologically for a rich human rights tradition, as a pragmatic way to organize large scale cultures in order to provide a modicum of satisfaction by all those involved has been to identify and embrace a set of human rights. So while liberal democracies cannot anchor their rights in a cosmic purpose, by enacting human rights they provide a practical environment within which people generally (but not always) thrive. For most folks this is good enough.
Regardless, these philosophical perspectives, despite their weaknesses, show how powerful the simple brain metaphor of radial distribution can be when applied to large-scale and complex situations. It is an example of the power of the brain to work from simple systems to highly complex processes merely by expanding the application of a geometric relationship developed through evolution.
Organizational Applications
There are a wide range of organizational applications for equitable moral relations, though they are not usually directly related to the purposes or direct operations of a company. However, they typically show up in two places within organizations, human resources and customer relations. The result is that leaders often miss the impact of these moral forms of relationship while staff within feel the equitablity impacts of decisions in negative (or positive) ways.
Human Resource departments are typically the least respected within organizations and while there are many reasons for this disregard, one of them is their normal focus on aspects of equitability within an organization. While equitability oriented processes are typically identified with worker rights, unions, slow processes, worker support, and other barriers to productivity, they have much to contribute to a worker’s sense of the fairness of the organization. Fair processes, where relatively equivalent workers are treated equivalently without favouritism or based on stereotypes or surface qualities, may be linked to issues of employee engagement. Certainly, in the absence of other positive moral-emotions the absence of a sense of equitability can be important.
In addition, in customer relations the moral sense of equitability is very important. Customers want to be treated fairly in terms of their exchange relations with the organization (appropriate value for fees paid), but also one customer to another. Customers who do not sense equitability will seek alternative sources of goods. At the same time, customer service staff typically pick up the same moral sense, either through their personal commitments or through working with customers and being infected by customer moral sensibilities.
Thus while organizations are not centrally driven by the moral-emotional sense of relational equitability, as they function in practice they must often pay careful attention to this framework. Failure to act justly in relations between staff or with customers will be felt as demonstrating the intrinsic immorality of the organization. The consequences will be significant for all involved. Thinking equitably is important for all, even if it sometimes seems like a foreign or aberrant ethics framework. It’s natural to the brain and thus natural to all human contexts.
References & Additional Readings
Badiou, Alain. (2001). Ethics: An essay on the understanding of Evil, trans. P. Hallward. New York: Verso.
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gigerenzer, Gerd. (2007). Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. New York: Penguin.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Study Terms:
Deontology, Kant, Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Heuristics, Human Rights
4. Tactical Moral Relations
The fifth structure of moral-emotional relations, in brain sequence, is the tactical. This is the simple one dimensional vectored translation of the circle in space-time. The human brain finds it easy to see objects getting larger (or smaller) in space over time and from that imputing moral goodness on the basis of what it is that is directly (or metaphorically) becoming bigger (or smaller).
Figure 3: Tactical (vectored) improvement in relational goods
Equitability is a widely recognized root for ethics such as human rights or Kantian deontology and it has a geometric metaphor at its base. This raises the question of whether there is an underlying geometric form to utilitarian or consequentialist ethics, their main ethical alternative. There should be and it is likely to be the simple geometry of a perceived experiential ratio: is a specific good getting bigger or smaller? Is it moving forward or backward? The metaphoric perception of bigger or smaller or forward or backward (the same visual relationship) permits the assessment of a wide range of better or worse moral conditions. If this experience is located in time, this permits many judgements regarding growth and the rate of growth. If in space, this permits judgments of relational value as one’s shape’s size or change is compared with another. The easiest such comparisons are with similar concepts, objects or metaphors. Thus it is possible to talk about the greatest good for the greatest number or the consequences of particular growth trajectories. Since this is incremental in action it can be understood as a tactical moral-emotion, though never neglecting the underlying sense of growth.
Comparisons of size are based on the understanding that for people shapes are containers, masses, or amounts. As metaphoric representatives of valuables they may be increasing or decreasing in size. This leads to the need to assess relative size, especially the trajectory of relative size (in time or space) and the production of a moral emotion oriented around gain in size. A sense of moral satisfaction comes from “doing well”, that is, perceiving the increase in size of observed masses in relation to others. Therefore one easily moves to the moral-emotional perspective that any improvement in proportions means improving one’s position and/or that of one’s group. However, at a certain level it is not the size that is important but the vector of transformation that is most important. Moral evaluation is based around the question: Is the condition one of on-going improvement (feeling better) through improving size or on-going decline (feeling worse) as one’s perceived circle shrinks?
Tactical moral dynamics are very flexible given the simplicity of their dynamic and the wide range of possible visual metaphors. Since there is no inherent specification of the central value, only growth as the outcome, they may be applied to any context where a human being can conceive of a good that is dynamic. Since human beings work through metaphoric relations, there is little that cannot be so conceived. Any good can be experienced as growing or shrinking and thus subject to a simple consequential moral analysis.
So, for example, as children something as simple as growing physically bigger provides a profound sense of well-being. As adults we measure many aspects of the world around us and try to determine if they are growing in relation to us, either as opportunity/gain or as threat. Those other things include material possessions, physical attributes, and relational capacities. Growth in that which we desire is always a satisfying moral good. On the other hand, as things we desire shrink, or as threats grow, it is easy to gain a sense of a world gone morally awry.
Measuring change is thus important and this brings into play the possibility of money as a moral phenomenon. Money is an easy concept for which growth (or shrinkage) it is easy to grasp. This leads to the easy confluence in market economies between financial profit and an intrinsic sense of moral good. The risk is that in the absence of an appropriate contextual awareness of other ethical realities money may be perceived as an ultimate value and personal accumulation as the ultimate good. Given the possibility of strategically (relational model no. six) exchanging money for some of the goods available through the other moral-relational frameworks this feeling of financial growth can be immensely morally satisfying even as it violates the intrinsic moral structures of other participants in the social encounter. As money indicates, simple trajectorial (vectored) analysis is not morally adequate on its own to gain a sense of ultimate morality, even if it creates powerful feelings of moral good when it is experienced even in limited contexts or forms which may indicate long-term negative outcomes.
Given the structural simplicity of tactical moral-emotional dynamics, and their developmental tie to simple rewards, it is possible this moral emotion could be tied into fundamental pleasure dynamics in the brain. It is not hard to conceive of individuals who experience dopamine release (pleasure) in response to perceptions of growth. There are many developmental contexts that could lead to such a linkage around this moral framework. If so then not only are the moral-emotional conditions of satisfaction met through growth, there may be the direct experience of pleasure on the basis of the experience of growth alone. If the brain’s negative outcomes bias comes into effect, then it is possible that the experience of negative transformation leads very quickly away from rational analysis toward intuitive disgust. Either possibility (pleasure or disgust) would make this moral-emotion quite a powerful one for those who experience it. If this is the case then it is important to recognize that the sense of morality emerges from the scope or the gain or loss, not the area of human action in which there is gain or loss. The target may be immaterial or even highly negative such as military “body counts” which provide a sense of moral value (negative if “ours,” positive if “theirs”) even if they are due to the deaths of human beings. Similarly, a cancer ward might have patients boasting that their cancer is “worse” than others. It is being bigger that provides the sense of good feeling.
While, as with many things, there is the possibility of a negative action bias (more worry about shrinkage than pleasure in growth) built into the brain, there may be an additional intrinsic problem with this moral framework. It is possible that growth can become the moral evaluation of value or importance itself. Thus a bigger problem may be experienced as a better problem than is a small problem. An encroaching deadline may be perceived as more important than one in the distance, regardless of the importance of the project facing the deadline. If this is true, then human beings face the possibility of a negative moral bias around any action that leads to a reduction in scope or capacity of the organism, regardless of the rationality or appropriateness of the reduction. Such moral experiences are fundamentally irrational, but might feel natural to the participants and lead to problematic behaviour and destructive outcomes.
Teleologies, Utilitarian Ethics & the Implicit Ethics of Capitalism
There are a wide range of existing or traditional ethical systems rooted in the tactical moral-emotion. However, since the concept of growth does not by itself provide moral weight to the outcome itself (just its attainment) it is usually philosophically organized in other terms such as the absolute value of human life or of how specific types of gain inherently or always contribute to human well-being.
The connection of the Tactical moral-emotional framework to Utilitarian ethical approaches is obvious. The greatest good for the greatest number, the hallmark of Utilitarian ethics, is clearly a tactical progression. Haidt’s moral binary of Liberty/oppression is logically an open ended progression with abject slavery at one end and an idealized possible complete liberty at the other. (It is possible this is a cultural universal as Haidt supposes since ratios of liberty may be constructed in most cultural circumstances.) Money is a near universal human transactional system and thus profitability might be another near universal moral valuation like liberty. This moral-emotional framework can be applied to any human good that is intrinsically dynamic, as most are.
Given the dependence of the approach outline here on the work of Alan Page Fiske (1991), it’s surprising that this is not more similar to the relational framework Fiske identifies as Market Pricing. Fiske’s Market Pricing assumes a type of moneyed economy and does so by conflating what I suspect are two different sets of mental operations, the tactical identified here (growing or shrinking) and the strategic (similarity or difference of type). As such his relational framework requires two geometric translations in order to accomplish its moral sense. It seems more appropriate to break this into two distinct ethical structures. While it may well be true that under most circumstances people combine the two, such combinations are common for this moral mode. As noted, while growth may make us feel good (or bad) it tells nothing about the value of the outcome. That always requires an additional framework. That framework may be, as in Fiske’s case, what I indicate is the Strategic. But it could also be the Familial or Hierarchical, or any other of the moral-emotional frameworks.
As formal ethical enactments of the tactical moral-emotional mode, teleological or utilitarian ethics seem well suited to this form of moral-emotional perception. “Teleos” is the Greek word meaning “goal.” Teleology is a focus on goals, ends, or consequences of actions. Such a goal may be profits or “greatest good” or “what’s good for me.” Any use of goals as the fundamental basis for examining ethics (with the supporting actions as secondary) is a type of teleological ethics. There are a wide range of ethics measured on the basis of progress toward an outcome:
• Utilitarian (Act or Rule)(Must produce the greatest good for the greatest number.)
• Social Contract ethics (What we all agree is the best for the most of us.)
• Egoistic ethics (What is in it for me?)
• Pragmatic ethics (What is the best we can do, to the best of our knowledge, within the limits of our current resources?)
However, the primary weakness of teleological ethics is that they neglect the complexity of human morality and decision making and inherently over-simplify ethical problems. As a stakeholder analysis indicates, every organization is connected to a web of stakeholders and a simple focus on organizational goals misses most of these relationships and therefore quickly becomes extremely inaccurate as an indicator even of simple outcomes. A more complex form of ethical reasoning is required to fit the complexity of organizational existence.
The pursuit of profit appears to be an important way of living out teleological ethics, or the tactical moral-emotional mindset as it emerges in capitalism. For example, one of the more outspoken advocates of a pure teleological approach to ethics in the twentieth century was economist Milton Friedman, who argued that the sole moral purpose of a corporation was to earn profits for its shareholders. This advocacy of profits within the context of a capitalist economic framework is morally bankrupt when examined from any other framework. Yet its appeal is unmistakable and emotional to the degree that from within it appears to be self-validating.
Organizational Applications
All ethical approaches based on growth have significant strengths in organizational contexts. All organizations are inherently goal directed so they all have a progressive component. Thus this easily becomes the most important framework for organizational ethics. Given the way this framework provides ease of analysis and decision making, this is especially true. Focusing on those goals and incremental progress toward them simplifies decision making and in the rapid paced world of organizational life that is a strong encouragement to use this as the primary focus of ethics.
A helpful part of this moral-emotional framework is the way it permits incremental analysis of goodness. The other forms of moral analysis all involve a certain sense of absolute nature or clear boundary conditions. By focusing on the way something is getting bigger (or smaller) it becomes possible to examine and morally evaluate the progressive steps being made. Each step becomes a moral accomplishment with a sense of right (or wrong) depending on the progress for the project or organization as a whole.
Oddly, one of the problems with this moral-emotion is the way apparent success can interfere with true appreciation of the actual success and even cause organizational reversals. Growth in size is one of the easiest transformations to perceive and therefore the easiest to appreciate as a moral positive. However, growth in size is not by itself necessarily good. Rapid growth in particular can cause serious problems for an organization even while it feels very good to those participating in the growth. It’s a case of the surface sense of goodness leading to errors in perception regarding the underlying vector. Conversely, an organization that pulls back from growth is size to focus on competence, quality, innovation, or profitability may be perceived as a moral failure, less than appropriately courageous, or bad even while it is becoming what is in many respects a better organization.
All organizations are deeply tied into this moral-emotional strategy. It is essential that it be understood in all its strengths, weaknesses, and implications. It is easy for an organization to make serious moral errors even while feeling morally good about the progress being made. Given the way individual brains can skew this set of perceptions the results can be deeply conflictual and problematic, even as they are in wide scale or popular use.
References & Additional Readings
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
STUDY TERMS:
Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Incrementalism
5. Strategic Moral Relations
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Figure 5: Strategic (matching) relationships |
Strategic moral relations are relatively common, though not without some discomfort to their users. They don’t fit tidy systems like the equitable or tactical and they can easily mistake surface similarity for deep congruence. Yet for all their problems they are present everywhere from the strategic planning exercise to the development of an effective code of ethics, to the reliability of systems of measurement. Throughout the workplace individuals and groups are busy matching the nature of people, systems, outputs, and products to standards, types, and codes. Comparing one thing to another, with a moral framework for supporting the action, is one of the standard operational characteristics. This is the essence of strategic morality, sometimes wrongly called relativism.
The strategic moral-emotional framework of relational analysis is the simple matching function of the brain: does A = B? Any A may be matched to any B, with a resulting perception of the degree of fit between them and the resulting moral-emotional product of that analysis. They may match, producing a sense of satisfaction, or they may not match, producing a sense of disgust.
This can be an extremely complex set of relations, despite the simplicity of the underlying brain process. When understanding a strategic plan the producers need to match very complex environmental conditions with the correct operational systems. It is a difficult process of comparing many elements and looking for their interplay as a match. Do our products match the competitors’ for quality and price? How do we correctly which components of a new market fit our existing marketing plan and which parts need revision? Or it can be a very simple match such as when one asks whether there is the 11”x17” paper for the printer available for the document you wish to produce.
All these comparisons have a moral-emotional component. When we find a match it feels good. Thus, it is a normal human tendency to feel good when square pegs fit in square holes merely because they fit. Conversely, disgust is the normal response to finding a set of relationships where a match does not appear when expected?
The essence of the strategic moral-emotion is the possibility of our brain perceiving a match. Within our visual cortex, as it does its double duty as the centre of abstract thinking, does one shape appear to be the same as another? This may involve mental rotation in space and other forms of multi-dimensional analysis. It may mean metaphorical transformation as one thing is seen as “like” another along some important line of analysis so it can be compared. The results are then fed through the rest of the brain and ending up, along with a series of emotional responses, in the pre-frontal cortex for decision making.
Despite its complexity as a form of analysis, as a form of brain processing it is relatively simple. Using visual-spatial relations as has been the case to this point, the simplest geometric possibility relating multiple shapes is their visual similarity. Human beings appear to seek the correct match between shapes or between shapes and context and then find an emotional satisfaction once a match is made. This satisfaction can be found in the context of child’s play through sophisticated mechanical-operational processes, to the metaphoric and abstract-conceptual. It does not mean this is an easy form visual processing since the possibility of multiple dimensions of matching in space/time require high levels of brain energy. It is likely the brain looks first for relatively simple, even simplistic and stereotyped, similarities for the sense of match before undertaking the hard work of more complex matches.
Objects may be rotated in space for examination and the simplest form of examination is between appearance from one perspective and assessment of actuality from other perspectives. The first application of this form of analysis is sorting, of categorizing like and unlike in qualitative terms, and consequentially, of sorting fit from unfit for specific personal and social uses. At the most pragmatic level this way of relationally engaging permits one to make gross generalizations about the persons and things one encounters and quickly assess them for their usefulness to oneself or one’s group. One sorts seed-stock, widgets, genres, or professionals against standards of type looking for the best fit and thus the clearest usefulness. A good fit produces a sense of satisfaction and the accomplishment of a moral good—a good fit means the world is as it should be or as it should become.
However, as noted, matches can be metaphoric and quite complex strings of relationship can be developed through matching various characteristics that are part of a person, thing, or process. A match between one aspect and another of two objects might, or might not, be appropriate. If appropriate they might then lead to linkages between yet another aspect between them, or between the two and a third object. Thus parts and whole can be match independently for complex forms of analysis. Add to this the impact of memory and emotion, which are also matched to the perceptions in ways which feel appropriate, and already it is easy to see this as a multi-dimensional tool capable of great sophistication. It is not hard to see why this becomes an important form of human analysis and a core component of most education. Human beings are trained, by each other, to understand why specific forms of similarity are appropriate and others are not, in order to enable effective responses to specific situations and issues.
It is not hard to see why this should be an important form of moral assessment. A dentist is not a general practice doctor or a physicist and ensuring one has found the correct type of Dr. is essential to feeling a good outcome when one has a sore tooth. When one finds a good fit, one feels good because the universe has demonstrated an excellence in matching itself to one’s needs. Those needs may be both intense and personal and thus the sense of moral accomplishment may be very strong.
Metaphorically this is the morality of truthful-aptness. There seems to be built into human beings a strong sense that symbolic structures “should” match the objects under analysis and interactions should fit needs. This drive appears to be more emotional than rational and the sense of betrayal when an appearance fails to match the necessary reality can be profound. It is possible this morality is weighted to the negative and those using it become more upset about a violation of an expected match than a failure to create a full match. To find that the person working on our teeth is a physicist would be far more upsetting than learning our teeth were in the hands of an accomplished student dentist. While the physicist may be the Dr., the student is the closer fit to our need and our sense of violation would be far less in the latter case than in the former.
This type of relational evaluation permits significantly more abstract forms of thinking than do the other relational models and thus of richer moral analysis. Strategic thinking, the ability to accomplish long-term goals, arises from examining the fit between short and long-term goals, methods and outcomes, and the various alternate sets of tactics. This might also be the moral framework that leads us to seek matches between signifiers and the signified, maps and terrains, or even lover and beloved. Marketing campaigns and weigh scales also find their moral place within this metaphoric form of relations. They are all about apt-fit, closeness of type between promise and reality. By sorting in space, looking for equivalence at both the direct and metaphoric levels, individuals and groups are enabled to make a vast array of important discriminations. Many personal and social goods may be accomplished through strategic evaluation and selection of matches.
It may be significant that these discriminations are routinely most useful in the largest scale of human organizations. Strategic matching works best under conditions where individuals are unknown to each other and work almost exclusively through social systems. One need not trust that a Dr. is a dentist if personally known. However, in the context of large-system impersonality all connections to that person are at more than one remove. Thus as moral-emotional analysis it is highly useful in the realm of thousands of people or more. It is about mass culture and mass relationships where no one individual can grasp the needed nuances, but where sorting and standards are highly effective at accomplishing personal and social objectives. In addition, systematic thought of an academic type might effectively “match” aspects of the other moral geometries to larger goals and inter-group cooperation.
Situational, Professional & Theological Ethics
Significantly, this moral-emotional relationship makes sense of two forms of poorly understood ethics, Situational ethics and Professional ethics. Situational ethics is regularly accused of being relativistic and thus avoiding the absolutes most people feel comfortable affirming when thinking consciously of morality, and yet the reality is that all people attempt to match the specific configuration of ethics to the correct context. Similarly, the ethical frameworks of most organizations and professional bodies are often incoherent when perceived rationally from any of the standard ethical frameworks. Their power results from the match of ethical axioms to specific situations, leading to the most apt embodiment of the standards needed to guide the organization or its members through their specific types of ethical quandaries (criteria of salience). It is also possible that this is the realm of theological ethics, of the careful academic analysis of religious precepts and the attempt to organize them into coherent wholes, despite the non-rational framework which is their origin. Regardless, almost all attempts at using a pragmatic and contextually alive form of moral thought will be deeply rooted in this moral-emotional approach.
From a negative point of view, this may be the form of ethics that drives racism and other forms of stereotyped negative judgements. These are cases of category misalignment where the category of analysis used to determine moral goodness does not match the correct dimension of analysis for ascertaining moral worth. If this is the case it points out just how much moral analysis is a function of quick and intrinsic heuristics rather than rational or even cultural training.
Within the world of ethics, a special category relates to the ethical codes of professions. Most have one. Under close examination they tend to be a hodge-podge of various types of ethical statements all designed to fit the consequences of engaging in a specific professional activity. What unites them may be a formal principle or merely the actions of a committee trying to compile the best list of virtues for the specific field of action. What separates them from ethics of identity is they are not concerned with identity but actions and consequences—the details of life as lived outwardly rather than the nature of being within the closed confines of the group. They succeed to the degree they match the constraints and needs of those seeking to act in that way, and they are typically modified whenever they begin to rub against operational limits.
This makes these kinds of ethics profoundly situational. They are not situational in the sense that they only seek what is good in a situation as perceived by an individual, but they are situational in that they are about how one engages types of situations effectively as reflected upon from the point of view of the professional group as a whole. They feel good to the degree that the match works for the oversite body, even if not for all the practitioners.
One important group of strategic ethicists are theologians, those responsible for translating divine revelation into day to day life. They may be Imams, Priests, or Rabbis, but their key job is finding a match between day-to-day activities of those within their religious framework and the revelations, texts, traditions, rites, and rituals handed down from previous generations. This is a highly imaginative work that typically functions in a complex web of interplay between other authorities, rules about best practices (such as hermeneutics—rules for interpreting texts), and the changing social circumstances faced by their adherents. While most who engage in the task see themselves as engaging in a very conservative task, in fact it takes little philosophical or historical examination to recognize that the work is both radical and creative (Kaufman, 1995).
Organizational Applications
Situational fit is one of the vital aspects of senior management decisions and innovation in processes. A strong ability to fit good applications, both of new and existing resources, leads to essential conditions for environmental responsiveness and long-term success. As the key framework for long range planning it is a vital aspect of the senior levels of an organization. It’s absence as a live system of thought indicates an organization which is highly vulnerable to environmental shifts, unable to either innovate effectively or develop long-range plans.
Human resource planning…
Marketing…
However, one of the weaknesses of this form of moral-emotional reasoning is that it rarely feels good in terms of the other moral-emotional frames of reference. Matching often leaves process participants feeling boundaries have been transgressed (often they have) and essential fairness has been overlooked (quite possibly the case) especially in the outcome includes process change or innovation in operations. Change disrupts existing relationships, always an outcome of negative moral affect. The consequence is that while vital to organizations, it is quite common for participants in matching processes to seek alternative ways of expressing these outcomes, i.e. in terms of profits or growth or market fairness, or ever law or identity. They may also find that as persons they are seen as marginal or a poor fit with the organization as a whole, a case of matching ethics being applied unconsciously to the detriment of those who are best at it.
References & Additional Readings
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Kaufman, Gordon. (1995). An Essay on Theological Method, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
6. Aesthetic Moral Relations
There always comes a time when one needs to think through the complex interplay of multiple pieces which belong in relation to each other. It might be an engineering project or the design of a process. It could be as simple as assembling a team. Regardless, the core evaluation is how well many pieces will fit together. This is not easy and requires significant work. Then when a good collection of parts comes together to form an effective whole it is deeply satisfying. Driving this process of evaluation and resultant moral feeling is our sense of the aesthetic, our sense of the goodness of fit between multiple things. It’s a visual array, another application of our visual capacity to practical and moral problems. Thus the seventh structure of moral-emotional relations, in brain sequence, is the aesthetic. This is a complex form of perception and may actually involve two closely related perceptual moral-emotional frameworks, symmetry and symmetry breaking. Anyone working with multiple parts/processes/people needing assembly will require this mode of analysis.
Figure 6: Aesthetic relationships
One of the longest disputes in philosophy is the relationship between beauty and good. Setting aside the complex nature of the discussion, the very existence of the question indicates a deep intuition of a connection between them and while speculative it may be that it is found in the moral-emotion of aesthetic symmetry. Human beings are oriented to the symmetry of shape and physical symmetry in humans suggests sexual desirability, a profound good (Wade, 2010). It is an easy metaphorical extension of this innate moral geometry to an innate sense of beauty as goodness. While there is no logical relationship between beauty and goodness, there is a profound felt relationship. Human beings feel, in moral-emotional terms, that when they experience beauty they are also in the presence of good, even transcendent good. As a moral-geometry in the brain it comes together effectively to explain much of why human beings behave as they do.
The existence of such a moral geometry would explain the almost inherent need for human beings to engage in visually and auditorily rhythmic activities. They stimulate this deep sense of goodness, of many things in right relation. It can be seen at every level of human cultural construction, a drive that underlies everything from the even stitching of cloth to classical architecture to a tidy corporate organizational chart. Human beings feel a profound peace, even a sense of awe, in the presence of large scale symmetry. Such a drive would certainly explain the human constant of the production of artistic works of great complexity and the admiration by others of such works. But this moral geometry is not satisfied with symmetry itself. It seems to need a break in symmetry in order to fully feel the sense of satisfaction—an unpredictability in the narrative, an offset in the design, a discord against the melody. Simple symmetry is attractive but not as profound, except perhaps on the grandest of scales where it represents the cosmos itself (though here note the asymmetric beauty of the cathedrals of Chartres or St. Denis versus the imposing symmetric beauty of Notre Dame de Paris).
In invoking this perceptual possibility, it seems reasonable to also suspect that the cosmological back-ground (transcendent reality) is an important part of perceiving the figures leading to close connections between this form of moral-emotional analysis and both the transcendent forms of moral analysis. Since arrays have a strong matching function, there may also be a close tie to the strategic form of moral analysis. This suggests that the aesthetic might not function on its own but always in the context of some specific form of ultimate value perspective and/or a specific strategic concern for particular categories of matching.
As a moral metaphor symmetry takes us into our sense of pride in specific types of accomplishment and a sense of harmony with the underlying structure of all things. This might well be the moral drive behind science—the need to discover order and meaning in the underlying framework of the cosmos itself. If so it would certainly explain the conflict between science and religion as alternative approaches to transcendent feeling—one comes through the grasp of the universe as a whole and the other through the perception of an extraordinary level of order inside the greatest whole.
However, the level of abstraction involved in this moral geometry is such that its effective perception will be fleeting or difficult for most folk under most conditions, or the product of extensive training. The framework described may also be a conflation of two similar moral geometries. At this point more research is needed. Certainly there is a strong moral feeling of goodness in finding or creating underlying deep order. Exactly what it is and how it emerges needs closer examination.
Aesthetics, Environmental Ethics, and the Scientific Method
There are a number of ethical forms which are built around the aesthetic moral-emotional process. Not surprisingly, the whole field of aesthetics, the nature of beauty and good design, finds its feel and fit on the basis of this set of brain perceptions and relational inter-actions. However, this approach turns out to tie to other forms of ethical analysis as well. Environmental ethics and the scientific method are particularly important demonstrations of this type of moral-emotional application.
One of the most significant applications of this moral geometry is environmental ethics. While most ethicists try to locate environmental ethics within one of the other major ethical frameworks these turn out to be inadequate. They don’t provide the insights and motivation for action needed to make environmental changes. Instead what seems to be most persuasive of the need for moral action is the sense of ugliness which comes from environmental collapse, in comparison to the felt beauty of a rich and vibrant eco-system. Thus increasingly environmental ethicists are looking to aesthetics as the tool for developing ethical approaches to environmental issues. The core to environment ethics as an effective tool for change appears to be a deep appreciation for the beauty of nature, its sense of wholeness, and the complex and deeply intertwined patterns of life. These environmental ethics obviously represent an aesthetic. As the parts form and break symmetries, human beings are called into an encounter with something greater than themselves and which calls out to them with a goodness that requires moral engagement (Rolston, 2002; Carlson & Lintott, 2008).
Similarly, the scientific method is a profound form of ethical analysis which attempts to develop truthful statements about the world and how it functions. Because it looks for the coherent wholes, rather than the specific nature of parts, it fits best within an aesthetic sense of moral-emotions. As scientists and academics find the patterns and arrays of meaning which underlie events and processes in the world around us they find deep satisfaction and proclaim the moral truth of their findings. As some historians and philosophers of science have noted, these feelings of truth are so profound they can be maintained even in the face of strongly contrary evidence (Kuhn, 1962). That this is a function of an aesthetic moral sense is the logical conclusion, one supported by the work of McAllister (1996). The feeling of aesthetic unity is ultimately what drives the quest, not the necessity of a match to reality.
Yet another potential application of this moral-emotional framework is the ethics of large scale organizations. There is a beauty that emerges in the construction of a large scale organization where the parts work together to create the aesthetics and moral whole. (Dobson, 2010). This might not be the most effective or practical of moral-emotional assessments of organizational function since effective goal oriented structures are often cobbled together as contingencies require. As such they may be highly effective and yet morally ugly. The result could be a sense of conflict within the organization and even the need to dismantle effective structures in order to make them more beautiful.
Organizational Applications
Aesthetic moral-emotions are often formally overlooked in organizational processes. As the last point of the previous section indicates this may be an error since they could be a significant part of how large scale organizational decisions are made. Regardless, they are often found within organizations in other ways, especially as part of design and However, they are often found by looking at implicit or unconscious aesthetic biases that emerge in an outcome. This is especially true when participants are exploring innovation. New solutions will be preferred if they are an attractive fit with the existing systems and process. This works against radical innovation since aesthetic criteria can be quite abstract and leaves much room for innovations which break with key aspects of current products or processes. Regardless, there is no doubt these are the least appreciated of moral-emotional approaches in an organization and may often be ignored with little direct consequence. Regardless, where they are found is significant.
Designing effective processes is a difficult endeavour. Organizational processes can involve hundreds or even thousands of steps and actions to accomplish one set of organizational outcomes. Think of the way financial data is tracked at multiple levels and then integrated. Typically, processes are constructed at the micro level and then combined in awkward structural integrations that attempt to eliminate overlap and areas of confusion. Evaluating a good process is subsequently difficult and when people do so they are forced to explore not only issues of whether it works, but how it feels as a whole. Given the many parts involved, this means scanning for the bigger picture. Such a process inevitably engages the aesthetic function of the brain leading to a quest for apparent symmetry between parts, where steps appear to function in similar ways across the organization.
Similarly, engineering and product design use strong aesthetic functions. It is typically true that visually beautiful engineering and products are easier to evaluate in terms of performance and to detect errors. This only adds to the drive to use aesthetics as a core part of the design, even if less beautiful systems might be equally effective. It can go so far as one engineer of my acquaintance who would use traditional indigenous art designs (his background) as part of his computer circuit board design. Whether they are more effective is irrelevant. They are more desirable and feel more satisfying to work with. The drive is always to create a more technically beautiful system. A point of caution is that what is beautiful to an engineer is not always beautiful to the public who interact with final product. A wind turbine that produces green electricity, using simple shapes and clean lines, might well appear to be ugly to the general public who see it as merely an industrial intrusion in an otherwise beautiful natural landscape.
Finally, marketing uses an aesthetic moral-emotion as a key drive to making its work effective. Marketing campaigns seek the most direct application of aesthetics as a core component of every aspect of making products and services attractive to potential customers. Good looking marketing attracts people—makes them feel good about engagement. Ugly marketing suggests that the product or service is poor or weak or the company is incompetent. While beauty is not an indicator of the actual quality of the product or service, its presence creates a positive orientation toward them and that is essential.
So while an aesthetic moral-emotional framework gets little attention, it turns out to be significant. It may even have an unintended effect with regard to leadership. Studies have long indicated that we look to people with the appropriate eyes, gait, voice, and height, especially expressed through bi-lateral symmetry, for authority. Thus our aesthetic sense leads us to prefer some people as leaders over others, regardless of their actual leadership capability. It might even be the case that we have a feeling of a need for leadership out of our sense of the aesthetic feel of a group as a whole. We need the sense of good order between members that a leader can supply, rather than merely a group that gets its work done. This is an area that needs more exploration.
References & Additional Readings
Carlson, Allen and Sheila Lintott (eds). (2008). Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dobson, John. (2010). Aesthetic Style as a Poststructural Business Ethic. Journal of Business Ethics 93: 393-400.
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Kuhn, Thomas. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
McAllister, J. (1996). Beauty and Revolution in Science. Cornell University Press.
Rolston, Holmes. (2002). From beauty to duty: Aesthetics of nature and environmental ethics, in Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Ethics, ed. Arnold Berleant, pp. 127-141. Burlington VT: Aldershot.
Wade, T. Joel. (2010). “The Relationships Between Symmetry and Attractiveness and Making Relevant Decisions and Behaviour: A Review.” Symmetry 2, 1081-1098.
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7. Transcendent Moral Relations
Introduction*
*Optional: You may have already read the preceding sections of which this a continuation and the general introduction to the whole. If not, then this is your introduction to the general framework and the specific issues that are raised here.
Human beings face a series of problems when it comes to managing ethics. Morality, the content of ethics, is clearly very much the purview of specific cultures. While human beings do many of the same things around the globe, the meanings attached, and in particular the moral meanings, vary quite significantly. Second, ethics fails to wrap up in any tidy meta-ethical frameworks, let alone one universal ethical system which supplies ethicists with answers they respect, let alone meet the test of ordinary life in all its complexity. The problem facing meta-ethics is that there is no singular framework within which the multiplicity of ethical systems finds a coherent or consistent place. We face the problem of “modularity” (Fowers, 2015), where as human beings approach a situation through a specific mode of ethics they find the results clash at the deepest levels with the results of the problem as viewed from another mode. Thus the equitable approach to a problem leads to a morally satisfying solution which contradicts a hierarchical approach to the same problem, even though the hierarchical solution is itself morally satisfying. This occurs repeatedly and there is no way to manage these conflicts.
Thus, in the model assumed here, there are seven fundamental moral modes built into the human brain. Each of these modes functions as a guide to certain kinds of relational dynamics and provides the structural clues to their proper interpretation and application of moral content. There is no need for consistency between them, except as individuals also pursue a reasoned kind of moral coherence or seek to present as a person of deep integrity to those around them. But to become such a person not only requires work, it is not necessarily relevant to managing the complexities of daily life. Instead fractional applicability and inherent conflict seem the inherent basis of ethics and morality as lived experiences.
For those who seek unity of ethics and morality, the greatest difficult is the problem of religious ethics and the ethics of spirituality. That these ethics are profound, global, and deeply appreciated by many, is not in question. However, their internal inconsistency, failure to find a logical commonality between them (despite many attempts), and ultimate sense of being end points rather than beginning points of ethical and moral discussion, leave them sidelined in all reasonable exploration of ethics. While this bracketing of religious approaches to ethics is philosophically understandable, raising the question of ethics from the approach of day-to-day life, or of neuro-psychology (or also evolutionary biology, though that is not the intent here), means these approaches cannot be neglected. They must be taken seriously because they are an important part of how real humans do real moral work. Since human beings claim that God (or the gods, or the spirits of the universe) speak to them and provide meaningful guidance, neuro-psychological approaches to ethics require a serious exploration of what that might involve, even if the philosophers disagree.
The work of John Bolender (2010) is a fruitful beginning. Bolender argues there is a fundamental brain state of self-absorption in the universe (oceanic merging), that is an extension of the human neurological relational management system. He sees this as an appropriate extension of one of Alan Page Fiske’s (1991) observations regarding the qualitatively distinct nature of the modes of human relational reasoning, each of which has a distinct moral component. Bolender believes that even though his zero state might be less common than the others Fiske observes, it is a reasonable conjecture. Any religious scholar looking at the mystical experience or the source understanding of perceived spiritual realities would agree that this conjecture is not only reasonable, but must in some respects underlie the way religions place themselves in the world as systems of meaning. While it is rare for a religious perspective to require that all its adherents share a specific, let alone profound, sense of cosmic oneness in order to meaningfully participate, most would agree that such a state is close to the root of what the deeply devout aspire to and can achieve. It is also in some respects in keeping with the origins of many of the prophets or leading teachers within the various religious perspectives.
Yet Bolender’s condition of Oceanic Merging is not in itself an adequate explanation for the way religions come to their specific religious perspectives. While some sense of transcendence is always present, its interpretation and application vary widely. Getting to this complexity requires still further examination of the neurological research, even though such research is currently weak. However, combined with a careful analysis of religious claims regarding experience it is possible to create a reasonable construct of universal human transcendent experience that also provides a reasonable frame for all human religious applications. Still further, it provides the basis for understanding the core moral content used globally, even while allowing each culture to develop its own application.
A full neuroscientific account of religious experience that reasonably integrates what human beings claim to experience is still to be developed. However, as this chapter explores, there is enough material available to make an initial attempt to integrate neuro-science and religion in the pursuit of the core framework for the rich variety of human moral understandings. As this chapter hopes to demonstrate, the day-to-day content of much of what human beings believe are reasonable moral actions in the mode of decision making they are using, are drawn from fundamental axioms of religious experience rooted in the neurology of transcendent experience.
Last, this chapter makes no claims regarding the existence or non-existence of any God, gods, or spiritual entities, let alone the truth claims made on the basis of such existence. It does, however, seek to relativize these claims against the background of human neural processing and show how various atheisms are also outworkings of the same neural processes. To the degree that God, gods, or Nothing exists, they are all filtered through the way human beings in their neural systems process the inputs they appear to receive. What truth there may be is always truth as perceived and conceivable. Looking at the manner of perception may help some to draw better conclusions about the truth, or lack thereof, of various religious claims regarding transcendence. Or it may convince others of the failure of any set of claims to merit attention and to avoid the subject altogether. Regardless, it should shed significant light on how it is human beings construct and integrate their experience of transcendence into their real world activities.
A. Thinking Transcendently
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Figure 7. The transcendent elimination of self in the perception of the cosmic all |
One of the human cultural universals is a sense of transcendence, the perspective that human existence is rooted in something more than the merely human or material. Every culture appears to have a sense of something greater than itself, a cosmic background from which it draws its meaning. This meaning permeates the culture and unconsciously influences every aspect of life. Thus when voters go to the polls throughout Western Europe and North America expecting to make an impact they are not aware they are enacting the value system of Western Christianity. Nor are the engineers aware as they fractionally upgrade the quality of the Hondas they build that the Buddha would be smiling at their efforts toward perfection. Yet at heart these actions represent the religious cosmologies of their participants and reflect intrinsic brain processes of relational transcendence that are foundationally the same.
Thus we come to the simplest and yet the most profound of moral-emotional relational structures, the transcendent. It is the sense of absorption in or union with all-that-is. This is the simplest of all moral frameworks but may not be as common as any of the others. The relevant brain state seems to be one which is rarely experienced, and then often as an accidental altered state of consciousness. There is some evidence that this moral-emotional mode might be more accessible based on training in meditative processes. This may be because as a brain-state the energy levels required are below the normal resting state for most people. The result is that while it might be the simplest of all forms of moral-emotional analysis, it is one of the most difficult to hold and use.
This simplest of all relational experiences is the experience of the “non-self,” the complete absorption of one’s existence in a transcendent otherness (Bolender, 2010). It is the sense of “existence” human beings feel when they lose track of personal identity. It may be an experience of awe infused with ecstasy or terror (Otto, 1950). Anecdotal accounts suggest this occurs in experiences of nature or religious or spiritual experiences. Sexual activity is another common source (Greeley, 1991). In this experience of relational life, should one seek to reflect upon it rationally, the boundaries between self and the relational other are eliminated. Discreet perceptions of the experience, let alone visualized metaphors of objects, fail to help in managing this perception since the sense experienced in these conditions is object-less. Thus when seeking rational comprehension the brain is forced to look for other kinds of visual metaphors and the one that comes to mind is the vastness of space itself. This metaphor then provides the context for an idea of the self as having a meaning from outside of the space. This ultimate experience of meaning as outside of self then becomes the place from which personal identity is likely to be taken. It is this possibility that gives rise to the emergence and metaphoric possibility of a transcendent moral imagination, the final backdrop against which all ordinary meaning becomes visible. This metaphoric moral space is the place where one experiences personal transcendence and the fundamental unity of the self and all things. All such experiences are likely to be experienced as a merging with infinite goodness and power (though one should not neglect the possibility of an experience of felt absorption in the infinitely indifferent or evil).
Because this is the “space” within which all metaphoric moral-relational geometry emerges or the background against which it appears, such experiences are likely to frame all aspects of an individual’s moral make-up. While it does not necessarily lead to any specific moral response, the sense of belonging to or participating in the cosmos can certainly be seen as relativizing many decisions and experiences. One can easily imagine such an experience motivating an individual to an act of profound sacrifice or life re-orientation such as a conversion experience. If the experience of the transcendent were to take place in a religious context, as many do, it would also be likely to be profoundly convincing of the truth of that religious interpretation of existence.
It also seems clear that the direct experience of cosmological space is not routine. While human beings experience many types of relational dynamics on a routine basis, this one seems to occur under rarer circumstances or in the context of a program of sensitization or training. It may even be that it is impossible for some to experience this relational dynamic based on biological, developmental, or contextual limitations. Such a failure, especially if relatively common, may be for this reason there is so much difficulty in assessing the experience or using it as a standard origin for morality.
On the other hand, while the full experience might be rare, the intuition of its possibility may turn out to be a relatively common aspect of relational dynamics at a simpler level. Even without declaration of its full experience we seem to use it operationally. Tetlock et al. (2004), indicate that humans seem to approach many situations not as rational economists (or ethicists) or intuitive scientists, but as intuitive theologians. They indicate there appears to be a sacred aura around certain kinds of boundary conditions in decision making leading to powerful taboos and senses of heresy. Boundary conditions would appear to be good places for the leakage of this type of intuition into more ordinary relational evaluation. Others have a stronger sense of cosmological intuition and Roccas and McCauley (2004), building on the work of Shweder et al. (1997), suggest that divinity is a meta-relational framework for all decision making for some people. What they describe is in some respects a culturally sensitive dynamic, but at its core it appears to be relatively universal. On the basis of these studies it is reasonable to conjecture that either on its own as a vague sense of the background for other relational dynamics or as a kind of hinted relational framework at all points, the sense of being transcended by the cosmos is common enough to be part of everyday life and taken seriously as an aspect of day-to-day decision making, even if only at one remove from day-to-day relations through personal or cultural memory, norms, or habits.
While the experience of the universe as a transcendent entity is a distinct moral-emotion, it might also be part of others identified in this project such as the aesthetic, strategic, or communal-familial. It is possible this form of moral-emotional experience integrates closely with the aesthetic (see unit 6). The aesthetic moral-emotional experience might foreground against a cosmological background. That’s a probable component of the way the aesthetic requires exploring a range of objects in terms of their relation in space in and of itself, including a hunt for meaningful patterns in what turns out to be cosmologically overwhelming space. To the degree that the cosmos is felt on the basis of experiences of transcendence, to that degree it will be part of the way the aesthetic is evaluated. A similar experience might be part of the strategic moral imagination (see unit 5), though the focus in that moral-emotional mode is more on the character of the objects themselves. They may be matched in the context of a space, but it is not clear that this background space will necessary leak through or integrate into the moral imagination. Of more interest, is the possibility that the communal-social-familial mind-set (see unity 1) integrates closely with the transcendent. To the degree that the individual immerses themselves in the inner experience of wholeness as part of the group, it is possible this will create a sense a boundariless social goodness. This may be why cosmological space is so often interpreted as good or loving.
Regardless, it is not hard to conclude that a sense of transcendence grounds any personal identification of ultimate values or organizing principles for fundamental values in human life. Even if that sense of transcendence is of a universe which is cold, dark, and empty (and there seem to be at least some who experience it that way), this grounds moral perspectives and moral feelings of significance. Those seeking to find coherence in their personal moral existence, or the moral existence of others, need to grapple with this sense within their own being. As individuals gain clarity regarding ultimate existence it becomes possible to develop a more holistic perspective on all morality and the necessary framework to make sense of them on an on-going basis. Thus as individuals reflect upon their personal experience on transcendence they become solidly principled in their approach to life.
When used as an ultimate frame of reference for all morality this sense of a meaningful cosmos holds the prospect of grounding or framing all ultimate values and generates a frame of reference that reduces the confusion engendered by existence as experienced in ordinary time and space, especially as experienced through the other moral-emotional frameworks. While each human being bounces through the other moral-emotions on the basis of a felt appreciation of their relevance for each situation, the result is a fundamental inner chaos which may be disturbing. The lack of coherence necessary for a full sense of well-being is absent. In order to act effectively and use each moral-emotion an integrated and coherent framework, some greater grounding is necessary for a strong sense of moral identity and personal integrity. Thus the transcendent perspective and the values it produces are of the greatest importance for human moral integrity and action.
This is especially true since the other moral-emotions leave open the possibility of high levels of emotional reactivity. As individuals experience increasing divergence between their expectations and their experience along each relational track, the emotional intensity rises. The greater the emotional intensity, the stronger the personal integrity needed to hold all the pieces of self together. Thus the possibility of rational discourse under stressful conditions ultimately falls upon those who have the highest level of transcendent grounding. It is these individuals who find within themselves a framework of values that brings the other pieces together and permits integrated and coherent action. They are paradoxically more whole on the basis of integrating an experience of the non-existence of self.
This brings the discussion to religion. Like the grounded individual, religion is paradoxically foundationally grounded in non-rational experiences transcendence yet provides a relatively consistent framework for rational appropriation of the full range of human moral-emotions. Thus it is not surprising to find that religious systems and their teachers are those regularly called upon to finally adjudicate the most difficult personal and social issues and provide general ethical guidance. They are the ones who have tried to bring calm to the chaos and done so most effectively through the application of a unifying sense of meaning.
The alternate to such a religious frame of reference for the ultimate meaning is a type of scientific moralizing which attempts to use reason itself as the transcendent frame of moral reference. This perspective turns out to be emotionally weak as well as failing to supply rationales for fundamental value questions such as “What is a person?” or “What are the reasonable goals of a human life?”. Reason is not finally an adequate answer to the issues raised by the complexity and degree of qualitative independence of the many aspects of existence. While religious answers are all subject to profound biases they typically have the advantage over the scientific of being relatively coherent as a whole. Unlike science, religious perspectives are also typically good repositories for collecting human wisdom regarding daily-life decision making and passing those along through the thick institutional and ritual lives which they accumulate, especially in the value placed upon gathering and disseminating knowledge.
More Brain Options for Religion
Reviewing the neuroscience literature as it relates to religion suggests that in the construction of religious perceptions there are other dimensions of transcendent experience built into the human brain. While the experience of oneness with all may be foundational, they take place not only in the context of cultural expectations but also in the context of what might also be intrinsic patterns of brain perception.
Two dimensions of transcendence found in the neuroscience literature are the sense of anthropic density (degree of anthropomorphic identity) to the universe (Waytz et al., 2010) and the sense of purpose in the universe (Jarnefelt, Canfield and Kelemen, 2015). Every human being seems to have some sense of these, regardless of how clearly they can articulate a cognitively coherent sense of the universe Anthropomorphism is “a process of inductive inference whereby people imbue the real or imagined behaviour of other agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions or underlying mental states” (Waytz et al., 2010, 411). That human beings regard the universe with some level of anthropic perception and that this has deep ties to religious perceptions has long been identified (Hume, 1757; Schleiermacher, 18??). With regard to the sense of purpose, a recent set of studies by Jarnefelt, Canfield and Kelemen (2015), shows that even those who formally do not accept the concept of purpose in the universe tend to see purpose when pushed to think rapidly. Such perception is common among those who do not see value in religion, and very common among those who are formally religious. Its commonality suggests that the tendency to perceive purpose and meaning in the cosmos is wired into the brain.
Two additional patterns of brain response to transcendence suggested by the literature may be an inherent sense of cosmological conflict and another of compassion/love. The sense of conflict can take a number of forms and appears to include a sense of judgement or dualism (black/white) to the universe. The sense of inherent cosmological compassion or love also appears to vary in intensity from one person from another ranging from near absence to overwhelming sense of cosmic love. It seems likely these are natural perceptions formed out of patterns wired into the brain. Together they may be used to provide a two dimensional framework against which all religions can be placed and personal experiences and expressions of transcendent experience can be framed.
B. Locating Religious Experience
As the accumulating research into the way the brain naturally sorts and organizes experiences expands our knowledge of how people come to specific perspectives and decisions, this aspect of human meaning making is almost certain to gain in prominence. The more we know about how human beings construct their world the more important a sense of transcendence appears to become. What they do provide is the skeleton for a neuro-psychological perspective on the wide range of human religious experiences (Figure 8). Religions all find a core piece of their origins in the way human beings organize their experiences of transcendence and by looking at the multiple dimensions of transcendence which appear to exist in the human brain it is possible to develop a two dimension background framework.
Figure 8. Two dimensional framework of the experience of transcendence & religious options
From this two dimensional framework it is possible to identify at least nine relatively coherent conceptual combinations which allow the exploration of religious experience itself. Recognizing that these conceptual combinations are approximations and neglecting the way any specific religion might instantiate one or more of them, they are as follows:
1. Loving and highly anthropic: Compassionate polytheisms
Cosmologies that are highly anthropic are filled with many divine beings, Gods and godlings, who may in the case of loving cosmologies, be working together to create a universe of unrivaled goodness. These divine beings may or may not relate personably to individual humans and that may or may not be important to human beings. What is important regardless is that human beings experience a universe where individual action is meaning-filled and the many divinities are experienced as caring about the well-being of its participants. Such cosmologies would be typical of many forms of Buddhism and Hinduism.
2. Loving and somewhat anthropic: Compassionate monotheisms
Moving down the scale of anthropic perception are cosmologies such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and intellectual Hinduism, at least in their more liberal forms. In these cosmologies there is only one fundamental divine being, perhaps as head of a small pantheon or merely as a conscious universal essence, who acts to order a universe that is good for human beings.
3. Loving and impersonal: Compassionate atheisms
Impersonal universes might still be full of meaning and compassion, even though they lack a divine essence to drive them. Such a cosmology might be that of Zen Buddhism or universalist Unitarianism. Some forms of popular evolutionary thought suggest such a cosmology where evolution is thought of as ladder or pyramid directed toward improvement of the universe.
4. Dualist & highly anthropic: Warring polytheisms
The universe might not be filled with compassion, but that does not mean it immediately becomes hostile to human beings. Dualistic cosmologies abound. Many early polytheisms were rooted in warring divine entities. The “Epic of Gilgamesh” places human existence in the middle of one such where the universe is torn from the slain belly of Tiamat and the struggle goes on. This type of cosmology was common in early agrarian cultures. Tricksters are a common feature where sides are revealed to be sometimes different from appearances and human caution is a foundational requirement.
5. Dualist & somewhat Anthropic: Dualistic monotheisms
Dualistically oriented forms of monotheism abound. All the monotheistic religions have variants where a good God wars with an evil opponent, usually portrayed as less powerful cosmologically, though perhaps equally powerful within the realm of human endeavour. Human existence and human choice then finds their meaning in the way human actions align themselves with these warring powers.
6. Dualist & impersonal: Opposed or balanced powers
Dualist cosmologies need not include divine personalities but merely the cyclical presence of opposing powers who between them are responsible for all factors of existence. These opposed powers can be the Hot vs. the Cold, Yin vs. the Yang, Wet vs. the Dry or even Law vs. Entropy. As they balance each other the universe finds it stability. It’s possible this is a dynamic balance, of everlasting give and take through levels of conflict, or the natural movement of cycles of creation and destruction.
7. Indifferent and highly anthropic: Indifferent polytheisms
In the worst of polytheistic cosmologies the gods do not care about human beings. Humans as such are the playthings of the gods, perhaps desired for their usefulness or sexual attractiveness, but otherwise ignore. The evil trickster God is a common feature where human beings believe or trust a particular truth or power but find that it is wrong and their belief or trust is fundamentally misplaced.
8. Indifferent and somewhat anthropic: Indifferent monotheisms
Indifferent monotheisms are not common but do exist. They would follow any number of anthropic principles such as that of the “Great Architect.” This is conceivably the divine being of Genesis One in the Bible, the satisfied creator of everything.
9. Indifferent and impersonal: Chaotic atheisms
It is hard to conceive of a completely chaotic atheism since such a perception would not lead to positive motivation. It might lie behind perceptions of nature “red in tooth and claw” and some forms of evolutionary thought. So, while the universe can be conceived of as an arbitrary collection of partial rules with no underlying order past the limits of the human willingness to impute one, it’s hard to imagine such a view being used to sustain human endeavour.
10. Animist religions
In addition to these nine conceptual nodes, there may be a tenth which sits above all of these in the chart, encompassing perhaps the whole range of loving perspectives, from the indifferent to the conflicted to the caring. These would be animist religions tied to specific creatures or places. Inasmuch as divine essences are seen as carried in plants, rocks, and animals, there is a sense of the universe suffused with a partially anthropic sense of spiritual engagement. Whether this is in fact a sense of the maximal anthropic density of the universe or the manifestation of yet another dimension of relational interpretation of existence is hard to determine. It seems likely that they are anthropic projections onto nature, but inasmuch as these perceptions sometimes feel less than human or lacking in personality, they may represent yet another and as yet undescribed dimension of human spiritual perception.
Specific religions as expressions of neural projections
With regard to religions, there is no need to see any religion as expressing any one of these nine (or ten) types of neuro-transcendent perception. However, while the direct experience of transcendence may not be central to the operationalization of any specific religion, such an experiential reality seems to underlie the authority of all religious systems or their key figures. Such individuals generally appeal to their own experience of transcendence and suggest it is also feasible, at least in part, for their followers. They then draw upon their experience as the validation for the truth of the teachings they then profess. In doing so they might position themselves in any one of the nine locations.
For religions, as the products of communities of the faithful working over time, the most powerful religious expression would be one which permitted all forms and integrated them into one super-framework that legitimized each. Such an approach would allow each individual human experience of the transcendent to find a place within the religious structure. That does not appear to have happened. Instead it seems more accurate to see various versions of the major religions as integrating components of the neuro-moral dimensions in order to craft a specific version. Thus Christianity, while formally a mono-theism, integrates into various versions of that monotheism, a tri-deism built around the Trinity, or a cosmic conflictual dualism with God positioned against Satan, or a wide range of polytheisms based around angels, demons, and saints. Some forms of Christianity might even approach a kind of atheism, where there is no anthropic presence but there is an active set of principles of love driving the universe. Buddhism similarly has a wide range of forms as do many of the other major religions. Adherents might disagree with one another about the legitimacy of the versions that differ from their own, but that does not deny that they exist. In each case they are an expression of a neural-psychological framework of transcendence.
It would take a much more extensive analysis to draw clear connections between any specific religion and the details of this perspective. However, at this point it seems reasonable to attempt to work from this framework back to the question of human moral understandings and ethical evaluation, quite aside from the question of religion. There appear to be significant enough connections to make such an effort worthwhile in theory. In practice there turns out to be significant grounds as well. Much of the moral content planet-wide turns on an implicit theology of daily life, one rooted in some expression of transcendence.
C. Ontological & Religious Ethics/Primal Values
Transcendence appears to drive many ethical systems and perspectives, not merely the religious. It might be presumed to be a significant aspect of the morality of those who, in the contemporary world, proclaim themselves spiritual-but-not-religious. Given the proximity of transcendent experiences to nature in many anecdotal accounts, this might also be considered as an impetus for ecological ethics, particularly the Gaia (living planet) hypothesis. Other possibilities are possible, including rational-materialist ethics based upon convictions that the universe is ultimately cold, purposeless, and empty.
One of the critical features of the experience of transcendence is that it is in itself without moral content. While it indicates a fundamental unity of all existence, it provides no simple direction for that sense of unity. Adding the other neuro-psychological dimensions of transcendent experience helps fill out that sense, but still leaves the specific nature of moral application absent. It leads to profound moral feelings, typically of cosmic goodness and deep personal validation, but not metaphoric perceptions of the type of relations which guide specific practices or decisions. On its own it provides no significant help in producing morally or ethically responsible people, even though it may powerfully motivate people to act in such a manner.
The result is that while core values and principles may rest in this experience of transcendence (and lead to perspectives that can be called religious), the experience itself is not on its own inherently ethical or moral. To obtain direct moral or ethical guidance it is necessary to begin by tying this experience to another relational framework. The result is typically that religious or other socially demanding ethical systems emerge as this sense of how the universe works comes together with the other relational dynamics.
· Transcendence + Hierarchy leads to most religious frameworks.
· Transcendence + Tactical leads in the direction of cosmic Capitalism.
· Transcendence + Equitability leads to Marxism.
· Transcendence + Aesthetics leads to deep ecology.
Other combinations and outcomes are possible.
This indicates one of the critical errors of most critiques of religious or socially demanding ethical systems which is that they are merely or completely rooted in “revelation” of cosmic significance. The point of this commonly made critique is that religious and similar ethical systems are rooted in an absolute and thus intractable with regard to conversation and change. These critiques believe that ethics and morality grounded in a sense of the transcendent inherently close off communication with other perspectives and even reality itself. But the reality is these cosmologically grounded ethical perspectives always emerge out of an integration of moral frameworks, all of which require evidence and experience, and exist emergently as responses to on-going real conditions. They are thus open to testing, dialogue, and revision based on on-going human interaction. While they may include a certain level of cosmic “givenness,” the specifics are always developed in empirical, social, historical, and cultural dialogue. No religious value perspective is static because the core experience oftranscendence does not have enough content to drive a coherent version of human existence. Coherence and thus value to the adherent only comes from the real world of day-to-day interactions and the success the religion provides them in making their way through those interactions. While it may not be comfortable even for the adherents to admit, no religious point of view is absolute but reflects the necessity of combining many aspects of on-going life and fitting the normal human universe of ordinary capacities, understandings, and realistic possibilities.
Nor need the experience of the transcendent lead in the direction of particularity. Because experiences of the transcendent always happen to individuals who are themselves socially emergent, there is always a social, historical, and cultural context for such experiences. For those living is so-called secular contexts, this may be merely a felt if not formally recognized religious context, but it is there nonetheless (Luckman, 1967). The result is these highly personal experiences share many similarities, at least within cultural contexts. Thus the human experience of transcendence is universal, but it might underlie monotheistic religions with a distinct sense of a universally present personality (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), or a pantheon of personally engaged gods with geographic locales (most traditional religions), or no God at all (pure Buddhism). Experiences of Transcendence seems to take shape in specific culturally cued forms.
The consequence is that while the experience of transcendence might be central to many frameworks of meaning, it does not of itself define a specific moral-decision framework. It may encourage certain types of decisions, especially those related to self-sacrifice or acts of devotion, but it does not inherently support any specific traditional moral or ethical framework.
On the other hand, in the context of individual and cultural combinations of certain types of relational analysis, the perception of transcendent realities can lead to strong versions of moral existence and the perception of specific forms of ethical reasoning as more appropriate than others. It is these individually and culturally appropriated (or projected) forms of transcendence that become the drive behind aspects of personal and cultural existence and the content of core values. Transcendence itself may have little in the way of moral content, but in combination it becomes a powerful emotional trigger to deep convictions about the way life is, what is important in existence, and how one is to approach the problems of existence and day-to-day living. Thus we produce primal structures of meaning and deep values which individuals and groups are prepared to live by (and sometimes die for) on the basis of their sense of connection to transcendence itself.
Organizational Applications
Individuals may or may not have a personal experience of transcendence to act as the source of their primal structures of meaning and deep values. Even if they do not, they are still likely to have deeply held values and perspectives consistent with such a perspective. If they do not have such an experience they will develop such primal moral structures on the basis of learned cultural expression, especially as they are identified and experienced in their family of origin. In all cases these internalized structures lead to ethical structures (sets of values and relational strategies) which are applied to culturally acceptable action contexts (Figure 9). These moral and ethical perspectives then become part of their identity itself, becoming foundational to their experience of the world as persons, even if the foundation is primarily learned from their culture.
Figure 9. From Internalized structures of meaning to applied ethical structures
The two most common realms of individual and collective application of these primal moral and ethical perspectives are the family and work-life within businesses and organizations. These are the action contexts within people apply what they experience and have learned as they unconsciously and consciously make their way through each day. Therefore, while it may be disturbing to contemplate, it is the case that transcendence is a central component of organizational ethics, even if at one remove. This can be easiest to see in the context of health-care or social service organizations which often express their goals in terms of explicit understandings of the ultimate meaning of human life, a meaning developed in the context of some sense of transcendence. In many cases these organizations are themselves the offshoot of religious enterprises or developed directly as a means to implement a religious vision rooted in a variety of transcendence. But what is true for organizations concerned directly with human well-being is also true for all other organizations. Deep moral perspectives emerge from the lives and practices of the people in every organization and become, over time, the means by which the organization itself practices its goal oriented activity.
Cosmological perspectives and their resulting foundational values are present in some respects present in all business organizations. They emerge in the tradeoffs organizations make around profits, communal values, product quality, and consumer relations. All aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reflect specific commitments to some version of a cosmological framework of ethics. This is easiest to see when one crosses substantial cultural (and religious) boundaries such as between Eastern and Western nations. Eastern cultures, and their businesses, share aspects of the Eastern cosmological world-view that relate to the relative importance of human beings and product quality in relation to profitability, all three of which turn out to have significant differences from Western cultures and businesses who share the Western cosmological world-view (Table 2).
Stark (2005) has argued that Capitalism is itself an outworking of a Christian cosmology, where reinvestment for long-term growth reflects the Christian understanding of human worth and communal development in the context of the sacrifice of personal luxury for community improvement. In formulating this perspective Stark is separating business, the acquisition of wealth, from capitalism as a system. Business is cross-cultural, while Capitalism emerges from and can only be sustained within the framework of a cosmology that prizes both individual initiative and the well-being of others.
Regardless, every culture has its own version of these fundamental cosmological differences, and within them individual nations and organizations themselves reflect unique combinations of values within them. Specific families and individuals will again vary these in terms of their own experiences and interests. Moreover, these general religious traits are typically assumed, only emerging as issues when there is conflict between perspectives, or degree of a perspective, between people within an organization, or between organizations, leading to a lack of trust or even a sense of ‘otherness’. Even when no conflict arises, they are always there, forming the background out of which and against which all other values take their meaning.
Table 2. Generalized differences between Eastern and Western cosmologies and their implications
Eastern |
Western |
|
Time is cyclical and eternal |
Time is linear and finite |
|
Human life is ultimately meaningless (illusion) |
Human life is more important than anything else |
|
Family honour must be maintained, especially the honour of the ancestors |
Dishonour of family and self is acceptable in order to achieve individual greatness. Ancestors are to be overcome. |
|
The universe will tell you the truth about yourself (karma) |
You are a partner in the creation of the universe and this is a moral struggle with evil/chaos—you will create yourself |
|
Harmony is the highest human value |
Achievement is the highest human value |
|
Randomness in only apparent |
Randomness is the enemy |
|
Suffering is necessary and should be accepted |
Suffering leads to repentance and change |
|
Conformity is essential to human wellness |
Self-worth is essential to human wellness |
|
Purity and order represent cosmic goodness |
Diversity and uplift represent cosmic goodness |
Table 3. Eastern and Western cosmologies and their Business implications
Eastern |
Western |
|
Quality is the core value in production |
Profitability is the core value in production |
|
Innovation in minimal and incremental |
Innovation is maximal and disruptive |
|
Technology should serve human interests |
Technology should be pursued for its own sake |
|
Excellence is found through team-work |
Excellence is found through individual prowess |
|
Bending to accommodate is the best form of problem solving |
If it isn’t broken, break it and do it better |
References & Additional Readings
Bolender, J. (2010). The Self-Organizing Social Mind. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Fisher, M.P. & Rinehard, R. (2016). Living Religions (10th edition). Pearson.
Fiske, A.P. (1991). Structures of Social Life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Macmillan.
Fiske, A. P. (2004). Relational Models Theory 2.0. Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 3-26. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fowers, B.J. (2015). The Evolution of Ethics: Human Sociality and the Emergence of Ethical Mindedness. Palgrave Macmillan.
Greeley, A. (1991). Faithful Attraction: Discovering Intimacy, Love, and Fidelity in American Marriage. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.
Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Järnefelt, E., C. F. Canfield, D. Kelemen. (2015). The divided mind of a disbeliever: Intuitive beliefs about nature as purposefully created among different groups of non-religious adults. Cognition 140: 72-88. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.02.005
Luckmann, T. (1967). The Invisible Religion: The problem of religion in modern society. New York: Macmillan.
MacIntyre, A. (1966). A Short History of Ethics: A history of moral philosophy from the Homeric age to the twentieth century. New York NY: Macmillan.
Otto, R. (1950). The Idea of the Holy, 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press.
Roccas, S. and C. McCauley. (2004). Values and Emotions in the Relational Models, in Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 263-286. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Shweder, R.A., N.C. Much, M. Mahapatra, and L. Part. (1997). The ‘big three’ of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the ‘big three’ explanations of suffering, in Morality and Health, eds. A. Brandt and P. Rozen, pp. 119-169. New York: Routledge.
Stark, R. (2005). The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western success. New York: Random House.
Tetlock, P. E., A. P. McGraw, and O. V. Kristel. (2004). Proscribed Forms of Social Cognition: Taboo tradeoffs, blocked exchanges, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals, in Relational Models Theory: A contemporary overview, ed. Nick Haslam, pp. 247-262. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Waytz, A., C. K. Morewedge, N. Epley, G. Monteleone, JH. Gao, and J. T. Cacioppo. (2010). Making Sense by Making Sentient: Effectance Motivation Increases Anthropomorphism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99, No. 3: 410–435. DOI: 10.1037/a0020240
Search/Study Terms:
Salvation, Karma, Eastern Religions, Western Religions, Transcendence, Holiness, Mysticism, Prophets
Bruce Hiebert, Ph.D.
brucehiebert@shaw.ca
2018-05-23