The kinds of things I worry about
I succumbed to a moral failing this morning on the drive home from work.
I was pulling onto the highway. The lane I was in was technically a right turn lane onto a side road, so I needed to get into a middle lane. There was a garbage truck barrelling up the highway - at this point the highway is headed uphill. He was doing the speed limit; I was not. But my lane was running out, so I pulled out in front of him. He hit the brakes (necessarily) and lost a LOT of momentum. He ended up way behind me as I accelerated up to the top of the hill - obviously I had more acceleration than he did at 45 mph. But I cost him a lot of momentum; had I not pulled out in front of him he could have easily made it to the top of the hill at a reasonable cruising speed.
This is all very important.
Let us leave aside any possible moral implications towards acting in such a manner as to facilitate the degradation of the environment. (Say what you will about the environmental movement, but the raw expenditure of fuel is, on balance, a negative for the environment.) To understand where I am coming from, it is important to note that on my moral reckoning, stupidity and rudeness are both aspects of the same sin: they are both forms of inconsiderateness; they are both the result of a failure to think.
Heedlessness is, without question, the great moral failing of our age.
I might have been able to stay in my lane until the truck passed me by. Techinically it was a turning lane but there was no on on the side road, and the lane kept running past that side road until it ended at the next one. I might have downshifted and moved into a lower gear, gunning the gas pedal. I might have slipped two lanes left and let him pass me on the right. I'm not saying any of these options would have been the right course of action to pursue, that any of them would have been preferable, or that I wouldn't have, after evaluating all my choices, simply done exactly what I did do. All of that is irrelevant.
What matters is that I didn't even consider these options. I simply pulled out in front of someone else. I cost them a significant amount of energy. And I didn't even think about doing something different.
This is at the heart of what I consider moral behavior: a willingness to sacrifice a part of one's own energy in return for an even greater savings for someone else. It is this principle which underlies the philosophical problem of altruism, the evolutionary doctrine of kin-selection, and pretty much the entire mathematical field of Game Theory.
It is a basic, metaphysical drive towards greater stability, through division of costs and pooling of resources. That it's a pervasive aspect of our physical universe ought to impress us as to its importance. That it's a form of activity which we, as human beings, should be able to consciously select places us under special obligation. After all, how can we be blameless for failing to choose what even the blind, impersonal laws of nature recognize as the most effective means of helping others?
It's in these small, trivial moments of heedlessness that we acquire the habit of thinking that it's ok to let opportunities for genuine service by. If we're ever going to be better persons ourselves, if we're ever going to change the world as we are meant to change it, we must learn not to let ourselves fall asleep.
I was pulling onto the highway. The lane I was in was technically a right turn lane onto a side road, so I needed to get into a middle lane. There was a garbage truck barrelling up the highway - at this point the highway is headed uphill. He was doing the speed limit; I was not. But my lane was running out, so I pulled out in front of him. He hit the brakes (necessarily) and lost a LOT of momentum. He ended up way behind me as I accelerated up to the top of the hill - obviously I had more acceleration than he did at 45 mph. But I cost him a lot of momentum; had I not pulled out in front of him he could have easily made it to the top of the hill at a reasonable cruising speed.
This is all very important.
Let us leave aside any possible moral implications towards acting in such a manner as to facilitate the degradation of the environment. (Say what you will about the environmental movement, but the raw expenditure of fuel is, on balance, a negative for the environment.) To understand where I am coming from, it is important to note that on my moral reckoning, stupidity and rudeness are both aspects of the same sin: they are both forms of inconsiderateness; they are both the result of a failure to think.
Heedlessness is, without question, the great moral failing of our age.
I might have been able to stay in my lane until the truck passed me by. Techinically it was a turning lane but there was no on on the side road, and the lane kept running past that side road until it ended at the next one. I might have downshifted and moved into a lower gear, gunning the gas pedal. I might have slipped two lanes left and let him pass me on the right. I'm not saying any of these options would have been the right course of action to pursue, that any of them would have been preferable, or that I wouldn't have, after evaluating all my choices, simply done exactly what I did do. All of that is irrelevant.
What matters is that I didn't even consider these options. I simply pulled out in front of someone else. I cost them a significant amount of energy. And I didn't even think about doing something different.
This is at the heart of what I consider moral behavior: a willingness to sacrifice a part of one's own energy in return for an even greater savings for someone else. It is this principle which underlies the philosophical problem of altruism, the evolutionary doctrine of kin-selection, and pretty much the entire mathematical field of Game Theory.
It is a basic, metaphysical drive towards greater stability, through division of costs and pooling of resources. That it's a pervasive aspect of our physical universe ought to impress us as to its importance. That it's a form of activity which we, as human beings, should be able to consciously select places us under special obligation. After all, how can we be blameless for failing to choose what even the blind, impersonal laws of nature recognize as the most effective means of helping others?
It's in these small, trivial moments of heedlessness that we acquire the habit of thinking that it's ok to let opportunities for genuine service by. If we're ever going to be better persons ourselves, if we're ever going to change the world as we are meant to change it, we must learn not to let ourselves fall asleep.
posted by Jonathan at 7:13 AM
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