Post-conventional Morality and the need for infinite debate

I had a conversation today with somebody which started off about one's enjoyment of food and lead my brain down a rabbit hole, of which I will try to keep short and digestible here.

Pixabay

The basic conversation was this:

A - I love Food

B - Me too but sometimes I forget to eat

A - What's the point of life without food?

B - I agree but sometimes I get more enjoyment after not eating for a while; absence makes the heart grow fonder and all

A - Outrageously untrue. I love food as a regular thing that I always do. Your analogy only works with the extremely poor and starving

B - How? Have you never had an empty stomach before?

It was at this point, more or less, that I realized that this person, in all likelihood, never suffered a day, never had to go hungry, and likely never tried anything too adventurous, getting lost somewhere, having so much fun you simply forget, getting so nervous or afraid your appetite disappears and so on.

Quite a jump in assumptions I know, but I'm only human. Pretty sure I'm right, too. And that's fine. To be stable and live a predictable, safe life where you never want for anything is an amazing feat the vast majority of the world are desperate to have.

But a point of contention I've always had about this group of 'Conventional' people is just that; they are conventional, and they are entirely unwilling to leave. The mind is set in stone and anything that might seem different is something to consider as a threat or danger, anyone who thinks differently to that is a bad influence, just because that's how things are - this is the convention.

We're all, obviously, guilty of this to varying extents. But the conversation continued and I started talking about my youth and family and those around me all of which grew up with some kind of struggle, many of which having no choice but to go hungry on countless occasions, even after graduating from University, where I myself was living in a tiny box room on the third floor of a house with people I frankly despised in a town I didn't know and had no business being in, as I slowly ran out of money to actually pay for it and no job was coming my way.

In some cases like this, food becomes so amazing that we would steal to acquire it. WE NEED IT.

This opponent in this debate was steadfast. No. Stealing is wrong. End of debate. Under no circumstances is stealing the right thing to do because stealing is illegal, because the law said so and that's that.

Well. I held my tongue and respected this position. As I said, being of that lifestyle and mindset is something we should be grateful for. If everyone in the world lived a life in which they didn't have to face the more dangerous, dark and grey areas of reality, we would be a pretty happy planet indeed.

But I didn't exactly live that life and it's only recently I can say I feel at least somewhat stable, now I'm approaching 32 years of age, and people around me are doing far worse at the same age - and this is common, even in the UK, one of the richest countries on earth.

So for me, the debate is never over. I held my tongue, sure, but my brain started eating away at my... brain, all the way home. My opinion couldn't be more different. When is stealing the right thing to do? Well, at first you must define 'stealing'.

I'm not going to, but I feel one's idea of theft is some Aladdin-esque street rat, fit as a fiddle with a monkey to feed making slick attempts to steal fruit and vegetable from an equally struggling shopkeeper, both only trying to survive, and if they worked together honestly, everything would work out.

But what about reality, what about the multi-billion dollar enterprises raising prices of basic necessities to line the pockets of their billionaire CEO's. Is it wrong to steal a $3 loaf of bread to feed your children? Well, yes, according to the law of course it is. You just have to find another way.

What about an authoritarian government sacrificing its millions of citizens for the sake of its own pride and maintaining its position in power, can its citizens steal from the leaders here?

There are infinite examples that you all might personally have experienced in which the rules of morality start to break down, get a little fuzzy.

I started to wonder why my cultural thought on this was so vastly different from my opponent earlier in the day, and why that person refused to debate it. Why do I enjoy the idea of a discussion on this, yet others feel it a personal attack to be avoided or if online, blocked?

I came across a fairly interesting article on the metro-part of my journey home

It starts off with another realistic example I'll dump here:

'Sylvia is dying from a rare form of cancer. There is one drug the doctors think might save her recently developed by a druggist near her. The drug is expensive to make, about $400 for a small dose, but the druggist is charging ten times what it costs him to make the drug, about $4,000.

Her husband Heinz went to everyone he knew to borrow money to buy this drug for her, but he could only raise about $2,000. He told the druggist his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper, or let him pay for it later, but the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make all the money I can right now.” Heinz is desperate, and considering breaking into the man’s store and stealing the drug for his wife. Do you think it is okay for Heinz to steal the drug? How come?'

The article goes on to explain how Lawrence Kohlberg, a social psychologist, investigated the development and evolution of one's moral reasoning - regardless of whatever answers are given on a topic, including this one.

It boils down to three sets of conventional thought; Preconventional, conventional, and postconventional morality.

In short, Preconventional morality is what you might hear a child reason with; Whether you follow or break the rules, you're doing it either for reward or to avoid punishment. Simple.

Conventional morality is what the vast majority of people grow into. We learn from our parents, from our society, from our churches or synagogues, our schools, not to do what is essentially an objective wrong. However, a culture decides on these wrongs is dependent presumably on thousands of years of historical development.

In the same way, a baby born into a Muslim family in a Muslim country has a roughly 100% chance that they will grow up to be Muslim, whereas a baby born in a Christian family and country will almost certainly turn out Christian.

Funny that.

All in all, this is the easy life. The law is the law, wrong is wrong, black is white because I said so and that's what makes sense to me and that feels safe and right. How else can things possibly be?

Of course, if this were actually true, why does... well, why 1,000,000 things I probably don't need to start listing.

Then there is Postconventional morality. Rather than just going around settled on what society believes is collectively the right answer to life's problems, this is a more personal and independent state of morality. What do YOU think is right and wrong, regardless of what the police say, and your teachers, and parents.

Your parents tell you to go to church every Sunday because God says so. Meanwhile, your mind questions 'Why?' 'Is praying all I can really do to help these people? Is charity all I can do, is that the best way to do things?'

A few minutes thinking about it and you find charity is, in some cases, not the right way to do things. Sure, you may be giving money to those who need it, but that money often just evaporates into 3 days' food, leaving the recipients hungry once more. You have then wiped your hands clean of moral responsibility and moved on to the next craze, while people are yet still going hungry. You have done nothing to change their life, you haven't implemented any system to improve agriculture or increase the efficiency of water purification. No, you just tossed some loose change at some people who happen to live locally in the hope that it might make a difference.

Is this the moral thing to do?

Is it moral to simply allow mega-corporations to, as John Oliver pointed out this week, consciously and actively buy out and jack up prices of homes of people who they outright describe as 'hostages'? I mean, it's legal, right? So it must be morally acceptable.

Some of these contradictions in morality are more obvious than others. Some require deep thought, introspection and, yes, debate.

Sometimes, dare I say it, stealing is the right choice to make. In the example of the cancer patient, one may be willing to steal, even if it means a certainty of being caught.

This is Postconventional morality. An internal, independent set of moral values, or, as the article states 'Heinz should steal the drug because the value of human life is more important than the right of property ownership'

It becomes a balancing act; what is more important, following what we've always known, or following what we actually believe to be right? This is said to evolve throughout our lives, and surely depending on how life turns out determines how far or how fast these values change.

We see this explored endlessly in Hollywood movies and beyond, but we never really explore it in our own journeys through life. We often just see it as an interesting plot device, not something to apply to ourselves.

This, to me, is one of the greatest moral crimes.

(Don't vote this steemSTEM, it's not STEMMY, I just wanted to use Steemstem.io)