orthogonal
Registered Senior Member
While hiking in the mountains a few days ago, I puzzled once again over a reoccurring question of mine; Why be good?
I’ve considered a number of possible answers to this question over the years. A favorite answer in the past was prompted by Jean-Paul Sartre’s contention that since man is condemned to be free, the full responsibility of his actions rests alone upon his shoulders. In his Existentialism and Human Emotions, he soberly writes:
“ We are alone with no excuses. Man must choose. Not to choose is also to choose...Man cannot find an omen in this world by which to orient himself, because a man will always interpret an omen to suit himself...There is a universality of man; but it is not given, it is perpetually being made. I build the universe in choosing myself.”
Immanuel Kant calls upon our sense of duty. He asks us to appreciate that the actions of each individual combine to produce a society. Plato made a similar observation in Book Eight of his Republic:
”Societies are not made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning scale one way or the other, determine the direction of the whole.”
All right, I understand this much. Still I have to wonder why I shouldn’t simply let other men do the heavy lifting in creating a good society. Why not let all the other fools keep to “the straight and narrow,” while I go about exploiting their society for personal profit? When called upon to assist my neighbor at a barn-raising, why should I risk hurting my back lifting the timbers? No one could tell if I’m lifting my share of the load or if I’m actually resting on the load. As long as the wall goes up, what does it matter if I make a personal effort? Why not let the other chumps hurt their backs? A hawk among hawks starves, yet a hawk among doves will grow fat. Since most men are doves, wouldn’t I be a fool not to exploit their softness? Petty criminals and organized crime bosses alike, share this view.
While thinking of the analogy of the barn-raising, I remembered that a friend recently told me that as a young woman she was made to study the violin. Her heart wasn’t in it though. She especially hated to practice. Unfortunately she belonged to an orchestra. A girl who sat next to her in this orchestra was in the same predicament. This girl taught my friend to lift her bow ever-so-slightly over the strings. As long as their bowing was visually convincing, since they didn’t make a sound the conductor / teacher couldn’t single them out for their poor performance. Since the overall sound of the orchestra was little diminished, what difference did it make that they were not contributing?
The thought of playing a musical instrument suddenly brought to mind a passage from a book I read some months earlier. The book, Reverence, by Paul Woodruff, considers the virtue of reverence; a virtue the author believes has been recently neglected. The passage from this book that sprang into my mind was:
”Why should I be reverent? If you have to ask, you are hopeless. You are like a cellist who begins to play the Bach suites, stops suddenly and asks, ‘Why should I play the right notes’?”
Hmm…interesting. Is this a fitting analogy for one who asks, “Why should I be good”? Woodruff remarks that one cannot step outside a practice that one is engaged in. One easily could play the wrong notes, but then one ceases to produce a Bach suite. Unlike my friend, we can’t go through our lives with our bow slightly lifted. As Sartre said, “Not to choose is to choose.” As long as man lives, he must choose his actions. If we play the correct notes we produce a thing of beauty. We produce a beautiful life. Should we choose to play the wrong notes, beyond the assault on the ears of others, we squander the pleasure we might have from creating a thing of beauty. Wrong notes are discordant only because man intrinsically knows what the right notes should sound like.
J.S. Bach humorously noted that organ playing, "...is nothing remarkable..., all one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Yet we’ve all heard the results of such music. Though technically correct, we often think such a performance is missing soul, or emotion. An ethical life might also be achieved by mechanically hitting the right notes at the right times. We may go though our lives never actually hitting the wrong notes, yet a life spent merely avoiding debt and prison is not one I consider particularly inspiring or beautiful. It isn’t enough that we merely abide by the law. It isn’t enough that we avoid doing harm to others. Benevolent men transcend the law with their every action, and find ways to bring joy to the lives of others. Benevolent men lovingly hit the correct keys at the correct time; they play the notes with emotion, and they take joy from creating this beauty.
My best thoughts seem to come to me while I’m hiking. Unfortunately, I tend to forget most of them by the end of my hike. My above thoughts ended abruptly when I crossed paths with a bull Moose. This is the third Moose I’ve seen already this summer. The Moose started me off on an entirely different strain of thought, but that’s another story. At least it’s another thread.
Michael
I’ve considered a number of possible answers to this question over the years. A favorite answer in the past was prompted by Jean-Paul Sartre’s contention that since man is condemned to be free, the full responsibility of his actions rests alone upon his shoulders. In his Existentialism and Human Emotions, he soberly writes:
“ We are alone with no excuses. Man must choose. Not to choose is also to choose...Man cannot find an omen in this world by which to orient himself, because a man will always interpret an omen to suit himself...There is a universality of man; but it is not given, it is perpetually being made. I build the universe in choosing myself.”
Immanuel Kant calls upon our sense of duty. He asks us to appreciate that the actions of each individual combine to produce a society. Plato made a similar observation in Book Eight of his Republic:
”Societies are not made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning scale one way or the other, determine the direction of the whole.”
All right, I understand this much. Still I have to wonder why I shouldn’t simply let other men do the heavy lifting in creating a good society. Why not let all the other fools keep to “the straight and narrow,” while I go about exploiting their society for personal profit? When called upon to assist my neighbor at a barn-raising, why should I risk hurting my back lifting the timbers? No one could tell if I’m lifting my share of the load or if I’m actually resting on the load. As long as the wall goes up, what does it matter if I make a personal effort? Why not let the other chumps hurt their backs? A hawk among hawks starves, yet a hawk among doves will grow fat. Since most men are doves, wouldn’t I be a fool not to exploit their softness? Petty criminals and organized crime bosses alike, share this view.
While thinking of the analogy of the barn-raising, I remembered that a friend recently told me that as a young woman she was made to study the violin. Her heart wasn’t in it though. She especially hated to practice. Unfortunately she belonged to an orchestra. A girl who sat next to her in this orchestra was in the same predicament. This girl taught my friend to lift her bow ever-so-slightly over the strings. As long as their bowing was visually convincing, since they didn’t make a sound the conductor / teacher couldn’t single them out for their poor performance. Since the overall sound of the orchestra was little diminished, what difference did it make that they were not contributing?
The thought of playing a musical instrument suddenly brought to mind a passage from a book I read some months earlier. The book, Reverence, by Paul Woodruff, considers the virtue of reverence; a virtue the author believes has been recently neglected. The passage from this book that sprang into my mind was:
”Why should I be reverent? If you have to ask, you are hopeless. You are like a cellist who begins to play the Bach suites, stops suddenly and asks, ‘Why should I play the right notes’?”
Hmm…interesting. Is this a fitting analogy for one who asks, “Why should I be good”? Woodruff remarks that one cannot step outside a practice that one is engaged in. One easily could play the wrong notes, but then one ceases to produce a Bach suite. Unlike my friend, we can’t go through our lives with our bow slightly lifted. As Sartre said, “Not to choose is to choose.” As long as man lives, he must choose his actions. If we play the correct notes we produce a thing of beauty. We produce a beautiful life. Should we choose to play the wrong notes, beyond the assault on the ears of others, we squander the pleasure we might have from creating a thing of beauty. Wrong notes are discordant only because man intrinsically knows what the right notes should sound like.
J.S. Bach humorously noted that organ playing, "...is nothing remarkable..., all one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Yet we’ve all heard the results of such music. Though technically correct, we often think such a performance is missing soul, or emotion. An ethical life might also be achieved by mechanically hitting the right notes at the right times. We may go though our lives never actually hitting the wrong notes, yet a life spent merely avoiding debt and prison is not one I consider particularly inspiring or beautiful. It isn’t enough that we merely abide by the law. It isn’t enough that we avoid doing harm to others. Benevolent men transcend the law with their every action, and find ways to bring joy to the lives of others. Benevolent men lovingly hit the correct keys at the correct time; they play the notes with emotion, and they take joy from creating this beauty.
My best thoughts seem to come to me while I’m hiking. Unfortunately, I tend to forget most of them by the end of my hike. My above thoughts ended abruptly when I crossed paths with a bull Moose. This is the third Moose I’ve seen already this summer. The Moose started me off on an entirely different strain of thought, but that’s another story. At least it’s another thread.
Michael
Last edited:
