Interfaith Blog Event #2: Ethics, Intrinsic or Relative?

Here is the next installment of the monthly interfaith event! Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Mike from Unknowing Mind, will be writing from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective. Our question this month was presented by Jon of Jesusfollowers Journal. The question is:

Is there anything you consider to be intrinsically right or wrong? What grounds do you have for that conclusion? How does the concept of morality impact your everyday life?

Here are the links to the other perspectives:

[Jon's Essay] [Mike's Essay]Direct links will be provided when available

This is a difficult question to answer from the Pagan perspective as each person that you talk to will have a different idea on how to present it. As I am always curious about how people use the definitions of words, I will start with just that – definitions:

Intrinsic – belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing

Right – being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper

Wrong – something immoral or unethical

Morality - conformity to ideals of right human conduct

When I first look at the question, my first impression is that this question is asking whether I believe that the concept of good and evil exists and whether it is a part of our core being. Based on the above definitions, I would have to say no. Yes, there can be things that can be considered “bad” and there are things that can be considered “good,” but not because it is part of our essential nature. Our concept of good and evil comes from our system of culture. What determines what is good or bad is due to the environment that we were raised in and our actions and reactions within it.

When I think about it, this perspective has more to do with my education in psychology rather than my religious outlook. Through behavioristic psychology, we learn that behavior is learned by way of reinforcement and punishment. John Locke’s concept of tabula rasa comes to mind when I write this. If we are ‘blank slates’ at birth, then how can we be intrinsically right or wrong (or good or evil)?

Some people disagree that our minds are blank at birth, with no ‘rules’ of how to interact with the world. My recent class in psycholinguistics has shown me that there are things that we are born with, at least in regards to language. One thing that we recently talked about in my class is that, at birth, babies have the ability to distinguish between all language sounds, not just those of their parent’s language. This ability continues until about 8 months of age. The fact that we are born with certain knowledge, as shown by this example of language, still doesn’t suggest to me that we are born with the intrinsic knowledge of good and evil.

The concept of morality is something that is taught to us (abstractly) from an early age and therefore it does seem like it would be considered an intrinsic part of us, but I don’t believe it is. I still think that has more to do to one’s behavioristic training through out life rather being something that we are born with. And religious training is definitely part of learning about the concept of morality as religions have used the concept to regulate behavior throughout history.

Due to my own ‘training’ from my parents, family, friends, teachers, and various others, I would say that the concept of morality impacts my daily life in the way that I am worried about how my actions will effect the lives of those around me. I am well aware that what I find to be ‘good’ someone else may see as having a negative effect and consider it ‘wrong’ with the reverse being true as well. While there are certain things that many cultures would agree that are wrong, I don’t think that there will ever be a total consensus of what is to be considered right and wrong.