Beyond morality (ICA)

Description

This is the experience that all concepts of morality have fallen away and one's criteria for making ethical decisions have become meaningless. What used to be called right and wrong is now a maze of shades of grey between right and right and wrong and wrong; what is appropriate for one situation is often entirely inappropriate for another. This reality is faced when a hospital committee has to decide which patients will have the use of the kidney dialysis machine; or in the lifeboat situation where the captain decides whom to set adrift to reduce the numbers so that the rest will have a chance of survival.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. Awareness of ethical relativity brings realization that one has the capacity to make a fatally wrong decision. The question arises: "What if I didn't really give a damn about life and death ?". The mixed dread and fascination of power over life and death comes into play. No set of prescribed or established guidelines are there to help in the agony of deciding and yet a kind of intrigue beckons one forward to take a stand. Conscious of the ambiguity of life, the individual decides to make the decision, to be intentional about what he is doing. There may be a very sour taste in his mouth when someone offers free advice, telling him he should have done it another way; but there is a sense of relief that he has at least had the courage to make a choice.