The Power and Promise of Humane Education
Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times
Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs
So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals
I was recently asked for my opinion on an ethical quandary facing a friend of a friend. I was asked because I was perceived as somewhat of an expert on ethical issues due to my role as a humane educator, president of the Institute for Humane Education, and a writer about MOGO choices. I was surprised that someone would consider my opinion on an ethical matter more valuable than someone else’s, though, and when I took the ethical issue in question to our staff, a group of people whose moral compasses I admire immensely, we were pretty much split on it. So much for expertise.
I’ve always been bemused when an ethical issue arises in our culture, and the media call in an ethicist to offer an expert opinion. I don’t generally find such opinions to be more valid than my own or others’ perspectives. People’s opinions on ethical matters differ not because someone has studied philosophy while another has not, but because ethical decisions are often highly complicated as well as steeped in personal values, experiences, and beliefs.
This does not mean that I don’t think ethics is an important subject to study, nor that I would do away with ethicists. My life was radically shifted in 1984 by philosopher-ethicist Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, in which he lays out not only the cruelties perpetrated on animals but also the philosophical reasons for desisting in such cruelty and exploitation. The MOGO principle stems from what I learned from Professor Singer almost 25 years ago, and my own career as a humane educator is ethically driven and ethically informed. I teach people to consider what is right and good, which is a large part of what it means to be a humane educator. But I believe that ethicists are not experts. Rather, they’re deeply engaged seekers of ethical truths for a better world. Instead of looking to ethicists, each of us must commit to becoming an ethicist for our own lives and choices. Of course we can and should ask people we respect for their opinions on ethical matters, but it’s ultimately up to us to make MOGO choices through our own commitment to inquiry, introspection, and integrity – the 3 I’s I refer to regularly in this blog.
Does this mean that MOGO is always relative, that there are no right and wrong answers to ethical questions, and that whatever you personally decide is right? No. Many ethical questions are pretty clear, and moral relativism is often simply a way of justifying harmful decisions. But many choices are complex, especially when taking into consideration not only yourself and your family but also all people, all species, and the earth itself, and these require our commitment to MOGO. We won’t be experts, and we won’t always make MOGO choices, but the more we hold MOGO as an ideal toward which to strive, the more we will slowly but surely choose MOGO as a matter of course.
~ Zoe
Filed under: MOGO (Most Good), positive choices Tagged: | ethics, experts, MOGO, positive choices
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Perhaps they asked you because they know you honestly care. We are living in a society which is so incredibly warped that instead of teaching ways to be moral, (such buying fair trade products and staying away from products which endanger the lives of people, animals and plants), some teachers are actually asking their students if “morality” exists.
So you see, you have two things in your favor. One is you know that morality (or ethics) does exist. And two is that you honestly want to be moral (ethical), even if you aren’t always sure exactly how to do it. Even if you and your colleagues can’t agree on what is moral or ethical, you all agree that you honestly want to be moral and ethical, and that morals and ethics exist, which are two big points in your favor. I wouldn’t bother asking for advice about moral issues from someone who doesn’t care about anything except for gratifying their own physical desires and is willing to do so at the expense of other beings.
Or, let me explain it another way. Many years ago I had a professor who sat all of the students down in a circle instead of in rows. She was very open and honest during the class. She was a gentle, good person. There was something special about her. She knew how to create a nurturing and warm environment. She made us all feel like we were part of a very positive, productive group, and she created an environment in which we were all able to respect and listen to all of our classmates. Toward the end of the class she passed out paper and asked each one of us to write our names on top of the paper. Remember, we were all sitting in a circle, not in rows. So each one of us passed our paper, with our name on top of it, to the person on our left, and they wrote down something they liked about us. Then we all passed the papers to the left again, and wrote down something positive about the person whose paper we were holding. We passed the papers around until everyone had written down something positive about every single person in the class, so we were all thinking about the wonderful attributes of all of our classmates, and then we got our own paper’s back and were able to see all of the wonderful things that our classmates said about us, so we were able to feel good about ourselves, and about everyone else in the class.
At the time of the excise one of the people (I believe it was the teacher herself, though I will never know for sure because it was anonymous) wrote on my paper, as the positive attribute that they liked about me, that I cared about people and things. At the time I didn’t think too much of the comment, but now I understand why they wrote it. They wrote down that I cared about people and things because caring about people and things is not necessarily a quality that everyone possesses, but it is a very good and important quality, and when considering ethical or moral issues, I’m going to seek advice from someone who honestly cares about people and things.
I believe that the same exercise was found in a story in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, perhaps the original one.
That is why I gravitate towards authors and speakers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle, John Marks Templeton and Pema Chodron. I may not necessarily agree with everything that they say, and there may be some fundamental differences which set us apart, but when it comes down to it, these authors honestly care about what happens to other people and they truly want peace. If you want peace, you need to follow the example of someone who knows how to be peace and is choosing to be peace. Lots of people know how to be peace, but Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, John Marks Templeton and Thich Nhat Hanh are actually choosing to be peace, or at least making a really good try, so I’m going to gravitate towards them and other authors like them because I know that that honestly care and are honestly trying.