Beauty and the Beast as Moral Philosophy

Over the past few years it has become fashionable to provide criticisms about Disney movies and "Disney Princesses". Some of these criticisms are in jest while others definitely are not. While social commentary can be leveled at just about any part of our society, sometimes we do ourselves a disservice by only looking at what is wrong, and never what it right about a story.

Because my children, like many others, like to listen to Disney songs and watch Disney movies I have had plenty of time to hear and ponder on the content of various Disney movies. Something that struck me about Disney's Beauty and the Beast is that almost the entirety of people's assessment of the movie centers around Belle. In discussions about the movie the Beast, though a major character, is interestingly enough treated like a plot device to challenge Belle, and not as an individual to be empathized with despite having the greatest character growth. If we consider the personal growth of the Beast we find the story of a man finding his humanity.  

The origin story of the Beast is what sets up the moral of the tale. He is someone who has all the material things he would ever need. The Beast has control over his domain and no one will challenge him in his desires. Because of this he did not treat those around him with humanity. To him they were nothing more than objects that can be treated or mistreated according to his whims. This is shown symbolically when the enchantress shows up and he refuses to help her even though it would not inconvenience him in any way to help her. Because of his objectification of everyone everyone around him literally become objects in his house, and he loses his humanity and is transformed into an inhuman beast. This forms the main tension between the Beast and Belle and her father, Maurice.

When Maurice arrives at the Beast's castle he is the first and only human to enter into the life of the Beast that resists objectification. Normally the Beast would have treated Maurice like everyone else, as an object, but Maurice resists being objectified because of the very human traits of self-sacrifice and love for his daughter. Because Maurice cannot be objectified this enrages the Beast who casts him into prison and treats him inhumanely.

When Belle arrives at the castle she, like her father, resists objectification and offers to take the place of her father. This self-sacrifice demonstrates a defining characteristic of what it means to be human. The Beast did not demonstrate the bare minimum of self-sacrifice and for that he was cursed to lose his humanity. But both Belle and Maurice resist objectification because of their self-sacrifice and love.

Confronted with the reality of Belle staying in the castle, the Beast invites her to better quarters and thus begins his journey back to humanity. As their relationship develops there is constant tension between his beastly nature and her very real humanity. She resists his anger, violence, and all attempts to force her to bend to his will, all of which are beastly and not human characteristics. She is surprised to discover that the objects in the castle are all people, but they, like the Beast, have lost their humanity. Even though they personally exhibit characteristics of self-sacrifice and love, because they did not resist the objectification by the Beast they too fell under the curse. Their personal human characteristics were not enough to save them because they allowed the Beast to treat them as objects and not as humans.

Even though Belle can resist objectification, it is not possible for her human nature and his beastly nature to coexist. This comes to a head when he reacts violently to her entering the most personal and private part of his life. She finds that at the center of his private chambers a place containing his human insecurity which is symbolized by a fragile and dying flower. But his violent and inhuman reaction to his own weakness causes her to flee. 

The only thing that prevents her from leaving for good is because he follows her and demonstrates his first real human action of self-sacrifice. In protecting her from the wolves he is injured. In response to this very human action Belle responds with humanity and takes him back to the castle and stays with him. The Beast's transformation back to humanity began when Belle showed self-sacrifice and took the place of her father. The first part of the Beast's transformation finished when he finally reciprocated with his own self-sacrifice.

Here we have a contrast between his beastly nature and her human nature. But just as his beastly nature will ultimately prompt a beastly and violent response by the towns people, Belle's human nature prompts a human response from the Beast demonstrating that no one is beyond salvation as long as they are treated with humanity. Human actions beget more human actions, and beastly actions beget more beastly actions, but humans can always choose their humanity over being a beast.

After this event Belle exhibits the other part of human nature which is love. Just as she first showed her humanity through self-sacrifice she is the first to show her humanity through her love for the Beast. Because the Beast has regained a portion of his humanity he can he can now share his library with Belle, which symbolizes human learning and wisdom, demonstrating a reawakening of his humanity. During his process from beast to human he has to relearn all the things that can make him human, such as cleanliness, manners, dressing, dancing, music, and all artistic endeavors.

When his transformation back into being human is almost complete he again lets Belle into his most private place. The place where he originally transformed into a beast and lost his human identity. The physical location in the castle where this took place symbolizes his innermost and private thoughts and desires. There he is lonely, violent, and without control countering the complete control he exhibits in the rest of the castle. But with Belle entering she brings humanity literally into his private quarters and figuratively into his private thoughts. It is there that he realizes that if he is to ever be human then he has to release her from his control. Human nature is something that an individual can choose to show, but it is not something that can be controlled. The very act of trying to control human nature destroys the humanity of those who are controlled.

In the way Gaston attempts to control Belle's love we find the contrast between the Beast and Gaston. The Beast had lost his humanity, but found it again and thus knows he cannot control Belle without destroying her humanity. Gaston on the other hand is extolled as being the paragon of manliness, but that belies his true beastly nature. In order to have the love of Belle, Gaston tries to control her, but that very act denies her humanity and prevents there being any love between him and her.

In the end the Beast can only complete his transformation back into being a human when Belle freely returns his love. It cannot be forced or controlled because that freedom is fundamental to human nature. Before that can happen the Beast must wrestle figuratively with his inner demons and literally with Gaston. In a symbolic final fight where Gaston displays his true beastly nature, and the Beast demonstrates his new human nature, Gaston is cast down and dies, but first mortally wounds the Beast.

Here the Beast displays the human traits of self-sacrifice and love, and in response Belle freely gives him her love allowing the curse to be broken and completing his human transformation.

From this perspective the story of Beauty and Beast is a very human story about a man rediscovering his humanity. Belle, the heroine of the story, demonstrates her moral character by maintaining her humanity even when everyone around her has lost theirs. The story teaches that the part of us that makes us human are things that cannot be controlled or forced, they must be freely given. Only when we freely demonstrate self-sacrifice and love can we find our humanity and separate ourselves from the beastly nature found inside each of us. And that is the story of Beauty and the Beast.

"To rule and do according to their wills"

Now for a topic I normally don't talk about, wild sex parties. Yesterday I read a news update about the trial of the former head of the International Monetary Fund. What struck me was how removed the whole thing is from any sense of right or wrong or even a hint of morality.

It reminds me of a friend of mine who was robbed while on his mission in Argentina. After being assaulted in the street and being forced to give up whatever cash he had, his assailant reached his hand into his pocket and removed my friend's watch. When my friend went to the police to file a report they were entirely unconcerned that my friend had been assaulted in the street. They were not willing to even write up an official report, even when he told them that the guy had taken his money and had stolen his watch. It was only when my friend added the detail that his mugger had reached his hand into my friend's pocket and removed the watch himself did the police suddenly get concerned. Somewhere in there they felt a line had been crossed.

My friend got a black eye from the altercation, had his money and watch stolen but, according to the police, that was OK and he should just deal with it. But reaching into my friend's pocket? Now that had gone too far. Usually the legal lines are drawn long after the moral outrage is long past.

Returning to the story of the former head of the IMF (and potential president of France), I could not help but think about the ridiculousness of what was being argued about. This supposedly respectable leader of government and the prosecutors in the case were reduced to arguing whether four wild sex parties per year were excessive and regular. As one blogger put it:

""The prosecution gives the impression of unbridled activity," [the former head of the IMF] testified Tuesday. But in fact, "[t]here were only 12 parties in total. That is four per year over three years," he added helpfully, although that makes it sound a lot more "regular" than he probably intended. Mon Dieu, can the head of an international monetary fund not enjoy one group licentious evening per quarter? he seems to be asking. Yes, he just can't be the organizer, say prosecutors."

 The thing is the current law that he is being prosecuted under, and probably won't be convicted under, were probably written by the former head of the IMF or by his fellow politicians and in the French government. That is, the very laws that make their actions unprosecutable were written by the very people involved in these wild sex parties. As I read these news stories a certain scripture came to mind:

4 And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men;
5 Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills—

Seems to describe the state of law in certain countries at the moment.

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren

There are plenty of Hollywood movies out there that are ready to show the full force and destruction of "God's judgement" but they never seem to ask just what it was that people did to deserve the "judgement". If the movie does try to ask that question the answer usually is a nebulous "we were doing evil, like polluting the earth". This always makes God's judgements seem arbitrary and capricious. But I think that the worst judgement that God can pass on us is that we have to live with the consequences of our actions. We cannot escape the world we create for ourselves.

Usually if we were to think of the things that God might judge us for we tend to think of the big and drastic things, like murder or blasphemy. But I think that in the end the things that God cares about the most are how we treat our own children, because how we treat our own children, who are wholly dependent on us, is a greater indicator of who we are, both individually and as a society.

It is well known in psychology that how children are raised can make a big impact on the later life outcomes of the children. It is also well known that if there are too many broken families that cannot adequately provide for their children in a certain area or city then crime rates will soar and society as a whole will suffer. When most people look for God's judgements they look for fire from the sky and plagues of locusts everywhere, but they fail to see that high crime rates, a general breakdown of social order and well being are just the indicators of God's judgements that they should be looking for.

In "the great and last day, when all people, and all kindreds, and all nations and tongues shall stand before God, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil" the great determining factor in God's judgements will be how all nations, kindreds, tongues and people have treated the least of those among them, because how they treat the least among them will determine what they will become. That is, how a society treats its children will determine what kind of society they will become. It determines what will be transmitted to the next and subsequent generations. If they fail to care for those who come to them naked and a stranger to this world then they will fail to continue and God's judgements will be upon them. This test of how a society treats its children is the great determiner of the success or failure of that society.

Once a society forgets this and places present pleasures over eternal pleasures then begins the process of decay and a loss of stability. It is not something that happens overnight. It may take a generation or two, but eventually the judgements of God will come, not in the form of fire from heaven or rivers of blood, but in manifestations of man's inhumanity to man that will make people wonder, "How did we get to this point?". In a sense it all started when we ignored "the least of these my brethren".

So if we take the time to reconsider that famous passage from the Book of Matthew, and realize that our children come to us as strangers, naked, hungry, thirsty and in need of our constant care, and we must clothe them, feed them, give them drinks, and care for them when they are ill, we can see that one of the things that will divide the righteous from the wicked, those nations, kindreds, tongues and people that will continue on and those that will not, the eternal societies from the temporal societies, is how we treat the least of those among us. How we treat the most vulnerable among us is how God will judge us.

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

And remember to "suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Don't forget what it means to be Christlike

As I was sitting in church today one of the speakers mentioned how she was continuously working on being more Christlike. As she said it my mind immediately began to turn and to think about the term "Christlike" in an analytic way (it's just the way my mind works). I thought about how it is a very nebulous term that is at the same time very specific and intuitive while being fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings. I recalled how I had heard people use it in such a way that it was basically reduced to a platitude, i.e. their interpretation was so wide just about anything could be considered Christlike.

My train of thought wandered back and forth considering all the ways that I had heard people refer to being Christlike. I remembered people telling me (not me personally, but to my Sunday School class or Seminary class) years ago when I was a teenager, "Jesus spent all his time going about and talking to people and helping them, so that's what you need to be like, and that is being Christlike." Effectively what I heard was "Jesus was a big time extrovert, like me, so if you want to be Christlike then you need to be an extrovert, like me!" (For some reason extroverts tend to think that everyone should be an extrovert like them. I'm sure that there are many introverts who also think that everyone should be introverts, but because they are introverts they don't tend to go around telling people about it.)

At one point during my train of thought I decided to write a blog post about what I was thinking. My initial thought was to title the post something like, "When being Christlike becomes meaningless" but then I quickly realized that I would probable spend most of my post explaining that I am not implying that we should not be  Christlike, but that we should not use the term "Christlike" in a way that it removes all meaning. That's when I decided to change my approach and settled on the current title.

The term "Christlike" is rather simple in its meaning but complex in its application. If you look up the word in a dictionary you might get something like this, "resembling or showing the spirit of Jesus Christ". Unfortunately too many references to being Christlike focus more on personality than on specific acts of kindness or forgiveness. Sometimes we spend too much time saying that we need to be Christlike but fail to identify specific examples of how we might be Christlike. Perhaps if we realize that we are getting caught up in the trivial we should reorient our approach and think more on our relationship with Christ because after we have recommitted ourselves to Christ and his atonement, then being Christlike comes more easily and the attributes of living a Christlike life will flow easily to us. First come the Christ and then be Christlike. It is something that we must do again and again. It is not a one time event, but a continual process.

If at any point we feel that "being Christlike" has become a trite saying that is said because it needs to be said we must first come unto Christ and that will remind us what it means to be Christlike. A good place to start is to return to what has been called the Constitution of a Perfect Life, the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. The key is to remember that I should not become a platitude to say that we are working on being Christlike.

This comes from a talk given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland back in 2006.

My comments on the election and other thoughts

Today I voted. I did my research, looked up the candidates, all the way down to the local county elections, considered the options and implications and voted based on what I thought best.

Now without saying who I voted for I will explain four things I thought about before and while I was voting.

First, government debt.

Some people will read that and instantly try to put me somewhere on some insane left-right spectrum so first I will tell a little story. While I was on my mission in Argentina, the first little town I was in was called Bella Vista. It was a tiny town of perhaps 5,000-10,000 people, depending on the time of year and the expected harvest from the surrounding farms. In Argentina fútbol (soccer) was very popular. In some cases it was considered a religion. After being in the country for a few months there were only three teams I had ever heard about: Boca, River and Newell's Old Boys. The town seemed split down the middle. Half the town were Boca fans, the other half were River fans and everyone hated Newell's Old Boys.

I was unfamiliar with Argentine professional sports (I barely know anything about American professional sports) so I was wondering how they could have a championship play off with only three teams in the entire country (I later learned about other teams it's just that no one in Bella Vista talked about them). I thought Argentines were very weird. At one point River managed to win the national championship and half the town was out in the streets celebrating. There were car horns blaring, firecrackers going off, music blasting and people driving through the streets with people standing on the roof of their cars waving River flags.

About four weeks after this happened we heard on the street that Newell's Old Boys had played River and had beaten them. Everyone was shocked. That's when I decided to become a fan of Newell's Old Boys. That way I could have my "team" but my choice of team would not immediately alienate me from half the people we talked to. At about that same time I had a rather interesting conversation with a child of about 8 years old. My companion and I were talking to his family and all the little kids gathered around to ask "los americanos" some questions. The 8 year old looked at me and asked with great earnestness "What is your team?" I told him I didn't have a team. He thought for a second and came to the conclusion that I didn't understand the question. So he asked the question again. Again I told him that I wasn't a fan of any team. He was not satisfied so he rephrased the question and asked again. At this point I remembered that Newell's Old Boys had just beaten River so I told him that I was a fan of Newell's Old Boys. He gave me a look of exasperation and said, "No. WHAT IS YOUR TEAM! BOCA OR RIVER?!?" I told him that neither one was my team and that I was a fan of Newell's Old Boys. At that point he gave a frustrated sigh and concluded that this delusional American was too stupid and could not speak and understand Spanish so it was useless to continue the conversation.

When people ask me if I am a Republican or a Democrat, or if I am conservative or liberal the image that comes to my mind is that frustrated 8 year-old boy who had to deal with an American that was too stupid to know that there were only two choices and you had to be one or the other.

So, government debt. Government debt is a dangerous thing. It has all the dangers and negative consequences of normal debt, but it carries with it the enforced mandate of government. It is not something that can be done away with without undermining the foundation of government. To fail to honor a debt is to acknowledge that there has been a failure with the person who has the debt. For a government to fail to honor a debt is to acknowledge that the government has failed, which is to acknowledge that the fundamental structure of our society can no longer hold us together. It is quite a scary thing.

The thing to realize with debt (any debt whatsoever) is that the overall effect of debt on out society is to take money from poor people and give it to rich people. That is, debt makes poor people poorer and rich people richer (this is not just a trite saying this is something that has been shown with statistics and computer models of economic conditions, see this link for more information and some references). In computer models where the financial transactions of people are modeled we can reproduce roughly the income distribution that we see in US census records (see below).

As the above graph shows the modeled behavior (black line) closely follows the data from the US census. In these models we find that if we allow for debt (with interest!) then that line gets shifted so that there are more people who are "poor" and the "rich" people get richer (see below).

The end result of debt is to make poor people poorer and rich people richer. In these models if we allow for infinite debt (i.e. no bankruptcy) then the amount of debt that some people have will become infinite  and the amount of money that rich people have will also become infinite. Either way the system become unworkable and it eventually collapses. So how do you counteract the inflationary tenancies of debt? With taxes. Just as the models show that debt (with interest) can be fundamentally unstable, taxes tend to have the opposite effect. As debt makes rich people richer, and poor people poorer, as long as you have a minimally fair tax code (as in everyone gets taxed and then everyone benefits from the taxes), then it has the effect of decreasing the number and wealth of rich people and increasing the wealth of poor people. That is, it moved the bottom end of the curve up and counter acts the negative tendencies of debt.

Up until now I have just been talking about debt in general, which includes mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, education loans etc. But government debt is slightly different. Because it is backed by the thing that creates the monetary system in the first place. While government debt can help in extreme circumstances it has the tendency to act just like normal debt except that now everyone has to pay it, just like a tax. Taxes take money from all sides of the spectrum but it redistributes it in a way that poor people become a little less poor. Government debt is essentially the opposite of taxes. It takes money from everyone and transfers it to rich people (to understand this consider this: How many people who make less than $40,000 have bought a government bond? How many people who make more than $100,000 a year are invested in such a way that they make money off of government bonds? Who ultimately pays for government bonds, including the interest? and who ultimately benefits from the interest generated by government bonds?).

So having a consistent, and persistent, deficit in government spending, and then using the issue of more debt to fund the debt is perhaps the most destructive and immoral thing that can be done to people who can be considered "poor". Government debt is perhaps the only legal and socially acceptable method we have of grinding upon the face of the poor.

If you want to help poor people the best thing that the government can do is to balance the budget. Until you do government debt will make us all poor.

Second, oil.

I don't think we all need to give up our cars and use only *non toxic* non-petroleum products (the non-toxic part is sarcastic). Nor do I think that global warming will get so bad that the earth will punish us with a series of super storms, or that we need to give peace prizes to people who bake up a bunch of facts and scare the easily manipulated. What I am saying is that right now in our history oil tends to cause too many wars. It is an out sized portion of our economy and we should find a way to get along with less of it, if only to decrease the likely hood that we get involved in more wars because of oil.

Third, are the people competent for the job.

The Republican candidate for Secretary of State in North Carolina may be a good neighbor, a good farmer, a good father and a generally good man. But the more I looked into his experience and what he was proposing to do as Secretary of State I don't think he knows what a Secretary of State does. If you look at his campaign website he mentions the most important issues that he "promises" to address. The only problem is that all the things he brings up are things that can be addressed in the state legislature, but not by the Secretary of State. He seems a little confused about what the Secretary of State can and cannot do. I would not vote for him.

There was a similar case for several judges that were on the ballot. In North Carolina the election of judges is non-partisan, but there were two Republicans and one Democrat who were challenging the incumbents for no reason, apparently, other than they were of the opposite party and they wanted to make a partisan race about it (even if they knew nothing about being a judge). I didn't vote for any of them. That doesn't mean I voted for the incumbent, but it means I particularly did not vote for the challengers.

Fourth, basic morality.

Over the last while there is a disturbing trend in our society that belittles and scoffs at basic morality. Anything that might possibly require that someone use self restraint and hold to some "old fashioned" moral principles is roundly dismissed as ignorant and oppressive. I will not go into it in this post, but there is very little that voting can do to counter this trend. Still I look for men and women of good character, who have a desire that others also be men and women of good character.

With those four things in mind I went to vote. I marked my ballot and turned it in. I was number 108 at the polling place that day.

I think little children instinctively know what is right

Today I was teaching my Sunday School class, which is a class of kids who are 7 or 8 years old, and we have a time in class when each child can tell the rest of the class about something fun they did that week and also how they had one opportunity to Choose the Right. After all the children had had an opportunity to share my co-teacher turned to me and asked if I had anything I wanted to share about something fun I had done this week. I said, "Well I did something that I thought was fun, you may think it a little strange, but this week my boss gave me some money so I could go out and buy some books and computer stuff for my work." (I have a grant that I can use for textbooks and other "research materials").

One of the girls in the class asked, "So you could go out and buy whatever books you wanted?" And I explained that no, I couldn't buy whatever I wanted because I had to only use the money for books and stuff related to my work. She thought for a moment and then said, "Oh, so you also were able to choose the right!"

She was able to recognize that the money was given to me to use for a specific purpose and that it wasn't right to use it in a way that I wasn't supposed to even if no one would know. She instinctively knew what was right.

I feel blessed to be able to "teach" children like this, because they can teach me so much more.

What is the point of our (Christian) works?

Recently I was reading a post on the Mormanity blog about perfection, and down in the comments came up the discussion of whether or not Mormons believe that they are saved by their works. The implication was that if Mormons believed they are saved by their works, then that would preclude us from relying on the grace of God for our salvation. Although the discussion also focused on other things the question of the status of our works, and whether or not they are necessary for salvation, was mentioned briefly. At one point someone insisted that, "Your salvation (which means living eternally in the presence of God) is NOT dependent on what you do." To which the natural response would be, "Then what is the point of our works? What is the point of having commandments to follow?"

The person who made this statement then insisted that, "What you do [in response to being "saved"] will be your love response for what God has done in your lives--NOT a prerequisite to salvation." Then continued to explain that, "Good works are the response of a saved soul, and are works God has already ordained for us to do to glorify Him." The central idea being expressed here is that all (good) works come from God and if someone does something good then it is only because God has given that good work to us to do. According to this way of thinking Christians, or anyone else for that matter, cannot do anything good unless by the grace of God they are given that good work, and even then that good work is not theirs but God's. This doctrine is an offshoot of the concept of the depravity of man, which insists that because of the fall man can do no good thing because they are enslaved by the original sin which prevents them from partaking in the goodness of God. There are many variations and degrees of this doctrine in Christianity, of which the version expressed above is just one. The expressions of the depravity of man range from complete (man can never do any good thing, and can never receive any good thing from God) to the more moderate (overall we tend to be bad people, but everyone can do good things) to the rejection of depravity (men are not holden on God for anything, and can do any thing of their own free will).

As the doctrine of the depravity of man is so prominent in Christianity it is natural to ask, "Where do Mormons fit on the spectrum of belief? Do they consider man to be depraved and wholly reliant on the grace of God for every good thing? Or do they reject depravity and think that their good works do not come from God?" The problem of asking the question, where do Mormons fit on the spectrum, is that it necessarily assumes that we fit on the spectrum in the first place. If Christians are used to thinking of good works as originating only from God and are given to man through the grace of God, then it is natural to assume that anyone that emphasizes the good works of individuals would be guilty of rejecting the grace of God. That is, anyone who insists that "doing good" is necessary for salvation runs the risk of being accused of rejecting the grace of God and the Atonement of Christ, because if we must "do good" to receive salvation then we are not relying on the works of Christ, but our own works.

This all of course assumes the depravity of man to some degree as the basis of insisting that we can do no good thing. The reasoning goes something like this, because of the fall of Adam we are all made partakers of sin and thus fall short of the grace of God. Because we are all made sinners we cannot receive salvation through anything we can do and thus we must rely on a savior, and it is only through the grace of God that we can receive any good things from God. The good that we receive from God includes being able to do good works, and because of our fallen state we would not be able to do anything good because we are sinners.

From this perspective if anyone, such as Mormons, suggest that not only can we do good things (without the intervention of God) but also that we are required to do good things to receive salvation creates a catch-22 for Christians who hold to a strong sense of the depravity of man, because man cannot do anything good yet they are required to do good. This usually leads them to rejection of the idea that we must do something to receive salvation (hence the statement, "Your salvation is NOT dependent on what you do."), and by extension they reject LDS theology as valid Christian doctrine because we heavily emphasize the need for personal action (i.e. doing good works) in order to receive salvation.

But the only problem is that LDS theology, in regards to the fall of Adam and our sinful state does not fit onto the standard spectrum used by Christians to measure their doctrine of the depravity of man. Because on the one hand we strongly state that we cannot merit salvation through any actions of our own (see Mosiah 2:21) yet on the other hand we are commanded to do good works so that we may be saved (see Mosiah 5:15). Many Christians (and some Mormons) would see this as a contradiction but if we consider the rest of LDS theology regarding the fall of man, the atonement and salvation we can see this problem from a different perspective, and then we can see why I said that Mormons do not even fall on the spectrum of the depravity of man.

First, how do we view the fall? In the 6th chapter of Moses, Enoch is teaching the people and tells them:

48 And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe.
49 Behold Satan hath come among the children of men, and tempteth them to worship him; and men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God.
50 But God hath made known unto our fathers that all men must repent.
51 And he called upon our father Adam by his own voice, saying: I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh.
52 And he also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized, even in water, in the name of mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all things in his name, and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you.
53 And our father Adam spake unto the Lord, and said: Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water? And the Lord said unto Adam: Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden.
54 Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world.

There are several important doctrines here but I want to focus on just a few of them. First we see that because of the fall we (meaning the human race) exists. Without the fall we would not even be alive. That fundamental understanding immediately changes the way Mormons are disposed to think of the fall.

Because our lives depend on there first being a fall we are more likely to view the fall and what happened in the Garden of Eden as a good thing. Thus our first introduction into the world is not a mistake, but is dependent on what Adam and Eve did in the garden. It is quite common among other Christians to view the fall as having only negative effects. As some Christians put it, "If it weren't for the fall we would all be living in paradise!" Thus it is natural for other Christians to view the fall as having robbed us of our paradisaical state. For them it was a mistake, and it was a mistake that banished us to live in a world that is imperfect and undesirable.

On the other hand the LDS view is that the fall was not a mistake but is a necessary part of our existence on the earth. This causes Mormons to have a more optimistic view of what happened in Eden. This optimistic view means that for Latter-day Saints they fundamentally approach the world in a different way. Rather than view the world as an evil thing that must be escaped, the world is a testing ground where we grow and become good. There is nothing inherently wrong, evil or depraved about our existence, or the things that we do. We do acknowledge that because of our fallen state we will do things that prevent us from returning to the presence of God, but these actions are not guaranteed or inescapable. This is to say that we do not sin by merely existing in this world, as some would suggest (as one person put it, "I sin every day, even without realizing it."). We will not be punished for any sin we do in ignorance, nor will we be eternally punished because of the corruption of this world.

With this in mind, let us return to the concept of works. According to LDS doctrine, all men, women and children who have lived on this earth will be redeemed from the death of the mortal body and any corruption that we might have experienced in this life. This is only just as the corruption of this world is something that we did not create and could not control. So God will not punish us eternally, nor leave us to our inescapable fate that came because of the fall. This is what is meant by the scripture when it says, "the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt". This is the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. This redemption will come upon everyone regardless of what they have done in this life, whether good or bad, or nothing at all.

Because of this redemption it is not inevitable for us to tin and our fate is not inescapable. We have been given an opportunity to act for ourselves and just as everyone is capable of doing evil, so are we all capable of doing good, and it is given unto us to act for ourselves.

26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. (2 Nephi 25:26)

It is up to us to keep the law and the commandments and it will be the judgements of a just God that will reward us for our actions (see Prov. 24:12). And this is just, because we will be judged according to our own actions, and not the actions of others, or the effects of mortality, ignorance, or accidents of history (see D&C 137:7-10).

Because we are free, and we know good from evil, we are commanded to work righteousness. Only those who choose righteousness and love Christ will enter into the kingdom of God. And to do this we must keep the commandments (see John 15:10-12 and surrounding verses). Thus from an LDS perspective, our salvation is dependent on whether or not we keep the commandments, because that is precisely what God has told us in the Bible, and other scripture. Which means that contrary to what was asserted by the commenter on the Mormanity blog, our salvation IS dependent on what we do, because this this what Jesus taught, as recorded in the Bible, and what is taught to us by His personal representatives.

Slippery Slopes and Moral Lines

I wasn't going to comment on this because I generally don't comment on sports, sports related stuff, or things that are more than adequately covered in the normal news outlets. But for some reason it was notable enough that it got international news coverage (yes, there was an article on the BBC about this). The event that was so notable that even the British news services felt compelled to cover it. So what was this international news worthy event? BYU enforced its honor code.

In the middle of the run up to the NCAA Basketball tournament, BYU suspended it's center starter because of an honor code violation. While I will not comment on what the player did, I will comment on the reaction to what happened. Some of the reactions were positive, some were negative, but most (almost all) were shocked. The most shocking part, and the part that got BYU international news coverage, was that BYU would even have such an honor code, and would enforce it, especially when it involved a star player right before the big play-off. Perhaps what was so interesting about the reaction was not that so many people were shocked that BYU set such high standards, but that they had set any standard. That is, they were shocked not by the "extreme" or "restrictive" honor code, but that BYU had a firm "line in the sand" that they would not cross. For them the firm moral line was more of a shock than where the line was drawn.

The very fact that so many news organizations, all over the US and even in Britain, covered the story demonstrates that they consider what happened to be odd, or out of the ordinary, meaning it was news worthy. Effectively the titles of the news articles could have been, "BYU has firm moral values" or "BYU uncompromising in its morals" and it would have gotten the same response. Thus the fact that someone had and held a firm moral line was news worthy indicates that it is not "normal" or "common" to have a firm moral standard. So if there is not a firm moral standard, then the next obvious question is, what kind of moral standard do we have?

First, because there is no firm moral standard in our society (there may be one for individual groups or organizations, but not in general) that indicates that our historical moral standard is in flux. Because it is changing no one really knows where to "draw the line" or even if a line should be drawn. Some say that there should be no line because the mere existence of a moral line in the past caused "hurt feelings", "heartache" or other problems (according to them) such as stifling creativity, identity or expression. The end result in this is that there is no moral line that society in general will not cross. There are many individuals, organizations and churches that maintain their moral lines, but society in general has not yet established an equilibrium where any type of moral line is drawn.

Probably the only moral imperative operative in Western Society right now is the idea that there should be no moral line imposed by anyone other than the individual (and even then that is subject to ridicule).

So does this mean that our society is currently wallowing in a sea of amoral actions and is one or two years from total societal collapse? No. Just because there is no current moral line in society does not mean that no one has personal moral lines, or that we will quickly descend into an amoral hell, but right now society in general is in a kind of moral free fall. Because there is no societal moral lines there is nothing to prevent society in general from moving into more and more immoral actions. The point is, because society in general does not draw a line anywhere in particular does not mean that anything and everything is allowed, but that there is no societal pressure that would eventually prevent those things from becoming standard and acceptable.

One of the common accusations against same sex marriage is that if it is allowed then what is there to stop polygamy, polyamory or any else which is currently disallowed by society in general. To which supporters of SSM respond, "That will never happen." Well unfortunately the same thing that currently makes their situation possible will not prevent those other things from becoming "acceptable" by society. It is very hard to begin drawing moral lines and preventing things from happening when there have been no moral lines drawn by society since the 1960's. We have yet to reach the bottom of our current free fall into the abyss of immorality. The question is when, or if, society will begin again to draw moral lines. Some attempts at drawing moral lines have already been made (i.e. with hate speech legislation, and other things) but because of the immense societal momentum it is hard to begin drawing lines now. Society has already gone down the slippery slope and some are desperately trying to catch onto anything to prevent a further decent into immorality.

Unfortunately whenever anyone tries to impose a moral line they are frequently met with the accusation, "If you start imposing your morality (i.e. any morality) then that is just a slippery slope into an overly restrictive and suffocating society without joy, happiness, puppies, butterflies, rainbows and ponies." It is rather ironic that while society is sliding down its slippery slope those who wish to apply the breaks and prevent our decent into a cesspool of immorality are accused of themselves going down a slippery slope. They fail to see that there can only be a moral slippery slope when there is no well defined boundary or moral line that should not be crossed, which is precisely the situation in which we find ourselves.

Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about how the current trend in society is "inevitable", as if the current trend were self-evident and was the obvious result of the natural human interactions called history. Well unfortunately the view that it is inevitable will only hold until Western Society begins to draw a moral line again, at which point they will need to justify the moral lines they are drawing, which means they will again have to build a systematic morality (something that has been noticeably lacking in our society for the last 75-100 years or so, connection? hmmm....). But with a systematic morality comes the conclusion that societal trends are not "inevitable" because one of the hallmarks of a systematic morality is the idea that some things are not allowed, not because we can't do them, or not because we don't have the inclination, but because we should not do them. This removes the feeling of inevitability that comes with no fixed moral code. Thus things are only inevitable if there is not fixed moral code. If there is a moral code, then that will "prevent the inevitable" slide into immoral behavior, which is the whole point of having a moral code.

So the question is, when will our society begin to draw moral lines and begin to build a systematic morality? I don't know.

There are indications that this may be happening. There is an ever so slight shift in our society that might result in the moral lines being drawn somewhere (as opposed to nowhere as it currently stands). But as to the state of our society when those moral lines are finally drawn? I don't know. I guess we will have to see where we end up. We will just have to wait until we hit the bottom of the slippery slide.

The next question is, what do we do when we finally stop our decent? And more importantly, how do we build back up to the moral society that we were before (if not better)? Well if I knew the answer to that then I would be a wise man, and I probably wouldn't be writing a blog about this. But my guess is we would have to begin again, and follow a similar path to what as done before. That is, look at what led up the introduction of systematic moral systems through out history and see what allowed for that to happen. It is possible, it just has to be done deliberately, and it will take time. I am willing to help work for a moral society, and I invite you to do so as well.

Going Blind

No I am not going blind, but that laser shot that I took in my right eye as an undergrad didn't help any, but that's a different story. What I am talking about is going blind by looking at the sun. While this is not something I regularly do, or even do at all, it is something that happens occasionally to most people. Most people when they look at the sun they have a natural reflex that causes them to blink and to look away. This natural reflex usually prevents any major or long lasting damage to the retina. But occasionally people will look at the sun for extended periods of time and not realize that they are permanently damaging their eyes. Usually they do this when there is something interesting in front of the sun, such as a cloud, a planet or the moon. Sometimes with sufficient protection people can look directly at the sun and observe these interesting phenomena, but without adequate protection these short periods of solar investigation can cause serious or permanent damage.

It is for this reason that whenever there is a solar eclipse we are always advised to not look directly at the sun. When I was young I specifically remember two solar eclipses where I was very sternly warned not to look at the sun because I would go blind almost instantly. According to my siblings and classmates this danger was so severe that if we even looked anywhere in the general direction of the sky we would all be smitten with instant and permanent blindness. I distinctly remember walking through a grove of aspen trees during a family reunion being very conscious of the sky and mindful of the damage to my eyes if I so much as raised my eyes to even see the blue of the sky during the partial eclipse. Such was the power of the sun's rays during an eclipse (or so I thought) that even to see the blue sky was taboo.

I also remember a second experience where we all got out of class to go see the eclipse. Well, actually we didn't see the eclipse because we were all instructed in no uncertain terms that we were not to raise our eyes to the sky. Any young child who was so unfortunate to even see the blue of the sky would be instantly smitten with blindness, or worse, expelled. We had to use pin holes through paper to resolve images of the disk of the sun partially covered by the moon, and that was how we "saw" the eclipse. For the fortunate few who thought to bring very "special" sun glasses ($5 at Walmart) they could, for a very short time look directly at the sun, but for the rest of us unworthy folk we had to be content with our rudimentary pinhole cameras and look at the tiny images of the partially eclipsed sun.

Of course this was all overkill, because I would not have gone blind by looking at the sky, or even in the general direction of the sun, but I definitely would have if I had stopped to look at the sun for any extended period of time, which may have been significantly easier considering I had something interesting to look at, namely the eclipsing moon. But back then in my mind it was oh so very dangerous to even see the sky. For the more critical minded of us the obvious question was, "If we can look at the sun, even for an instant, and not have any permanent damage, why would it be more dangerous to look at the sun when it was being partially blocked?" A good question, to which the ready response was usually something like, "Because during an eclipse the corona of the sun glows brighter. Brighter even than normal, and brighter even than the whole sun normally does." This is of course hogwash, but so many of us believed it because we knew that under no conditions were we to look at the sun. To do so would bring about instant blindness, or so we were told. So we went on creating any number of "logical" reasons for why could not look at the sky, let alone the sun during an eclipse.

No matter how intelligent or informed the reasons seemed at the time, in retrospect they were all very foolish because they were all justifications for things we did not yet understand. For me and my classmates, our reasoning was sound, we could not look at the sun during the eclipse because corona was brighter, or the atmosphere made the part of the sun that was still visible brighter, or the light bent around the moon making the light from the sun more concentrated, or there were more UV rays during an eclipse because of the corona/atmosphere/moon/monkeys etc. In our minds it was all true and perfectly reasonable. What we failed to realize was the obvious answer, we were children and we didn't have a lot of common sense. Our teachers didn't want to have to deal with making sure that each child only looked at the sun for no more than one or two seconds, so they put the fear of God into us and told us not to look at the sun, or even to look at the sky. Can you imagine herding 30 kids (aged 9 and 10) outside and then making sure none of them were sitting there frying their eyes because they didn't have enough common sense to look away from the very, very interesting partial eclipse?

So of course they told us not to look at the sun, not because it would cause us INSTANT blindness, as many of my classmates kept insisting, or because the corona was especially bright during an eclipse, but because even though part of the sun was blocked by the moon, the rest of it was still just as bright and could easily damage our eyes. Normally us children would not sit there and stare at the sun, but suddenly we had a very good, and a very interesting reason to forget common sense, if we ever had any, and stare directly at the sun. What our teachers and parents were trying to protect us from was not the INSTANT blindness caused by the vast number of reasons we could think of, but rather the inevitable blindness that would result from too much curiosity and not enough common sense.

Perhaps if I had been older when I saw my first two eclipses then I might have had a different experience. Perhaps I may have seen through the clever arguments of my peers to see that they were just an ephemeral attempt to justify the hard-and-fast rule of "Do not look at the sun." If I had been the rebellious type I might have justified looking at the sun because the reasons my peers gave for not looking were unfounded and untrue. But this would have put me, or rather my eyes, in jeopardy because even if the reasons for not looking at the sun were entirely untrue, the fact remains that looking at the sun, especially when it is the object of curiosity such as during an eclipse, can be especially dangerous. This is not because of any increase in the amount of light but because I would override my natural instinct to look away and would slowly and steadily end up going blind.

Explanation:Now in writing this I could just leave it at that and I will have made my point, but because I always like to clarify what I write, I will continue writing and explain why I wanted to write about going blind by looking at the sun. My little story that I told about (not) seeing an eclipse is an analogy for morality. At times we are given rules to follow and they are hard-and-fast rules with little leeway. For those of us who are spiritually immature we may not understand why we are given these rules and we may even try to come up with some explanation as to why we should follow these rules, things like, "You'll be struck by lightning if God sees you!" or "The Devil will come and get you!" or "You'll be cursed with misfortune for the rest of your life." Most of these reasons rely on the assumption that anyone who breaks the rules will be instantly smitten with punishment and misfortune.

But there are those who hear these arguments and still "look at the sun" and break the rules. When no lightning bold is forthcoming they assume that the reason for the rule is silly and pointless and promptly assume that they can proceed to break every single rule and get away with it. What they fail to realize is that there was a reason for the rule, it just was not the simplified and instant reasons often given as justification. The true reason being to prevent very real and very permanent damage to ourselves or our souls. The instant lightning flash reasons for keeping the rules, aren't always the real reasons to keep the rules (sometimes the lightning does strike, but not always).

As in the case with the eclipse it is true that looking at the eclipse can cause blindness, it may not be the instant blindness like I was lead to believe in as a kid, but it will still be blindness just the same. Thus it is with the rules of God, if we break them we may not be smitten instantly or the Devil may not jump out from behind the next bush and drag us down to hell, but those who violate God's rules will be smitten (not necessarily by God, but in most cases by their own sins) and the Devil will come for their souls.

The most common result from breaking the laws of God is to be smitten with spiritual blindness and to be left to oneself to fend against the things of the world. And eventually those who do not progress and keep the commandments will lose that which they have. This is the meaning behind my story of "going blind".

President Packer's Talk and the Free Will Debate

I wasn't going to comment on this because so many other people have already commented on it, but as I was reading a short CNN.com news story about President Packer's talk from the last General Conference and I noticed an interesting connection to the free will debate. In a nutshell the question is whether or not those with homosexual tendencies have free will in the matter. Because if they have no free will in the matter then moral responsibility cannot be assigned to it. If we take a look at President Packer's talk we can see that it is full of assertions affirming the reality of our free will. Quoting Lehi President Packer stated, "Lehi taught that men are free and must be “free . . . to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day.”(2 Nephi 2:26)"

He continued, "There is something very liberating when an individual determines of his or her own free will to be obedient to our Father and our God and expresses that willingness to Him in prayer." And also he stated, "Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and unnatural."

These statements are an affirmation that we are free to act for ourselves, and because we are free to act, our actions can be assigned moral value, which means we are morally accountable for our actions. It is interesting to note that nowhere in President Packer's talk does he imply that having or feeling a temptation is a sin (i.e. meaning it is not morally wrong to have the temptation or tendency), but only when we act on the temptation or give in to our tendencies then we have done something wrong which requires us to repent (change).

Responding to President Packer's talk the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement that stated in part, "I hope you will...acknowledge the scientific truth: sexual orientation cannot be changed, nor should it be." Essentially this statement asserts that sexual orientation is not determined by our choices and thus is outside the purview of free will. Because of this we cannot assign moral value to sexual orientation.

In contrast Church spokesman Michael Otterson mentioned in a statement in response to the Human Rights Campaign that, "It’s not a sin to have feelings, only in yielding to temptation." and that, "None of us is limited by our feelings or inclinations. Ultimately, we are free to act for ourselves." This takes the stance that while someone's inclinations, or temptations in religious language, are outside the realm of free will and thus have no moral value, but the actions we choose in response to these inclinations do have moral value.

Thus we have an interesting question here. How much are those with homosexual tendencies free to choose their inclinations and/or actions? If we are to consider this question we must separate the tendencies or temptations from the actual actions which must be considered independent from the inclinations, at least for now. We must consider in which aspects we are free and thus determine to what can be assigned moral value, and then determine the moral value. So we have at least four possibilities:

1. The inclinations are determined (no free will). The actions are also determined (no free will).
2. The inclinations are determined (no free will). The actions are not determined (free will).
3. The inclinations are not determined (free will). The actions are not determined (free will).
4. The inclinations are semi-determined (partial free will). The actions are not determined (free will).

It is interesting to note that the stance taken by the Human Rights Campaign is slightly interesting in that they assert that there is no free will with respect to the inclinations but do not consider or even speculate whether or not people are free to choose to act on those inclinations. It is taken as a given that because the people have the inclinations it is irrelevant what they choose to do with them, either to act on them or not (though it could be argued that they assert that it is a moral wrong not to act on the inclinations). So while they can be classed as holding to either (1) or (2) they avoid the question of whether or not we have free will in choosing our actions despite the fact that our inclinations are preset and are wholly determined. Thus it is difficult to put them in either category.

In contrast President Packer expressed a belief that inclinations are semi-determined meaning people can have the inclinations but they can change. Even with tendencies that seem inborn and immovable he says can change. "Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations....The priesthood has the power to unlock the influence of our habits, even to unchain from addiction, however tight the grip. It can heal over the scars of past mistakes." This can be understood as having partial free will in terms of our inclinations. We may have the inclinations and they may be inborn, or seem that way, but they can over time, be overcome. It is interesting to note that to have these inclinations are not a sin (as the quote from Michael Otterson shows) but as President Packer is pointing out, to fail to try to rectify those tendencies, let alone act on them, is a sin. And this is the crux of the disagreement between the Church (specifically President Packer) and those who promote homosexuality. The Church believes, and President Packer taught, that the inclinations that people have can change over time, and it is desirable to change them. This means that where the Church assigns negative moral value to the acts associated with homosexuality (while maintaining neutral moral value for the inclinations), those who disagree with the Church wish to assign positive moral value to homosexual acts. This is interesting because once we assign moral value to something (either good or bad) then we must assume that there was free will involved in the act, thereby disproving (1) above, or at least the second half. Because if we assume any moral value, good or bad, then there must be a choice, which is expressly denied by those who promote homosexuality.

So let me sum up. The Church's stance is that people are free to act for themselves and that their actions are not determined by biology, temptations, inclinations, or habit. But the Church acknowledges that some people may have inclinations that they cannot control or did not choose (while carefully not saying anything about the source of these inclinations), the Church keeps the inclinations (temptations) separate from the actions of those who are tempted. It is not a sin to have the temptations (inclinations), but it is a sin to act on them and break the law of chastity. In his talk President Packer asserted that these tendencies can change over time, and with the help of the priesthood, just as any other addiction or bad habit can be overcome. Thus while we have full free will with respect to our actions, our inclinations (temptations) cannot be chosen and thus fall outside the realm of free will, at least in the short term. Over time, desires, habits and what tempts us can change, which means that we have some free will when it comes to our desires, inclinations and temptations, just not enough to stop them immediately, unlike our actions. Any thing that can be subject to our wills is open to moral evaluation and thus can have either positive or negative moral merit. The Church states that homosexual actions, or any sexual activity outside of marriage, is wrong in that it promotes a negative moral environment and damages our spiritual sensitivity.

On the other hand, those who are reacting angrily to President Packer hold that there is no choice involved in their "orientation" and that to imply otherwise is a severe moral wrong (to see what I mean, recently a government bureaucrat was severely criticized by activists and forced to apologize because she implied that being homosexual was a "lifestyle choice"(emphasis added)).  Interestingly, even though they are so adamant that there is no choice in their "orientation", they do not even address the question of whether or not free will applies to their actions. To ask the question would elicit an angry response, because if they are free to choose their action, even if they cannot chose their inclinations, then moral value can be attached to their actions, and until now there are very few philosophies that would place positive moral value on such actions. Thus they are in a very tenuous philosophical position, because on the one hand they have to insist that there is no choice involved, but they have to deal with the fact that somewhere a choice must be made to participate in that "lifestyle".

So while the Church separates, and insists on separating the inclination (temptation) from the actions taken, those who reacted angrily to President Packer, focus solely on the immutability of their orientation or identity and refuse to consider whether or not they are free in their actions and whether or not their orientation or identity really is immutable.

"Choice" In Insurance

Recently a few letters to the editor that appeared in the Daily Tar Heel caught my attention. What struck me about them was not necessarily the topic, but the mindset of the writers that lead them to write what they did. First I need to explain the background. Recently UNC has started requiring that all of its students have health insurance coverage. Because this requirement is mandatory the university has provided a low cost health insurance option for the students. Unless the student provides proof of their own insurance coverage, they are automatically enrolled in the student health insurance plan, which costs the student about $750 a year (WOW! How did they make it so cheap? It was subsidized by the state and federal governments). It turns out that one of the things covered by this student health insurance plan is the cost of having an abortion.

When some people found out that the default health insurance plan for the students included coverage for abortions, some concerned individuals strongly objected to the university and the university provided an option where the students could opt-out of paying for abortion coverage. This would not change the cost of the insurance premium but it would ensure that none of the money paid by someone who had opted out would be used for abortion coverage. Essentially, if someone opted-out then their insurance premiums would go into a separate account that would not be used to pay for abortions. This seemed like a sensible compromise given the situation (though some may argue that it would have been better to have the students opt-in rather than opt-out, but that is a separate issue). In response to this policy there were several letters to the editor in the Daily Tar Heel that addressed this issue. The three letters that I will write about were all pro-abortion and were lamenting the fact that the students were even given the option to opt-out of providing funds to cover the cost of abortions. (Links to the letters: Letter 1, Letter 2, Letter 3).

The three letters included the standard arguments for allowing abortions, which was not surprising, but what was particularly noticeable about what they wrote was their response to the option to opt-out of paying for abortions. As stated in letter 1, "we are concerned about the precedent set by President Erskine Bowles’ recent decision to allow students to “opt out” of sharing the costs of comprehensive reproductive health care in the new student insurance plan." Essentially the letter writers were not expressing a concern about any argument against abortion, or even that someone would be denied an abortion, but that the students were given the choice to not pay for abortions. As expressed in letter 3, "It is upsetting that the DTH [Daily Tar Heel] employs “right to choose” language to portray this opt-out policy". In other words, the main issue here for the writers was not that someone objected to paying for the abortions, but that the students were even given the choice to opt-out of paying for them, and as expressed in letter 3, they were equally offended that the DTH used the phrase "right to choose" to refer to the opt-out policy.

One of the things that was expressed in letter 2 was the idea that refusing to be part of the collective that pays for abortions is equal to denying someone an abortion. Even though abortions would still be covered by the insurance plan, the writers were scandalized by the fact that those who have moral objections to abortion would be given the right to choose not to participate. Again from letter 2, "Regardless of one’s personal feelings on abortion, this trend in removing a standard insurance benefit due to moral objections is disturbing." In other words, for these letter writers, it does not matter the opinions or objections of anyone, everyone should be forced to help, support, and pay for abortions. In short, moral objections are meaningless.

After reading these letters it makes me wonder if they really know what they are saying. Because if they understood what they just wrote, they would realize that they were advocating a tyrannical society in which only a small set of elites were able to have or express an opinion. They are saying that it does not matter what anyone else thinks on the subject, only they are allowed to have their opinions acted upon and become public policy. No one else's opinions are valid. I wonder if they really understand what they are advocating, and if they do, then we really do have problems.

The Case for Self Improvement

If we are content with ourselves as we currently are, if we are content to say, "That's the way I am, and I see no need to change." then we will ultimately end up being worse than we would normally be. This video clip comes from a talk given by Viktor Frankl in Canada in 1972. He has some remarkable insights.

The example of the crosswind is very true. The standard approach taken by too many people in our society today is to aim at the middle mark. In order to do this they attempt to remove all standards and expectations of morality, the things that keep us focused on a goal that is higher than we should be, and the result it that we end up being worse (more immoral, lazy, selfish etc.) than we should be. The same people that preach that the traditional standards of morality and ethics are unnecessary or too restrictive, are, oddly enough, the same ones who express shock, horror and dismay when those who have learned from them end up acting a lot worse.

Moral Discipline

A few months ago I wrote a post about research done by a Dr. Dan Ariely. Part of the work done by Dr. Ariely showed that people tended to be more honest when they were reminded of their moral code (even if it was a nonexistent moral code). In my previous post I concluded that "In the absence of a moral code, or a consistent moral code, it would seem that the only way to keep most people honest would be through active regulation of their actions."

About a month after writing that post I watched a talk given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The talk was entitled Moral Discipline and I found it very interesting because he spoke on almost the exact same topic that I had covered, but with more insight and more advice as to what to do about the problem. Here are some excerpts from the talk that I found very interesting.

"The societies in which many of us live have for more than a generation failed to foster moral discipline. They have taught that truth is relative and that everyone decides for himself or herself what is right. Concepts such as sin and wrong have been condemned as “value judgments.” As the Lord describes it, “Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god” (D&C 1:16).

As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments. One columnist observed that “gentlemanly behavior [for example, once] protected women from coarse behavior. Today, we expect sexual harassment laws to restrain coarse behavior. …

“Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.”2

In most of the world, we have been experiencing an extended and devastating economic recession. It was brought on by multiple causes, but one of the major causes was widespread dishonest and unethical conduct, particularly in the U.S. housing and financial markets. Reactions have focused on enacting more and stronger regulation. Perhaps that may dissuade some from unprincipled conduct, but others will simply get more creative in their circumvention.3 There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone. In the memorable phrase of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, “We would not accept the yoke of Christ; so now we must tremble at the yoke of Caesar.”4

In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues.5"

Essentially the argument is that as societies fail to maintain and encourage moral codes the only other alternative to maintain a civil society is to increase the number and enforcement of laws, or as Elder Christofferson put it, "The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments." It is with these ideas in mind that I look at societies like those in France or Greece and find it odd that they accept or (as in the case of Greece) actively encourage protest and violent protest as a legitimate means of expressing political frustrations, and then they complain about living in a "police state". In my own experience with places where I have lived, the places where protest was not the first resort of political expression have tended to be more peaceful and less prone to be characterized as having a "police state" mentality. But in places (such as Argentina) were protest and violent protest was a societal tradition the people tended to complain more of government oppression and viewed police and other government forces as adversaries rather than protectors.

What I have learned from observing these different societies is that if people want peace then there needs to be more moral discipline and less unbounded personal freedom. More responsibility and less entitlement. More reminding and less enforcement. Only then can we be free.

Empirical Basis for Honesty and Morality

The other day I came across an interesting talk at TED.com. The subject matter I found very enlightening.

There are several implications to what Dr. Ariely has shown here. I will start with the one that he explicitly mentions, the stock market. Based on his work it would imply that stock markets would always contribute to dishonest behavior. Because stocks, bonds and securities are a step away or more from actual money or commodities people will naturally try to cheat at trading them. This point was made with his test where subjects were given tokens in reward for answering questions right. As he pointed out, that one additional step lead more people to cheat. This would seem to imply that an unregulated stock market will always fail due to dishonest and unethical practices.

Based on his work we could conclude that there are only two ways to have a stock, bond or securities market that will not be overrun by dishonest behavior sooner or later. The first is heavy regulation (similar to the control set where everyone turned in their tests to be graded and were paid accordingly). The second is to have a consistent moral system and to constantly remind the participants of it (his example where test subjects were asked to recall the 10 commandments).

These ideas can be extended into other areas, such as corporate management, government bureaucracy, classroom administration and business transactions. On the one hand most problems with dishonesty can be taken care of through either regulation or reminding people of their moral codes. In the absence of a moral code, or a consistent moral code, it would seem that the only way to keep most people honest would be through active regulation of their actions. This of course runs into the problem of who will then regulate the regulators etc.. It would seem that the easier option would be to simply remind people of their moral code. This seems to be the route taken by the University of North Carolina.

At UNC all students are required to sign the university honor code, and also whenever they turn in an assignment they are required to write a note stating that what they are turning in is their own work (i.e. they did not cheat) and then they must then sign it. This is done on every test, paper, lab report and homework assignment (as an interesting note, this is required of all undergraduates but for graduate students this requirement is hardly ever enforced, but for graduate students there is a greater expectation of maturity, and the punishment for cheating is usually much more severe). So upon watching Dr. Ariely's talk I realized that the UNC policy of signing the honor code for everything including single page homework assignments was an attempt to remind the students of their "moral code" and to try to prevent most cases of cheating. The efficacy of this particular method is debatable and open to interpretation.

This effort to reduce dishonesty may be intentional, but after reflecting on it there are many places where this method of reducing dishonesty is used almost unintentionally. In the case of the BYU testing center there are pictures of Jesus and Karl G. Maeser along with his famous chalk circle quote. These serve as reminders of the BYU honor code and the moral system in general that inspired it. These pictures, quotes and reminders were placed with the intention of reminding people about their moral duties and thus preventing, to some degree, cheating.

This method does not prevent all cheating but it does work to prevent the majority of it, because as Dr. Ariely pointed out, the increase in cheating did not come from one or two individuals who "skewed the curve" but rather from a significant portion of the people cheating just a little bit. So the purpose of using the moral reminders is not to prevent all cheating but to prevent almost everyone from doing it. The rest of the people can be taken care of through regulation.

In the case where moral reminders are not allowed or are not permissible then the default to preventing unethical behavior must be through regulation, or enforcement of specific rules. Again to show this I turn to the honor codes of both UNC and BYU. A quick comparison between the two shows that the UNC code (known as "The Instrument") is much much longer. I think a pdf version of it is about 50-60 pages long. On the other hand the core of the BYU honor code consists of nine short statements (one line each) and then four specific policies. The whole code, including disciplinary policies and procedures is only slightly longer than the Preamble to the UNC honor code. Why the difference? Again the BYU code relies on a common and consistent moral system that is shared (or should be shared) by everyone at BYU. The main enforcers of the BYU honor code are the students themselves, they are given the duty of reminding themselves and each other about the moral commitment they have made, and in general it works.

The UNC honor code is much longer and full of lots of rules and regulations. Despite this BYU has arguably a stricter honor code. So again why the difference? The UNC code does not (and some would say could not) rely on a common moral system shared by the students and thus it (meaning the honor code and UNC in general) must create its own moral framework. In the absence of the ability to appeal to a moral code we are either left to deal with people cheating (being unethical, if only to a small degree) or have to resort to imposing systems of rules and regulations.

So now let us consider these ideas in the most general sense, that of our lives in general. Here it would seem that we have three options: 1. Live without any means of controlling unethical behavior, 2. Prevent unethical behavior by reminding people about their common moral code or, 3. Prevent unethical behavior through rules and regulations.

With option #3 rules must be made for all instances, possibilities, contingencies and situations. The problem with this option is that we eventually end up with a long document detailing all the rules as in the case with the UNC honor code, or worse the US tax code. With option #2 the resulting code of conduct may be greatly reduced (9 lines of general guidelines, or 10 commandments) but it requires that each and every person be committed to living by the code and be constantly reminded of it. This requires more personal involvement and more personal investment to learning and living by the moral system but overall the "cost" or "overhead" of the moral code is greatly reduced. Option #1 is not desirable and is the whole reason for even mentioning options 2 and 3. More later.

My Personal Parenting Philosophy

As the time is now approaching when I will have to face the reality of being a father, I have thought about the proper approach to being a father and parenting in general. The question is how to best approach it so that I can say that I have done all that I could possibly do. There is one verse in the scriptures that has to do with being a father that when it was first pointed out to me I thought, "That is how I should act as a father." The verse can be found in Genesis 18:19.

"For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

I think that many people in Christianity forget how great a man Abraham was, and how much he influenced the world. Despite his example and influence I rarely hear people say, "Try to be more like Abraham, he was a good man." There were great promises made to Abraham and part of the restored gospel includes an understanding that the promises made to Abraham are available to us. What made Abraham worthy to receive these blessings is that he commanded "his children and his household after him", that "they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment".

That is something I want to emulate.

Every Once in a While...

Every once in a while I run across a statement that is truly, well...um...unique. I came across the following comment on YouTube actually. It was in response to a video that you can find here.

"Why is liberalism evil and conservatism good? There is no good or evil. That gives your arguments a religous tone that has no place being there. It is about freedom.

That is what this nation, and all of its greatness, is about at it's core.

It is not about good vs evil. Right vs Wrong. It is about free or slave.

Anyone can say that their own view is right and someone elses view is wrong, but to date..no one has proved it."

As in cases like this I really can't think of a good response to this comment. I think the comment itself does an adequate job of disproving itself. Despite that I would like to take a moment to point out that this comment does a perfect job at demonstrating the prevalence and pervasiveness of moral (and ethical relativism) in our current society. If this quote makes no sense to you it may be because you recognize that there is good and evil and that there is right and wrong. It is already hard enough to teach people what is right and what is wrong, but when they begin to deny that there is even right and wrong, then things become truly difficult.

Even in attempting to deny there is right and wrong, good and evil, the person making the comment gives a standard for good and evil, right and wrong. Thus we see the underlying problem of moral relativism, even by rejecting clear morals or any moral foundation they must put in its place some other moral standard, in this case freedom. Thus by rejecting all moral and ethical axioms they create a new one, that there should be no axioms. This logical inconsistency leads, or can lead to many problems. Anything that is inconsistent with reality can only bring trouble and heartache.