I have recently read David Brooks book “The Path to Character”. The following is an excerpt in which Brooks addresses the idea of engaging moral dilemmas in today’s society.
For his 2011 book Lost in Transition , Christian Smith of Notre Dame studied the moral lives of American college students . He asked them to describe a moral dilemma they had recently faced . Two thirds of the young people either couldn’t describe a moral problem or described problems that are not moral at all . For example , one said his most recent moral dilemma arose when he pulled in to a parking space and didn’t have enough quarters for the meter .
They didn’t understand that a moral dilemma arises when two legitimate moral values clash . Their default position was that moral choices are just a question of what feels right inside , whether it arouses a comfortable emotion . One student uttered this typical response : “ I mean , I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it . But different people feel different ways , so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong .
If you believe that the ultimate oracle is the True Self inside , then of course you become emotivist — you make moral judgments on the basis of the feelings that burble up . Of course you become a relativist . One True Self has no basis to judge or argue with another True Self . Of course you become an individualist , since the ultimate arbiter is the authentic self within and not any community standard or external horizon of significance without . Of course you lose contact with the moral vocabulary that is needed to think about these questions . Of course the inner life becomes more level — instead of inspiring peaks and despairing abysses , ethical decision making is just gentle rolling foothills , nothing to get too hepped up about .
