Morality is a very interesting and grey topic to get into and there will never be a definitive answer to the question of what a morally appropriate life looks like. There will always be two or more sides to an argument, we’ll stumble upon perspectives we may have missed, and our viewpoints on topics may change drastically over the years - we’re quite malleable.

I recently finished reading a book titled The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt in which he provides decent explanations as to why we’re so divided by seemingly grey areas like politics, our value systems, religion, rights, etc. Though the book is directed more towards a WEIRD audience (and is pointed out by Haidt himself) the general principles presented do give a lot to think about in terms of how our actions and thoughts may be influenced. Haidt does give counterexamples appropriately to point out differences in non-WEIRD societies (for instance, he provides some examples from his time when he spent three months as a postdoc in parts of Orissa, India, to study moral purity in Hindu culture).

He also presents his Moral Foundations Theory proposed a long time ago to analyze individual and societal behaviour among various groups of humans (and even some animals) - the main idea is that though we cannot define morality upfront, we can at least define a certain set of attributes that give shape to our understanding of it - and that is through six “foundations”. At least thinking of it at the surface, it seems quite a few foundations have a considerable overlap and hence there needn’t be as many, but Haidt believes that we need all of them separately for a better understanding. Given it’s all so grey, there’s always some argument to be made in any case, but hey, Haidt’s the psychologist here!

I am surely going to delve deeper into the research referenced in the book; Haidt presents a very compelling narrative to get one into it (and also write in the book how we’re influenced by compelling narratives!)

Perhaps it’s all just another form of talking about this.