Ethics Corollaries
This article is part of an Ethical theory.
While the underlying theory is essential to understand the implications of any system, specific applications and questions are often not directly answered. Here, we hope to address specific questions raised by learned readers.
Saints and Burdens of Sin
A saint is a man who unfailingly does the least evil and the most good, and via grace gains forgiveness for his actions, not the man who by good fortune or avoidance never consents to evil. No saint, nor any man, should expect forgiveness or indulgence, but merely accept any price they must pay. If an evil act must occur, one should neither assign it to the better man, who may more readily find grace, nor the more morally corrupt, who has built up a ledger that can never be squared. Instead, someone must consent to carry this moral burden of their own free will yet against their desires, knowing full well that they shall pay a price.
Acts against Animals and the Non-Sentient
The moral weight of consent against animals is completely different from sentients - one may slaughter animals for food. Likewise, they serve mankind, and this is not slavery or servitude, but the natural order. We have a duty to take care of animals for several reasons. First, domestic animals are dependant on us for their care and well-being, and responsibilities should not be set aside, once shouldered. Second, ill-treatment of animals hardens the heart, and habituates us to the wrong desires and vicious rather than virtuous reactions. Both reasons apply to one's own animals; the second also applies to the treatment of others' beasts. Neither reason outweighs our own survival. A shepherd may spend time and effort protecting his flock; he may even endanger himself by driving off a single wolf. However, if he sacrifices himself to save his sheep, we may either call him brave or foolish, but not virtuous, for however much he exemplifies one virtue, he exceeds it in deficit of another virtue, that of self-worth.
Acts against Irrationals
An insane or completely emotionally overwhelmed (e.g. enraged or hysterical) man is not a moral agent. Thus, he can do no moral wrong, like an animal. However, he is also, by his unreasoning nature and inability to consent, an animal for all other purposes. For example, the virtue of self-worth commands that we defend ourselves from an insane aggressor, in the same way as against a bear. If possible, killing them should be avoided, not least because they are likely to become a rational agent again (unlike the bear); however the only evil wrought is the denial of future consent (if the insanity is temporary) and a habituation to the vice of Violence in the act of self-defence, and more evil would occur in consenting to be killed by not defending oneself.
Acts against Children
We now enquire on the moral weight of consent against children; in other words, if moral actions affecting children are different in any way from those affecting adults. Some natural philosophers categorise babies, like animals, as incapable of reason, and thus not moral agents, and include children or youths along with the mentality impaired as of reduced moral capacity, thus justifying beatings and physical coercion as teaching devices. Certain monastic celibates claim children bear the full moral weight of their choices like adults, thus arriving in the world as sinners as they rip their way from the womb, and only gaining the potential for morality as they age, justifying the vice of Violence that is inflicted on our children as punishment for sin.
Those of us who are loving and attentive parents know that children slowly form their knowledge of right and wrong - by two or three years, they may deliberately do something they know they shouldn't, either because they wish to, or merely because they understand it is a rule, and must be tested. At this age, they have some control over all their desires, but their fortitude is limited, as is their concentration and will. By four or five, they can exhibit substantive socialisation and leadership skills, and martyrisation, blame-shifting, and tattling behaviour is shown. Their character and disposition is abundantly clear, and will usually change little for the rest of their life. However, while their disposition is established, they have had little habituation to virtue. While they may consent to evil, it is hardly informed or imbued with practical wisdom. Their leadership can be overridden by any adult. Finally, their level of competency is more endearing than effective. For all these reasons, children are indeed morally culpable for their acts, but in a sliding scale based on their age and maturation. The age of majority (twenty one in the baronies) is an easy marker for full adult responsibility. A child is less morally culpable for each year they are in deficient of this age, until at age 1, they are entirely innocent and incapable of sufficient consent. The remainder of the moral culpability rests on the conscience of their parents, or guardians. This is a position of leadership and responsibility, and a parent is always partially responsible for their child's acts. The older the child, the more moral weight they themselves bear, and it is our duty to encourage their Fortitude, Prudence, Capability and Leadership as early as possible, so that they may carry their burden well as it increases upon them.
Karma and Inactivity
Some occult philosophers and sages believe in Karma, a moral device wherein your sins will return to punish you in this life or the next. They have created a myth of reincarnation for those cases when an evil man dies happy and content, promising that in the next reincarnation cycle that man will be reborn as an ant, or a dung beetle, or similar pleasing revenge fantasy. They claim that the absence of bad acts allow one to ascend the cycle of life, being reborn in higher and higher forms until one ascends to a higher plane of existence. That most of the Ascended beings are evil does not seem to have crossed their minds, nor that animals cannot meaningfully make moral choices, and thus cannot earn Karma to change their place in the cycle. In addition, their emphasis on the avoidance of bad acts often leads the Enlightened to withdraw from the world and allow evil to go unchecked, in order to avoid damaging their own Karma. This does not mean that Divine Wrath, Fate, or some moral balancing mechanism we do not yet understand, does not strike down those whose evil outpaces their neighbours' capacity to forgive. However, waiting for evildoers to meet their deserved Fate is foolish. Those who patiently wait are passively colluding with evil. Faith without good works is dead.
Note that their Four Noble Truths are a positive step along the ethical path, but again lead to inactivity and withdrawal:
- All of existence is permeated by suffering.
- This suffering arises from the holding of extreme cravings and thoughts.
- Suffering can be overcome through the elimination of extreme cravings and thoughts.
- This is possible only by adherence to the middle way.
Divine Grace and Forgiveness
Divine Grace is by its very nature ineffiable, and thus beyond our understanding. However, we can notice a general trend that the more moral and spiritually pure one is, the more likely one is to be forgiven and thus redeemed. Also, the more pure the specific intention, and the more contrition felt (not shown) for an error, the more likely one will receive redemption. Indulgences granted by some of the more mercantile and secular elements of the clergy are not to be confused with this gift from those we serve.
