Crucial Human Issues

by On Your Feet

Part One:  How Do We Get a Good Moral Character? 

            We would all like our children to mature into adults with good moral character.  After all, we would all like to have good moral character ourselves. 

            Can we characterize ‘good moral character’ at least well enough to understand how can we get it?  Can we establish the parameters of ‘good moral character’ at least well enough that we can determine how to rear our children? 

            Do we know what we need to do if we need to improve our own moral characters? 

            Do we even know when we need to improve our own moral characters? 

Part Two:  How Do We Know When We Know Something? 

            Can we ever reliably know that we know something?  Can we ever be certain about anything? 

            If “the Devil hath the power to assume a pleasing shape,” then can we ever have infallible religious knowledge?  Are we condemned to resorting to non-rational, blind faith about all religious and moral issues?  [religious skepticism]

            If our senses sometimes deceive us, how can we ever have infallible knowledge of the external world?  [scientific skepticism]

            Do we have infallible knowledge of our internal world, or is it the case that sometimes we do not even know the emotions we feel?  What about our knowledge of other internal states?  For example, how reliably do we know when we know something? 

Part Three:  How Do We Understand What Concepts Mean? 

            We seem to be perfectly familiar with some concepts, but when pressed, we cannot give an essential quality or defining characteristic (a theoretical definition) of those concepts. 

            On the other hand, sometimes we can give essential qualities or defining characteristics (theoretical definitions) of a given concept (love means “unconditional positive regard”), but those theoretical definitions turn out to be absolutely useless.  (I understand the concept ‘love’ far better than I understand the concepts ‘unconditional’ and ‘positive’ and ‘regard.’) 

            When we ask what something means, what do we mean?  When we say that we don’t understand what someone means when they say or write something, what do we lack exactly? 

            What does ‘mean’ mean? 

Part Four:  What Is a Good Moral Character or a Bad Moral Character REALLY? 

            We waved our hands back in Part One and made believe that we had at the very least an adequate idea of a good moral character.  We thought we understood “good moral character” sufficiently well for our purposes at the time.  Were we right? 

            What do we mean by ‘good’?  What kind of thing is “moral goodness”?  Has it to do with the consequences of our behaviors?  Has it to do with the moral virtues we manifest?  Do we have moral virtues apart from manifesting them?  What do we mean by a ‘moral virtue’? 

            What IS a good moral character or a bad moral character? 

            Where is the heart of darkness “located”?