After late shifts, or generally too little sleep, the world loses focus. Distances itself from me. There is a sense of semi-comfort, semi-distress. A desire to rest but a feeling that I ought... to do something.
Oughts are interesting. There are legal oughts - I ought to pay my tax. Prudential ones - I ought to eat a balanced diet. Ones related to duties or responsibilities, bonds or relationships - I ought to visit my father. And then the moral ones... here it's hazier... Ought nots are easy - I ought not cause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings - but what positive oughts? Ought I give 10%, 35%, 42.5% of my income to those less fortunate? Ought I offer hospitality? Ought I be energy efficient? It all depends on your moral theory, philosophically, or how you have been socialised, practically speaking.
For example, some people think earning a HUGE salary is immoral. Others think it's fine to earn it, but immoral to keep it rather than distribute it. Some people consider boasting or bitchiness to be pretty much immoral. Others think that's just a matter of civility... if it matters at all.
Ought I be 'a good person'? If I ought, then what is a good person? Is a good person magnanimous... or compassionate... or self-sacrificing?
Personally, I feel there's something bad about contempt. Something good about generosity and gratitude. I don't feel self-sacrifice is good, but I do feel that self-centredness is bad. But I also recognise that character and stage of life and circumstances all play a part which may be beyond an individual's in the moment control.
More to the point, I wonder how much anyone ever really knows themselves or others. I often hear people say that they know themselves or that they are 'good judges of character'. And these people tend to appear to be the most deficient in those particular skills. Perhaps they are no worse than others but the claim shines light on it and exposes the inadequacy.
That claim that the more you think you know, the less you really know... or the more you learn the less you realise that you know seems apt.
We only have a vague hallucinatory sense of anything.
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