Moral Reasoning

i haven't posted about ratzinger's election as the new pope because i've been busy, and because i was struck speechless by it. in all honesty, he was the last person i thought they'd choose. i never thought for a second that he'd be the new pope. it's not as if i expected a progressive pope who would call for an end to the persecution of gays or an end to the ban on ordination of women. the catholic church is not an institution i expect to be at the vanguard of progressive values. when the word went around at my job that a new pope had been chosen, i surfed to msnbc.com. when i saw that man's face and name plastered across their homepage i felt the cold splash of disbelief wash over me.

the blogosphere exploded in a frenzy, sparking more than a few flame wars among liberals. some people objected to the heated rhetoric -- the word 'nazi' was thrown around too casually for their taste. some pointed out that he wasn't technically a nazi because he never joined the nazi party. fair enough. precision in the use of that word is usually sorely lacking whenever it is mentioned. it is that phenomenon that engendered godwin's rule. so, i won't call ratzinger a nazi. he was fourteen when he joined the hitler youth. he was still in his teens when the war ended. yes, i agree, that he was like most german teenagers. he did as he was told. he wasn't extraordinary. he is now spiritual advisor to over a billion people, the head of the world's oldest and largest christian denomination. i think that role should belong to someone who is extraordinary.

i don't even pretend to believe that i would have made a different choice than young ratzinger. i simply don't know what i would do in a similar situation, facing similar consequences for resistance. in fact, i don't think this is something anyone can know about themselves until they have made such a choice. undoubtedly, i would like to think myself different. i would like to think i am made of stronger moral fiber than the majority of people.

i resist that much, at least. i think people who readily tell themselves that they are above the moral failings of others are just as weak, if not weaker than those they disdain. sometimes, i think those who are quick to laud their own characters to themselves and to others know that they are in fact weaker than average and that knowledge torments them too much to accept. most people are not tried and tested in the way that the citizens of nazi germany were. we do know, however, that ratzinger was tried, tested, and found wanting. he was weak. other german teenagers made different choices, and they paid dearly for them. they were strong.

i'm not catholic, or even christian. i have been an atheist since my early teens and was an agnostic for a while before that. so even in my own mind, this post is odd. i had a strong emotional reaction to ratzinger's election that bewildered me. it goes beyond the church's reactionary position on the rights of women and gays. one of the overarching themes of christianity is human beings are special. above all other creatures, they are capable of moral reasoning. i think human beings are far too arrogant in their assumptions about themselves as a species and as individuals. i find it impossible to trust people who do not express doubt about themselves. i think they are either ignorant because they have never been tried and tested or they are in denial because they have been tried, tested, and found wanting.

less likely, but also a possibility i entertain is that they were tried, tested, and they made the right choice, but arrogantly assumed that was the last word on their character. facing such a test and making the morally and ethically worthy choice does not indicate with total accuracy that they will make similarly good choices in future, different situations that test their character in other ways, or even in the same or a similar way. a single, appropriate choice is a measure of one's character, but it is by no means, the measure.

before one starts thinking about how special human beings are because they are capable of moral reasoning, one should read about the milgram experiment and the stanford prison experiment. these experiments are considered unethical today. the participants in the milgram experiment overwhelmingly rated their participation in the experiment as a positive experience. it actually gave one of the subjects the impetus to claim conscientious objector status during the vietnam war. yet, despite different variations of the experiment, between 61 and 66 percent of the subjects were willing to administer an electric shock to another person even when the victim appeared to suffer greatly simply because an authority figure told them to do so.

the stanford prison experiment is somewhat more disturbing in my own personal opinion. while milgram found that physical proximity to the person receiving the shock decreased compliance with the authority figure, the stanford prison experiment resulted in brutal behavior on the part of 'guards' towards 'prisoners' where there was little physical separation between them. the separation was mostly psychological. they were all playing roles as 'prisoners' and 'guards'. even more shocking than the behavior of the guards was the behavior of the prisoners.

from the wikipedia article:

[...] Prisoner #416 [...] was horrified at the guards' treatment and went on a hunger strike in protest. He was forced into solitary confinement in a small closet for three hours, and the other prisoners saw him as a troublemaker. To exploit this feeling, the guards offered the other prisoners a choice: Either the prisoners could give up their blankets, or #416 would be kept in solitary confinement overnight. The other prisoners chose to keep their blankets.

several years ago, i took a class in human behavioral biology, popularly know as 'sex' on campus. jesse's comment on my last post brought back memories of that class. one of the questions posed was, "What makes human beings special?" as the class progressed, we learned that this was not exactly an easy question to answer. things that we thought were unique to humans were not.

moral reasoning was one of those things. in fact, in one experiment, macaque monkeys demonstrated moral and ethical behavior that put the choices of the subjects in the milgrim experiment to shame. in that experiment, the monkeys could not get food without administering an electric shock to an unrelated monkey whose reaction to the shock was visible through a one-way mirror. well over eighty percent of the monkeys refused to pull the chain. one monkey went without food for two weeks. those who received electric shocks in previous experiments were more unwilling than average to administer a shock to the other monkey.

this post is already too long, so i'll wrap it up. one of the tenets of christianity is that moral choices are the province of human beings alone and it is that characteristic that makes human beings different from other living creatures. ratzinger is now the head of the largest christian denomination in the world, with over a billion adherents. no, he wasn't a nazi, but he collaborated. he was not a leader. he was a follower. the condition of humanity is and has been wretched. it was particularly wretched in nazi germany. the human race needs leaders, and by that, i mean that humanity desperately needs those who are willing to be morally and ethically extraordinary. those people are as precious as they are rare, and their effect on the behavior of their peers is incalculable.

from the wikipedia article on the milgram experiment:

Milgram also combined the power of authority with that of conformity. In these experiments, the participant was joined by one or two additional "teachers" (who were actually actors, like the "learner"). The behavior of the participants' apparent peers strongly affected results. When two additional teachers refused to comply (Experiment 17), only four participants of 40 continued the experiment. In another version, (Experiment 18) the participant performed a subsidiary task with another "teacher" who complied fully. In this variation only three of 40 defied the experimenter.