Chapter 9 - The Reasonableness of Sentimentalism and Violence

Summary

As Western society has developed over the last several hundred years, it is clear that we have become increasingly uneasy about violence. Visible public executions are no longer seen. Governments now go out of their way to justify wars and violent interstate actions. Spanking children, even by their parents, is now being questioned. Ironically, while violence is becoming less acceptable in real life, our society is obsessed with a cult of violence in its entertainment industry. Still, when governments justify real violence—as opposed to the virtual violence of TV, movies and video games—violence is advocated now as the lesser of two evils, as a last resort and is undertaken reluctantly. This standpoint is a change from, say, the way the Allies looked at the conduct of World War I. Then, violence was seen as a cleansing of society, a positive good.

The fact that the understanding of violence has, and is, changing raises the important question: how do we form a moral sense about violence—what makes violence right or wrong? The answer is complex, and an adequate answer will need to take into account a multidisciplinary approach from history, sociology, psychology and political science. A partial answer has come from moral philosophers. Moral philosophy considers those aspects of human self-understanding that include the way we make decisions and what is important in making those decisions. In my forthcoming book, Love as a Guide to Morals [published 2012], I suggest that moral sense is formed by the complex interaction of feelings, thoughts and choices. I call it the Triad of the affective, the reflective and the elective. My suggestion is that in the formation of moral sense, the ways we feel, think and choose are equally important. The three form the legs of a stool. Without any of the three the stool is imbalanced and will inevitably fall over. So, a morality based in thinking without feeling will be remote, lack compassion and will often promote gross injustice. A morality rooted in feeling with no deep thought will be wooly, unclear and inexact where exactitude is needed. Either without choice will be ineffective, mere words with no moral bite. In this chapter, I will concentrate on the relationship of reason and sentiment.