Philosophy in Real Life

Episode 3: Key Principles when Navigating the Stages of Moral Growth

• Carlos Santos Aguirre • Season 1 • Episode 3

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📑 SUMMARY OF THE EPISODE 📑

In this episode, I talk about the principles to navigate the 4 stages of moral growth.

Quick recap of the 4 stages: simplicity, complexity, perplexity, and harmony.  

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⏰ TIMESTAMPS⏰

00:00:00 – Brief description of the episode
00:02:15 – Principle #1: avoid the myth of moral neutrality
00:08:56 - Principle #2: avoid binary thinking
00:12:38 - Principle #3: avoid careless deconstruction
00:16:17 - Principle #4: avoid fake harmony
00:23:21 – Recap of the 4 principles of navigation
00:24:35 - Connection with the next episode 
00:25:13 – Socials, products, and goodbye

📖REFERENCES📖

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: the making of modern identity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989. Pg. 98

Hector Lavoe – “Te quiero de gratis”/ “I love you for free.”

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last episode we were talking about the stages of moral growth simplicity complexity perplexity and harmony today we're going to discuss the four principles of navigation through these stages as I was telling you guys before in the previous episode now we have the map the stages towards moral maturity but right now we need the principles of navigation to be able to do that properly and not lose ourselves in the process so that means that today we're going to discuss the principles to navigate the stages of moral growth by pointing out four things we need to avoid when going through these stages okay so# 1 Avoid the myth of moral neutrality# 2 Avoid binary thinking# 3 Avoid careless deconstruction and lastly# 4 Avoid fake harmony Oh boy it's gonna be interesting Let's go! welcome welcome welcome to the Philosophy in Real Life podcast where we strive to live in the most truthful and loving way possible while unmasking wrong philosophies and wrong interpretations of the world I am your host Carlos Santos Aguirre a philosophy PhD candidate from Spain Hola a todos Hola mi gente hello everybody hello my people I hope you are having a fantastic day I am it's a little bit hot here in Spain already obviously we are having a really warm weather but that doesn't keep me from creating this podcast talking to you guys connecting with you every two weeks so I'm really excited to discuss today our main points about the principles to navigate the stages of moral growth alright so let's dive in let's not waste any time principle #1 of navigation we need to avoid the myth of moral neutrality now if you listen to the previous episode where we were talking about the stage 4 of harmony and I mentioned actually that I would like this podcast to be a stage 4-type of community where we have this spirit of encouraging one another but also growing and challenging us in becoming more loving and more truthful in the way we live our lives you might be wondering so Carlos now you are telling us that we need to avoid the myth of moral neutrality when, in fact, I thought that we were supposed to actually be more neutral and not be as judgmental no wrong that is not what I meant by that and hopefully I explained it well but if you had that doubt or if you had that impression let me set the record straight today so what is the problem with moral neutrality? there is an incoherence in our modern times because on the one hand we have a group of people that say that everything is relative there's no ultimate truth there is nothing universal and there isn't a meta narrative or one answer to everybody that is able to be applied in the most ultimate sense but the same people who typically make this type of statements are the same people who overreact when you actually try to question this moral ideal of freedom and personal moral expression so that means that The incoherence basically resides in saying that there is this space in which everybody fits everybody's okay it doesn't matter your idea but at the same time that is not possible because if you have a conviction about life which you actually need one to be able to live because to live is to interpret your life in a qualitative manner then it is not possible that everything goes for example as I said before the same people who say like everything is relative there is no ultimate truth they oppose for example female genital mutilation because it's wrong not everything from every culture is okay there are some things that are wrong even if cultures practice that but basically you can actually trace back this idea this, so to speak, moral understanding in the modern era in classical liberalism starting in the 1600s more or less there was a shift that happened at that time in history which was basically characterized by a lot of people adopting what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls procedimental ethics you might be wondering what procedimental ethics mean so basically procedimental ethics means the following as long as we agree on the method on the procedure to arrive at any conclusion then everything goes it's okay you know for example democracy it's a kind of uh procedimental ethics because we are claiming that as long as there is democratic process as long as people have participated giving their vote whatever conclusion we arrive at then is legitimate but it's funny 'cause this apparent moral neutral position is actually not as neutral why? because that person who is claiming that we ought not to or that we shouldn't say something to this person or to intervene in people's freedom is already speaking from a moral orientation that this person takes as "truth" in other words this person is already speaking from a moral position or inclination by defending that type of understanding of freedom and tolerance so with that you see clearly that it is impossible for us not to prioritize some sort of ideal that we actually take that as "truth" so as you can see when a person is trying to defend this type of ideal which is really common nowadays right like there's no ultimate truth but how evil you are if you are intolerant with the way I want to live my life but that in itself is already a moral position in which you are defending this ideal this ideal of moral freedom in some aspects of people's lives but in other aspects of human life this person has a strong opinion for example the liberation of women patriarchy and things like that just to name a few so basically that means that we are not able to actually be in a vacuum and not hold any moral positioning that is a lie! we might not be aware of it or be able to articulate very well what we think but this idea of defending this moral freedom and personal moral expression in our lives is already a moral orientation a moral ideal that we take as truth so this is similar for example when somebody says that everything is relativistic you know like there is no ultimate truth the funny part is that this is a self-defeating type of philosophy because by your claiming that everything is relative you are telling me that your claim about life being completely relative and not having a means to achieve ultimate truth you by making that statement you are stating an ultimate truth about reality so the golden rule is that there's no golden rule so no you don't get to do that because this is a self-defeating type of claim about the world so basically we need to avoid this type of moral neutrality we will position ourselves but the idea is that we should be able to position ourselves by embodying an educated spirit and a charitable attitude with the otherness with other people who do* not think like us and that's why I do believe that the highest form of tolerance is actually the dialogue with the person you completely disagree with because that is the true otherness that is the true foreigner that is the true person that is not you that is the radical otherness that is hard to love all right so I hope that's clear about the principle of navigation number one so we will position ourselves with an educated spirit and a charitable attitude all right#2 is avoid binary thinking and I did talk a little bit about that in the previous podcast when I was sharing a little bit about the simplicity stage and also the harmony stage something that has helped me a lot in my studies in philosophy is that you read a lot of people who have dedicated a lot of time and effort in writing and thinking about reality and not only thinking but also creating a change creating a transformation in people's lives and something that you realize with this is that sometimes you will study a specific topic and even though you are studying so hard and you have an honest heart and really want to arrive at the truth you might get to a crossroad in which you will observe that there might be two or three different positions with respect to something that are actually really well reasoned and well defended and none of these options seem to be the winner and this is something that has caused me to be a lot more humble with regard to some of the positions I used to hold because the more I was studying and researching them the more I realized wow I really don't know what to make of this it's actually both both of these views or these three positions are actually quite forceful even if I reject the other two I don't see a clear way of actually calling these people dishonest or that they are wrong you know it's actually quite difficult and so you start to develop this humility you could say intellectual humility or epistemic humility with other people because the other researchers and other writers are really trying to get to the real problem you know now that doesn't necessarily imply that everything goes and that all of the all of the interpretations are completely valid that is not correct actually but there is a way of studying things and approaching topics that comes from a more humble place and I feel like it's not that I had already that it was more that the more I was studying and the more I was trying to come to certain answers the more I realized wow there are a lot of people who actually have wrestled with these questions for longer than me and who are much more intelligent than me and yet they don't have it as clear as I do at times and so maybe I shouldn't I shouldn't be that clear sometimes you shouldn't be that convinced about certain things because one thing to make clear is that people are equal, ideas are not there are some ideas that are dumb stupid and dangerous and other ones that are good and they foster community and bond and good interpersonal dynamics and relationships but something that I've seen from people who are arrogant or even in my own heart many times is that many times I was judgmental or I thought I was the enlightened person just because I ignored the tradition I wasn't aware that people before me had better questions and better answers and they were able to tackle those problems in a much better manner than me that's kind of the privilege that I get to have in studying theology and philosophy and reading the great minds and trying to be a better teacher for other people and serve with that to the communities that I serve so anyways let's be careful with binary thinking let's move on to#3 Avoid careless deconstruction now something that happens when we go through this deconstruction process where we are suspicious of our tradition of the power structures and things like that something that happens is that we can get so radicalized we can overcorrect we can go to the other extreme of the pendulum and we might think my tradition is completely wrong they are racist they are this they are that and we just go nuts all of us I've done it many times and I've seen it being done and the internet actually rewards that type of behavior rewards anger rewards outrage there isn't enough outrage to feed the internet the internet is craving for outrage the views the viral content is usually outrage about many things and so something that happens is that we can think that we have all the answers become really critical and we can virtue-signal just because we are denouncing a bad practice or something tyrannical in an organization actually this is really common in undergraduates when they start reading philosophy when they start reading Karl Marx for example or Foucault Derrida or Nietzsche you know they become just everything is wrong everything is about power and things like that so and it makes sense don't give me wrong because this is driven partly by pain because you've been damaged and broken like all of us you know and it's partly by ignorance because you think that you know better that you actually do and and so what happens in that position is that we might we might rush into an abrupt conclusion about an entire tradition just because we just saw one of the issues or tyrannical things or aspects about something and we just conclude like everything is wrong they have nothing to tell us I'm right they are wrong and things like that and I think it's useful to mention that you know I joked about it with my friends I always say that in my opinion Nietzsche and Derrida both of these thinkers are actually which by the way Derrida is the person who cued the term"deconstruction" even though Nietzsche was already doing that but he didn't name it that way but Nietzsche and Derrida I usually say that Nietzsche and Derrida are the real gangsters because they denounced a tradition that they actually knew really well Derrida and Nietzsche had read Plato Aristotle the medieval metaphysics and the scientific revolution and many things like that so they were really knowledgeable about what was going on before trying to criticize the tradition I feel like now people use this term "deconstruction" as a cheap excuse to just carelessly criticize institutions and behaving in a childish manner at times and use it as a cop-out without the moral responsibility of reading understanding and then reconstructing ourselves into a position that is more harmonious you know many times I feel like adults when we go through this careless deconstruction we can have these intellectual tantrums without taking much moral responsibility about this process of actually being careful with what views we criticize and why and what views we actually still rescue from those traditions because they were valid and lastly I would like to speak about the 4th principle of navigation which is avoid fake harmony and I would like to read a quote from Sources of the Self from Charles Taylor he says the following isn't there a danger of ironing out too quickly what is paradoxical in our deepest moral sense, of reconciling too quickly the conflicts making a synthesis of what cannot easily be combined? In short, of making our moral predicament look clearer, more unified, more harmonious than it really is? and I think that this is this is great because the question is isn't there a danger with doing all of that? with rushing into a harmonious state that is not really there? that there are many cracks right and so with this what I'm trying to say is that maybe you are in a place of pain maybe you are having doubts maybe you are having a lot of questions maybe you are going through a family crisis or you know you are just not at a good place in life right now you're just feeling that life can be very brutal and rough and I get that partly because I have the proclivity and inclination toward sadness and I had a struggle with depression in the past and I can be in touch with human pain very often and think of life and death every day and I have a message for you if you are that type of person which is to not force yourself to be okay it is okay to be a mess it is okay to have questions it is okay to lament to have the time to slow down just be you know'cause the most harmful thing that you can do when you are in this perplexity stage is to rush yourself into harmony because I think that that will hurt you even more than acknowledging that you actually have these questions and maybe you don't know what to make of life at this point'cause forcing ourselves into a position or into a way of being that we are not really there and we are full of cracks and fragmented it's not gonna help us it's gonna destroy us for the worse and I think that in my personal life I think that I went through this process with regard to certain aspects in my life especially regarding questions of faith and spirituality and things like that I think that for the last four four our five years I was going through this period of"wilderness" this period of questions and confusion and not having and just feeling that many things weren't working anymore in my spiritual understanding of the world of people of my own life and I think that going through this journey this process of perplexity with regard to my spiritual life not only but mostly with regard to my spiritual life was this necessity of feeling better with myself right of rushing into solutions of trying to find the formula that is gonna solve the magic one that is gonna remove this pain the pain of doubt the pain of questions the pain of not knowing the pain of uncertainty and I feel like every time I tried to do that I ended up being worse I was even more depressed more sad more empty and I was like what's wrong man? and then you just watch this toxic culture of getting yourself together and you know not paying attention to what's going on and that's that and just move forward and that can be toxic because at times we do need to stop and pay attention to deeper problems and especially if you have gone through trauma it's something a lot more complicated but not only that but I would go to people who I thought had better answers some of these people were in this simplicity stage I was even trying to look for comfort in those people because they were so clear and many times in my mind I was like man I wish I had it that clear man I wish I didn't have the questions I have but then I realized that you know sometimes these people were so to speak prisoners of their own certainty of their own simplistic way of looking at everything and so I felt actually quite disappointed and ended up being worse because you know some of them had this micromanaging behavior of fixing me and trying to oh no!"you should feel okay" or "do this""do that" no I just needed some time to process that to go through this journey and in the end I found other people that were able to be there for me you know what I mean but there are no shortcuts it's not easy at times you just have to go through that and that process itself will refine you will purify the darker places of your soul of your heart of your being and thankfully I'm at a much better place with regard to so many things and the good news about this is that when you don't rush yourself into harmony when you avoid this fake harmony you experience the blessing of doubt and questions because having doubts or questions is the starting point of true knowledge of true encounter with who you are and with other people you know what I mean because without questions without doubting ourselves we wouldn't be capable of actually learning new things and I feel like doubts or questions or this stage of perplexity or stages of perplexity in our lives that we feel so much and that's why you know the temptation is oh man I'm feeling so disrupted so fragmented I just don't wanna feel that way I just wanna rush myself into just feeling okay again but don't rush it because then you miss the opportunity of learning about that thing and the question will come back to you even worse and more brutally and more ruthlessly* and it will break you and it did break me many times so that's why I'm saying that but if you remain there if you remain still if you learn to wait if you learn to for you to be loved and take that time that can be a portal a window a doorway in which you will become an even more mature self capable of loving capable of guiding others when they are going through these times of wilderness or Saint John of the Cross described"the dark knight of the soul" there are many types of language words imageries to refer to this moment of crisis so anyways I hope that was helpful you know these principles to navigate in summary 1. we need to avoid the myth of moral neutrality we always act out in our lives from our conception of the good 2. we need to avoid binary thinking you know we need to appreciate the grays not everything is too clear we need to learn to appreciate mystery 3. we need to avoid careless deconstruction you know so let's be responsible in how we do that because if we don't do it carefully we can end up in a worse place than where we started and 4. lastly avoid fake harmony take the time don't rush it the pain the questions will refine you will shape you into a better self if you know how to absorb that moment if you know how to process that experience lament sadness is part of the human experience and many times many images of our reality of our world many images that we have of ourselves of God of others need to die so that new images more appropriate images of the world can be born you know and so it's a good thing it's a good thing it's painful but it's a good thing anyway so talking about the next episode so the next episode I'm going to speak about the insane practice of reading as many books as possible in the productivity culture and why you should read fewer but better books yes we're going to talk about that and I think I know a little bit about reading books and so I will just share some tips with you and avoiding this insane practice of just quantifying wisdom which is terrible man it's terrible anyways so that would be it so remember podcast available on YouTube on audio most platforms my book en español in Spanish Amor y Resentimiento Love and Resentment Nietzsche and Christianity get it support you have it on kindle and paperback social media I'm pretty much in all platforms follow me there and also Spanish channel if you speak Spanish if you want to know exclusive content that I do in Spanish language which is my native language subscribe to my channel you can find that in the description and also comment leave your comments leave your questions leave your feedback I do value I do take that into account and please if you found value in the episode in the content in this idea please do share it I know it's silly to ask for you to press the like button or sharing with other people'cause everybody does the same thing but as I do say so many times I do want to do this long term and better and offer even more quality content and analyze many things that you might be interested in but I won't be able to do that if I don't get the support and if I don't get you know the audience that is willing to support me in that process so I would love to keep doing that and that in part depends on you and on me in making this work out that's everything on my end everybody I love you for free adios until next time