metaethical theory, my own

Don't bother reading the whole thing at once unless you're prepared for your eyes to become fuzzy and unfocused. Or you're accustomed to decoding complex ethical treatises. What I'm posting here for is to get some appraisal of my overarching ideas. I'm rather bored (for now) with my discourses on the unflinching nature of our current systems, so I'm reaching into the old bag of writings dominating a more purposeful intention. This is a somewhat more recent version of my overall premises and understandings of human discourse than the previous two essays. It's also considerably more indepth. I actually used quotes and stories even to make it easier to comprehend for once. I never do that.

Ethics, as a portion of philosophy, regard specifically the quest for moral truths. As that is an element of truth, an important consideration is first what sort of truth can be maintained. Individually, if one presumes truth is totally subjective, this has great consequence on the manner of moral truths as well. Therefore, the first step on any ethical quest is to conclude the manner of truth itself. The nature of moral truths, while certainly complex, will be little different than any other physical truths, differing largely in the form they take, namely in the form of ideas or processes, rather than expressed formulas and values. How one views the world as a whole however will have significant repercussions on this more particular view. So I begin with an analogy.

What we see around us differs greatly from person to person. While this can undoubtedly be a function of physical distinctions and personal experience, there is the factor of our interpretations, or lack thereof. Thus we have the card table analogy. There are in a poker game a series of decisions and actions which must be attended to arrive at any outcome. The desired outcome is to win, not merely the single hand, but to prevail over time. To this end we have a few simple choices to make for our own course: raise, call or fold. These may be but few in option, but the considerations that weigh upon them have considerable effect upon how others should act or react to our course, and of course, how we can act later. When we consider the poker table, there are generally three groups of players seated around it. The first group is the fish. These are people unskilled in the game at hand and are easily defeated but for the strange whims of fortune or luck. It can only be by luck that they should ever prevail for they know little of what they are doing, even if they believe it to be otherwise. They do not know how the cards they have can be improved upon, or how to manage their game in accordance with what they have in the hand. They know little or nothing at all about what the intentions or actions of the others may be. As such, they are destined for many failures. Their victories can be but solitary and short-lived, and only through the token of beginner's luck. Without any knowledge of truth, we are blinded to the proper course of action. The second group is the home players. These are capable people, with some knowledge of odds, statistical probabilities, perhaps even a glimmer of insight as to the intention of lesser mortals around them. Here there may be found some victory through some mixture of skill and luck. We would find here that the knowledge of truth is hazy, perhaps centered on an understanding of the process itself; but not how to properly apply it. We are still frustrated by failures outweighing our triumphs unless we mean only to rule over the weak and ignorant fish. In real life we could say that this group is much like scientists who conduct research irrespective of the outcome or the nature of that research. They are merely concerned with the pursuit of truths and the processes, but not the appropriate application of it. The last group is the sharks. These are professionals of a sort; skilled at understanding the hand before them and intuitively understanding how to use what they have before them against what is presented as the intentions around them. Victory is never assured in a game of chance, but the skills that are brought to the quest for it are formidable. They would know much of the intentions of others, the probable actions, the path to glory, and, of course, themselves and the weaknesses they might find unsettling. What they do not have is certainty. They are making what can only be seen as guesses with a good deal of education behind them. These suffice for the understanding needed for making of decisions but are not backed with absolutes, thus lack the fiber of truth. The final grouping at the table isn't actually there, but is the audience. These people know what everyone has and can therefore determine the intentions, and perhaps the proper course of action, provided they understand the systems involved. They are gods among men as they know all, with the exception in this case of chance. And, we could say, like gods, they cannot directly intervene without violating the suspense of our actions. They know what is about to happen before it does. In all cases up until the last group, we are dealing with mere portions of truth. The situation involved has a certain quality in reality, and a certain outcome in reality, which can be viewed distinctly by our interpretations, and thereby altering the outcome to a lesser one than desired. Uncertain and mixed with our own fragile interpretations, the portions we see are not necessarily a measured vision of the true nature of the reality around us. We don't know how our actions will affect others for certain because we do not know their intent with any certainty. Sometimes we do not even know our own intent with any clarity. But we can presume to know sometimes when we have the quality of understanding and empathy, and temper ourselves with both wisdom and experience.

The quest for truth, especially moral truth, is the path of understanding. The seeking of wisdom can never overtake our human failings. We are limited and bound by a covenant of natural weaknesses and individual distinctions. But through this quest we find a process of righteousness. There is the glimmer of hope for triumph, for at least one battle over the evils that beset our task. The quest for truth, not knowledge itself, but true understanding, is the path of the moral, and the purpose of ethics. Having seen that we cannot make any determination that gives us hope without all our abilities, we must set out to see what factors must play a vital role.

Upon our first vital capacity as humans we find the physical needs. We must satisfy the needs and natures of our physiology in order to survive. Humans have done so for millennia through the resourcefulness of tools and machines, the faculty of reason, and the drive of necessity. But the problem between what we need for our lives and what we want demands a tricky balance. The want of our lives leads us to a consideration of subjectivity, the first of our moral allies, and the most dangerous of our foes. While our needs cannot go unmet, our wants can be set aside, even ignored or forgotten or replaced. But to do so often denies much of our personal being. While it is needed to consume food or at least nutritive material, is it not reasonable to seek good food for our taste when we have want of it? When we have need of companionship, is it not reasonable to seek out the company of others we have special fondness for? This then is the aim of subjectivity. None of us have great tolerance for all things, all people, and all actions. Through our limited lives we have neither the time nor the inclination to experience all things with such zeal and curiosity. Thus we should over time aim more sharply for those things and experiences that might be of comfort to our otherwise blank existences, injecting into these things and people attributes of great respect and meaning.

But this is a slippery slope if left unchecked. Our desires can stray into dark paths where harm and evil can and will be inflicted unless tempered by other faculties. The path of the righteous is matched closely with an appealing portrait. We often construe that evil is a horrid and wicked apparition. I believe that often our evils, our crimes, are nothing of the kind until it is too late. And only then do they play their haunting games upon our conscience and memory. We commit such atrocities and cruelty toward one another because we are ignorant of evil, and ignorant of good. Left alone in our own little worlds with noone to argue with civility our course, we set sail into the unknown. It can not be a pleasant voyage.

Fortunately there is a governor over this unbridled passion for life. It is the reasonable understanding of social order. Through this necessity of human invention, we have the capacity to see the social fabric around us and attempt to "fit in". Living bizarre or dark paths we would soon find ourselves hemmed in by the force of order and compelled to avoid punishments for our wickedness by hiding or reforming it. What we come to understand through social factors is that there is a component of our decision that must be also accounted for: the greater good. At its lowest levels we are concerned with the well-being of those around us directly, friends and families. As we interact, we attach importance to the outcome of interactions with others, co-workers or neighbours for example. We can extend this understanding to the entirety of a village or town, and then upwards toward the nation-state and finally humanity as a whole. The abstracted millions and billions are little different than our own friends and family when it comes right down to it. Just because we do not know them, or have the time to do so, does not make their rights or our effect on them any less significant.

It becomes impossible to ignore the conclusion that our actions will have ripple effects, some more so than others. Our treatment and behavior toward others will lead them to react accordingly. As such, some of our actions will necessitate a consideration of how the effect is received, what sort of effect does it have? Can I maximize or raise the benefit, or do something solely for the benefit of others at my own cost or at no personal gain? Certainly these are beneficial questions to ask when faced with a moral dilemma. The consequences of our actions have value, even though they are not evaluated in any sort of certainty. We cannot always know how doing one thing may effect the environment around us, how a person may receive it, or even whether they will reject and condemn our action entirely. Still we can make basic assumptions based on what we think may happen, what is most likely or most perilous. There is much risk involved in making moral decisions however based solely on the question of social or greater good. Without the assumptions of consequence, we are paralyzed, but with them, all our perfect reasoning may be tossed out the window. False assumptions, such as the belief in the superiority over Africans which prevailed in the debate of slavery, lead us to conclusions that can be horribly flawed. Missteps along the way in evaluating risks of a particular course also lead to moral disaster. It becomes clear that to evaluate any situation with only the eye to the greatest good becomes a recipe for moral blundering, with only half-measured responses to moral thinking. But it does suggest that we should at least consider the consequences and the good of the many at times where it seems appropriate. Our existence as a social creature demands this of us at least.

The imperative now is moral principles themselves. I would argue that the principles of morality are not so limited as to be a listing of do's and don'ts. We are dealing with a more complex tapestry of action and decision making than that. We may say that certain actions are inherently wrong, and that may be fine to make some conclusion. But we must also make certain to recognize the whys, the circumstances involved, and the person making such an action possible. A policeman shooting a dangerous criminal is by definition murder, the killing (or at least assault) of another person, but not in the legal sense. We make recognition that this action was justifiable by the protection of innocent lives. It appears through this that the particular actions themselves are not of such great consequence as the process involved at their decision. A policeman taking out his weapon and shooting someone who merely looked suspicious for example is not justified, even if the person was later shown to have hostile goals. The process was incompletely applied. The assumption that the suspicion of danger is sufficient to act precipitously and to decide to use lethal force to deal with the potential threat is an error of the process of judgment. The most essential determination in our course of action is to as fully as possible recognize the situation we are in and then to orient ourselves accordingly. Failing to notice details pertaining to our decision will lead to failure in our action. Additionally, failing to understand why a particular principle might apply, or might not, will lead to failure. The overall moral principle therefore is a moral function, not a moral list of principles. It is the combination of making such observations as time allows and applying proper analysis to the situation as to make a motivated and critical decision. Simply assuming we understand what is going on, or assuming that our gut reaction is right can lead to tragic consequences. Being inflexible intellectually or morally leads to inappropriate action. Proper moral decisions are not complex, but do have a difficult path. The high road is always a harder road to tread, but leads us to a healthier social order (and truer appreciation of self) and makes worth the time and effort.

There is merit in evaluating a situation only on the moral fabric of the act itself. Particular acts or the flawed principles behind them do not seem to ever enrich our society. Rape, murder, theft are all inherently flawed courses of action morally. We arrive at this conclusion through concepts of moral imperatives which compel us all to certain restrictions. Randomly or coldly murdering people for sport or pleasure would endanger us all to the risk of being randomly stabbed or shot at for this purpose. Naturally a society that allows such activity would quickly fail or at least break down into strong and weak elements. We derive such universal truth and apply it as law. But law is weak and must respond to new situations constantly by the making of new laws, which made by men are at risk for flaw or loopholes for the powerful and cunning. Similarly, the laws of God are also limited. We don't know for certain how the principles of "God's laws" (if they can be called that as they are codified, applied, and interpreted by men, not gods) apply to the constantly changing and evolving human race today, or even if they still apply owing to outmoded ideas of the human social order or even physiological functions. The outright forbiddance of certain acts through law has the value of restriction for people who choose to obey. But it has no hold over anyone else. If people are to ignore or mock society's laws, how must society react? What of mistakes and errors; what do we do when people have failed in their reason, or have false data and assumptions thereof? The trouble with categorical absolutism is that we have falsely assumed that human beings are rational. Most of us are not so capably guided, not always that is. Impulsive, purely subjective, and sometimes heightened emotional decisions are made everyday by most of us. We purchase things we do not need; we have relationships that aren't based on anything, not even the intangible goodness of friendship or love, we work in jobs we do not like or are not suited for our talents and potential greatness. Human beings I submit are most often irrational. It is because of this that we must make efforts to measure our system. Deciding that moral imperatives are reasonable and rational is well and good, but if people aren't capable of following them because they are (at least sometimes) not reasonable and rational, then we have failed to set up a working system of morals.

I would submit that the most difficult choices in our lives are not difficult because they are complex. They are difficult because a series of irrational steps have preceded them and have thus limited our options to a few unpleasant ones, in other words they became less complex. Wars are an example of failed rational diplomacy or trade leading to violent aggression between nations. The question of abortion is an outcome of a series of irrational behaviors: deciding to have unprotected sex with someone who is not interested or prepared to raise a child, not using birth control, not investigating other options such as adoption, and so forth. The difficulty is not making the choice that is 'right', but making the choice that is least 'wrong'. More simply, when dealing with a criminal or potential criminal act, we are also often dealing with a single irrational behavior. No reasonable system can deal with breakdowns in its reasoning without violating some of its elegant principles and risking the entirety of the system. Few universal systems can account for every possible situation created by the unceasing movements and motivations of human beings. Therefore we must balance reason with something else entirely to make these choices, and have a means of measuring the situation itself. Inevitably we will be faced with the problem of the no-win scenario, where there is no 'right' act. Reason alone cannot get us out of the mess because our actions will have been inherently unreasonable. Haven't we all argued with someone who was being unreasonable? It's a no-win argument. All the pertinent facts in the world aren't going to change the mind of a fixed-minded or irrational person. We cannot convince them of the right; they must stumble to it of their own accord. How do we do that?

It appears then that the moral process is achieved through the balance of the various factors involved. But how do we arrive at it, and how do we learn how to practice it? This too appears to be a process of a sort. The first determination is that of the self. Each person carries in their actions certain coloration. This is to say, we act in a certain way because that's how we want to be. The first step of our moral process is to be aware of self. We must know how we are as a person. We must know our flawed characters, our weaker assumptions, and our quirky preferences. All of us have subjective desires: blonde or brunette, pasta or steak, science or literature. Some, perhaps most, are harmless preferences created to give us choices in life that otherwise have no value. Deciding what we would like to eat has no moral value (unless we are to kill other people for this purpose I suppose). Deciding that we do not like a particular group of people on the basis of their appearance does, as our naked physical association with that group is rarely a consequence or function of our individual nature. As such it cannot be reasonably assumed that any person will behave in accordance with our preconceived notions of a group, making such preferential thinking immoral. This is the essence of the problem of subjectivity. In Daoism, there is a concept of non-interference. The principle basis of which is this problem: we are all of us screwed up people in some way. We cannot apply our own subjective, internal values upon the lives of others because our own values are also similarly flawed. To resolve this problem, we must be aware of these flaws. We must know when they arise, when our weakness may befall our course of action. We must examine ourselves, rigorously. The premise of the un-examined life has been around in philosophy since the dawn of philosophy in Socrates. If we do not question ourselves from time to time, we will never come upon any ethical system. The aspect of reason is invaluable in this quest, but ultimately it is our determination to see ourselves truly that must lead the way.

The second step once the examination of self is undertaken (it is perhaps never achieved fully), is to examine the world around us. Seeing through the eyes of our old, blinded selves, we should never be capable of seeing the true reality around us. We would see what we wanted of the world, and blind ourselves to the rest. Seeing now an open world, we make of it what we can. Seeing others as clearly as we do ourselves, we can begin to understand their intentions, even when they do not. We start to see how the tiny choices presented us at any moment gather into apparent coincidence. And we begin to understand ethical behavior as a function of moral flexibility. Acting impulsively, recklessly, or strongly emotionally may sometimes give us the right course very quickly in a moment of crisis. But it may also create deeper problems. Acting decisively in a moment of crisis is required yes, but only through acting appropriately do we create the moral act. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu declares that great generals win their battles without fighting. What is needed in moral action is little different. All the necessary preparation that time allows of us in a critical decision allows us to prevail with moral decency even in a time where it appears hopeless. The general takes to hand the terrain, the number and disposition of the enemy and their intentions, the discipline and disposition of his own armies, and makes ready the available stores to sustain his forces while undertaking to deny his enemy of his own reserves. In moral acts, we take to mind every notion, seeking out all our options and any available information toward our course of action. We try to properly direct ourselves at the situation and make sense of it before committing to action. Acting recklessly and charging forward to the call of battle is no more courageous or sensible in time of war as it is in everyday life. Similar to Sun Tzu, the greatest moral acts do not at always present us with a feeling of victory, merely the presence of it. We achieve greatly because the situation was made clear, the options understood, and the consequence good.

However as in war, life is rarely so clearly simple choices between a great victory and a good victory. Most of our decisions have complex mixtures of things that could be good, and those that could be bad. Sometimes, as in the start of full-scale wars, our decisions are all mixed with bad. Often our choice may still be clear; one case may have a clear and good effect or action involved while others are clearly heinous in form and effect. But the process involved is the same: be aware of the situation, and the needs of others, as well as our place in the situation. The effect of our action however requires a firm and decisive resolve. This does not however mean that we remove completely our other courses of action. What is meant is that we must be decisive in a moment of crisis. Inaction or our unfeeling, uncaring visage in a moment of crisis can be just as immoral as improper action. Watching someone being beaten to death and deciding to stand in shock and horror when the assaulter is unarmed and alone and can be overwhelmed by the mob standing by is no less a form of crime than the beating itself in moral terms. The consideration is not the nature and fury of our action, but that we retain a measure of moral flexibility. When we ask a question, it should be our goal to create and understand more questions, not simply to find answers. In warfare or even in poker games, the intention of some of our actions is to force our opponents to make decisions that risk everything while retaining some of our own capacity to persevere should we not prevail in that precise venture. So it is with moral action. If we act, we should do so to retain our flexible nature in the situation. Acting decisively and forcefully in a situation removes our options. The policeman who kills the suspicious-looking person for example could have done other things and then if it appeared that lethal force was necessary, he still retains the capacity to deploy it later on. The reason for this is that we could have failed to notice details that will alter our course. Rushing to judgments precipitously can only destroy our future choices and will often leave us within a series of irrational cataclysms or with a single devastating and unpleasant decision, such as being required to kill or be killed. Always leave outs, not necessarily only for ourselves, but for our society or our loved ones, if it is possible to do so. Time doesn't always give us this possibility, but we should plan for success and prepare for failure. It is inevitable of our imperfect human natures that we will encounter failures, and we must be able to learn from them. The will of necessity is a cruel master, leaving us with actions that are often too horrible to contemplate at any other time and if we have no other recourse than undesirable and unprincipled acts to rescue ourselves from our failures, we will not have the capacity to learn, only to survive.

This brings us to the third stage of moral understanding. Herein the purpose is the understanding of good itself. In seeing how others interact, and how we should strive to include ourselves in the greater world around us, we find that there are certain precepts which seem to govern our society. While these may be often found in law, they are not merely fungible legal terms. These are the virtues; consistent principles which appear to slide around on the circumstance, but in reality are always in the service of some higher good. To care for others is to be compassionate and understanding. To control our actions in a limited fashion, as in moderation, gives us the flexibility both to enjoy some delights of life and to resist some others when it is inappropriate. To be independent gives us the responsibility of governance over our action, but also to be ourselves, choosing what occupations or educations might best suit us, in addition to the mundane practices of what to wear in the morning. These are not often found in law, because few places govern what job we should take, or where and when we set out to learn. And yet they are principles nonetheless which govern our society. They are not universal maxims but rather a process of our order. Each of us finds unique means to express them if we live a virtuous life, and thus it would be difficult to apply them as absolute expressions of human will and purpose. There should have to be a great many variations of a single expression to make for universals, creating a convoluted and tangled web of human reason that is too impractical to express as a function of ethical behavior. There are times for selflessness (more so, I should think) and times for selfishness for example. It is not a subjective process, because it is uniform, but the result is ultimately human, and subject to the whim and preference of a particular person or society. As such, it is subject to failures. We must admit that, and be prepared to learn from them. In failing to do so, we perpetuate the cycle of irrational sequences and create merely different circumstances to the same old problems. The process is complex, yes. But as when we are children learning arithmetic or grammar, the process becomes a practice. We learn to balance our own needs against the needs of others. We learn to understand what consequences result, or what should result and can often express such things in the form of concerned probabilities. We learn that our actions should strive to be good even when we must do evil. We learn from ourselves and from the missteps of others, the wisdom of the ages. In doing this, we achieve true virtue in the form of ethical behavior. The practice of this virtue is a cultivation of our character, but ultimately pertains to the growth of society as a whole. Concerning ourselves with the world around us can only lead us to an understanding of our true self and our role in the world, and when we do so, good things will result.

As this moral system concludes, much of the process is going to be purely speculative and therefore based upon the subjective capacity of the person making decisions to understand the situation and arrive at conclusions. An example here will show how people can describe the same situation with differing moral imperatives, and thus attempt to defeat absolutism, both with a portion of failure. If we consider the Holocaust, where millions of innocent people were slaughtered purely on the basis of religious intolerance or ultra-nationalist heritage, we consider this imperative in the following: Noone should kill others for the purpose of removing undesired social factors caused by religious or cultural differences. Applied universally, this imperative might mean that people we know and love will be slaughtered by people who do not approve of them for some social means, religion, race or the fact they eat hot dogs, its doesn't matter what the reason is. The problem with this is that there seem to be people who do cause so much disruption to society that we seem almost compelled to kill them as in the case of condemned criminals, some of whom are motivated by religious indifference or intolerance themselves. Conversely, the Nazis who perpetrated this atrocity would not be concerned with this maxim at all, because they would hold a different one in higher esteem. Theirs would be as follows: the strong should dominate the weak. In their scenario the strong should do what they can to make themselves stronger and do so at the expense of the weak. They accept the risk that they will one day not be the strong, but work to propagate the continuance of their strength by purging forcibly elements of weakness from their society, even if those elements are human lives. This maxim continued even in defeat as evidenced by some statements made at Nuremberg. Many of those on trial would declare that this trial was simply the application of the strong, the Allied victorious armies, over the weak, the defeated Nazi Germany. As such they had no moral objection to the situation, but instead saw it as the ultimate continuation of human events. Human history is replete with the application of force over the weaker elements of society, suggesting that the Nazis were simply following in some aspect of human function. Certainly it is reasonable that people who are strong in a particular fashion, such as expertise in a particular field, should be looked to as leaders in that field. But their strength is only so limited to those areas on which they have wisdom and talent. For the governance of societies, we are not so fortunate as to be always aware of the innate talent of leadership or wise and temperate governance. As such, it is a false assumption to presume that the strong should rule the weak in this manner. But it sounds very convincing. Confucius was once asked by the Emperor which of three things he should abandon first: the will of the people, the bread, or the chariots and swords. Confucius replied the chariots, for wars are not always needed for the state. Annoyed at this reply, he asked which next, and Confucius said, the bread, for food can be re-grown. The will of the people cannot be recovered once broken. The emperor obviously was displeased at this wise counsel, but could not argue it. Hitler likewise failed to understand that his strength was not inherent, but was granted by those he would call "weak".

What we deal with when societies and individuals decide to ignore wisdom and reason is the effect of irrationality. It poisons our actions and must be dealt with. There have been two major courses to deal with its effect. First, there is the role of the cleric, a healer. These are people who treat its causes, doctors or lawyers for example. They do not combat such evils directly, but rather punish its effects and treat and bind the wounds of those afflicted. This is a pure and noble service but lacks the capacity to defeat evil directly. There is then the role of the knight. Here the service is to directly combat evils on the field of battle so to speak. Evil wills are slain, even when it means the taking of human lives. The satisfaction of the complete victory is tempered by the knowledge that our actions were impure, even immoral at times. There is another means. I would call it the paladin, and it is the service I would seek to render. A person of 'purity of spirit' has the temperament to treat evil's effect by easing its burden upon others and directly assailing its allies with a weapon of incalculable power, knowledge. This is noble and good. A person who thwarts evil directly has the capacity to succumb to it, but does so for our protection. But to truly combat evils, we must render the service of good instead. Sun Tzu said "He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish." This implication is that our society must have both war and peace in mind at all times. So it is with moral struggles. We must be prepared to take to defense of our liberties and principles with violent action if it becomes necessary. But we should work that it never becomes necessary. The service of a 'paladin' is rather the promotion of the service of goodness or virtue, not merely the treatment of evil's wound. The cause of good is always stronger in principle and effect than that of evil; it is simply a harder road to tread. We must make it easier by lighting its way with reasoned effectiveness. We must struggle on the front lines of irrationality to find reason in our madness and demonstrate it to others. We must appeal to the inherent benefit of goodness as opposed to the seduction of evil will by making clearer the state of both. Education is the tool.

As this applies to me, I see the forest very easily. I do not see the trees. In my discourse with others, it is easier for me to see dispassionately the nature and course of the events, but always not the passion which fueled them in the first place. The passion and zest of life is often tasteless to me, and becomes a secondary consideration. This is false. It leads to dishonorable conduct as it disregards the nature of human beings to act foolishly, sometimes for no reason. I do not easily separate action from reason and as such, I do not easily understand the roles of people who do not operate on reasonable moral imperatives. They are the "trees" and often I would find it easier if they were cut down. It is not always better to cut down the trees to make the forest a better place, but rather to cultivate them in a manner reflective of their distinctions. Certainly, as with sickly tree, a person of immense immoral scruple should be regarded as a danger and be torn aside, forcibly if need be. Such threats of both bad will and ignorance cannot be defeated reasonably; they must be compelled by other means to surrender the cause of evil will. A forest of human events would have as its base the capacity to notice and deal with such threats passively, and then to seek aggressive response when it becomes necessary. That is, to be aware of their surroundings and make whatever discourse and preparations are necessary to deal with the threats and then deal with them if they emerge into chaotic intent. In my terms, it is to notice failings or flaws that go unnoticed or under the radar and make them plain. There is a great line in an interview with Dave Chappelle where he said "America is the greatest country in the world by default. We could be the greatest country… ever, if we were just honest with ourselves." This is in fact a statement very close to my purpose in life. To provide honest and reasoned evaluation of ourselves and the world around us is the goal of any philosophical intention. To render it most effectively, we must also match ourselves with our examples and seek to practice it every day. Virtues are not temporary exemplars of action and purpose, but natural evaluators of daily circumstances. Finding courage in difficult situations or modesty when a business contributes to the CEOs successes is necessary and constant. It will not be easy.