Morality knows, morality grows

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Let’s imagine two towns, separated by a magnificent river and united by the need to develop by exchanging goods and expanding their knowledge. Building a bridge to join them means making first contact; edifying another one makes interaction more streamlined. Making connections satisfies the primary need, and over time new discoveries combine to overcome the distance: instead of crossing the river, one can make a phone call, send an email and, one day, new paths will be born thanks to the capability of updating, whether it is technological, of thought or of need.

The above example thrives on practicality, and morality works in the same way: a practical model of behavior through which people act to protect the founding value of their community, the need around which they gathered together, thus giving way to their society.

Wanting to identify an absolute value towards which the action of every civilization should tend, everything could lead to respect: of the neighbor because similar in needs, of the living environment, of those who, for various reasons, made everything possible. In interpretating this value, what differentiated civilizations was above all the concept of “neighbor”: of how many and which living beings can be considered worthy of the attention of the founding value. Over the centuries, the scenarios have changed enormously: respect for the environment, for example, found a divine root in the primordial tribes, manifesting itself through a morality of protection and veneration of nature and its expressions. Today, the same respect for the environment has a different conception, it is the result of an emergency, of a knowledge that has suggested a change of pace in morality. And if twenty years ago throwing the cigarette filter on the ground was the natural consequence of the last puff, today this gesture is deplorable and condemned thanks to morality and its updated awareness. If we look at human rights, the subject travels along analogous tracks. Let us think of slavery, still recognized by nations belonging to the United States of America until 157 years ago, which featured plenty of social classes for millennia. We are accustomed to conferring the judgment of immorality now that the awareness of neighbor, with his own needs, is abolishing all forms of discrimination and authoritarian deprivation of the freedom of others.

Morality is therefore ever-changing: habits and customs become traditions, meeting new knowledge, updating the point of view and improving the strategy. Societies evolve when they are in a position to broaden observation, to collect new data that inevitably help to identify future benefits and challenges. As for strategy videogames, exploration sheds light on shadowy areas and the available map is enriched with additional elements. Morality has a practical duty to remain faithful to itself in order to pass on the initial value and to satisfy its need; at the same time, through example, it is the only one able to update the collective opinion, unlike the moralism that paralyzes it. Morality changes on the ways of respect and in the light of the knowledge reached to exercise the founding value. Notions and skills that broaden the f ield of vision and modernise the available resources and the priority of needs.

This dynamic does not always guarantee long-term progress or prosperity: if knowledge is partial or unable to evaluate all of the consequences, a step back to the starting point is required, equipped with a new awareness and a new morality. Harmful drifts of human behavior can occur, when the objective for which respect is exercised is too narrow, directed to particular interests and void of overview: this includes elitist authoritarianism or, trivially, not being able to see the wood for the trees. Observing the relationship between man and the environment brings out a case in point. The earliest form of respect aimed at Mother Nature was of practical and divine origin. The sustenance provided by its resources and the thought that behind so much harmony lies the origin of creation were founding values of tribes and primordial communities. That was knowledge, from there the necessary for life sprang, which per se had to be protected and handed down. In nature the School of Miletus sought the origin and meaning of the whole, and the need for more concrete connections accompanied the philosophy itself up on further questions of mankind. Over the centuries, practice, research and technologies have increased control over nature and the management of its resources has represented a source of pride for heroes, societies and cultures. And knowledge has always turned on the alarm sirens that we can still hear today, speaking of nature. Morality itself had to do a soul-searching and learn how to observe from a higher step, contemplating the interaction of ecosystems, the human interest that every form of life should be included within the circle of respect – because, in the meantime, we have recognized as “life” also the invertebrate, vegetable and mineral one.
Knowledge is useful when it is for everyone, and only by expanding the concept of “neighbor” can we speak of evolution. This is what morality has realized about environment.

Traditions are memory books collecting those actions so much successful to become memorable and repeatable, in the name of universal value. But if morality were a word, it would be “therefore”, a conjunction having a causal meaning: it implies a starting point that translates into an action. It is about afterwards.

Collective consciousness must know how to capture time and method in order to update its morality, if it does not want to invalidate the value for which it was born. A society always disappears imploding, falling on steps that no longer have values to walk on. Sometimes all it takes is to improve the examples taken as a reference, knowing how to question them and, if necessary, choosing others, endowed of fundamental value and openness