The Hand of Compassion by Kristen Monroe

Author:Kristen Monroe [Monroe, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691127736
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2006-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

6

The Complexity of the Moral Life and the Power of Identity to Influence Choice

To be a rescuer, under these circumstances, it took a unique person. Someone who had the deep-seated conviction … that they had to do it. And they were not people who were making choices on reflection. They just simply had to do it because that’s the kind of people they were.

—Immanuel Tanay, survivor 1

MOST OF US, at some time in our lives, come face-to-face with that most basic concern of ethics: how we treat others. We find guidance from religion or philosophy in the form of general principles, while literature and biographies provide more concrete intimate illustrations of how our fellow human beings wrestle with moral dilemmas, illuminating the pitfalls and rewards of the moral life in a manner we can relate to our own lives. At a more personal level, we learn about morality by observing the behavior of those around us, although here both social convention and the particular nature of our relationship with those observed often inhibit our ability to ask the difficult questions we might like to pose. Rarely do we have the opportunity to speak as frankly and engage in a dialogue with people who are as morally commendable as the rescuers we have just met. The rescuers’ stories thus take on a particular value. They help us think about our own lives in terms of ethical issues, and it is to such a consideration that I now turn.

Taken as a whole, the rescuers’ stories focus attention on three important points. First, we are struck by the complexity of the moral life. A wide variety of forces influenced rescuers; no single factor can be said to have caused their rescue behavior. Duty, socialization, religion, an innate moral sense, even the explicit mention of Kant’s categorical imperative—all these factors were mentioned by one rescuer or another. The driving force behind moral action thus seems both complex and multidimensional. It is not as simple as following rules or moral principles, even those as widely accepted as the Golden Rule or the prohibitions against lying or treating people as only a means to an end.2

Second, we are struck by the remarkable extent to which none of the rescuers agonized over what to do. This insight is significant, given the tendency, in both Western philosophy and literature,3 to think about moral action in terms of agonistic choices that are conscious and soul wrenching.4

Third, instead of moral dilemmas and agonistic choices, we find identity. The rescuers’ sense of who they were, and how they saw themselves in relation to others, so limited the range of actions the rescuers perceived as available that they literally did not believe they had any other choice than to help Jews. Identity played such a critical role in shaping their treatment of others that their extraordinary actions seemed matterof-fact, unremarkable, and unnoteworthy to the rescuers themselves. Moreover, this influence from identity appeared to operate through a cognitive5 process that consistently drew particular parts of rescuers’ complex identities to the fore.

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