LARGER and LARGER CIRCLES

In The New York Times (Sunday, January 13, 2008) Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University wrote, “the core of this idea — the interchangeability of perspectives — keeps reappearing in history’s best-thought-through moral philosophies, including the Golden Rule (itself discovered many times); Spinoza’s Viewpoint of Eternity; the Social Contract of Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke; Kant’s Categorical Imperative; and Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. It also underlies Peter Singer’s theory of the Expanding Circle — the optimistic proposal that our moral sense, though shaped by evolution to overvalue self, kin and clan, can propel us on a path of moral progress, as our reasoning forces us to generalize it to larger and larger circles of sentient beings.”
If you had to sum my father up in one word it would be teacher. I have written in this blog before that he was a minister, missionary, educator, school principal, and started and ran a teachers’ training college on the mission in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). He always said if you knew your subject well enough you could put it in terms anyone could understand. I am going to make an attempt to explain “interchangeability of perspectives”. Professor Pinker of Harvard considers it a big idea and so does The New York Times.
Professor Pinker links it to Jesus with the Golden Rule, Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Rawls, and Singer.
Let me see if we can put this in words I can understand. Can I see your side of things? Have I walked in your shoes? Have I tried to understand it from your way of thinking? Am I treating you as I would want you to treat me?
Now don’t get me wrong. It is not about agreeing with the other person if you think they are wrong or doing something you know is wrong just to fit in. This is not a one size fits all philosophy. This is not anything goes.
Some of the philosophies that Professor Pinker lumps together don’t blend so well. They would make a very lumpy cake if all of them were used as ingredients for the same cake.
However, if you stay with the basic point of always trying to see the other person as a person and their perspective and ideas then progress towards peace and understanding can be made. The truth is you can’t be very helpful to folks you are fighting with.
We just celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday this past Monday, but the day before this country was the most segregated it is anytime during the week. Sunday morning during church time. Do we still blame the rape victim? Try being a male victim of childhood sexual abuse and talk about it on a construction site where you work. My point is we don’t very often try to see the world through the eyes of the other person.
There is a debate going on about where we get our moral instincts come from. Professor Pinker wrote, “Putting God in charge of morality is one way to solve the problem of course, but Plato made short work of it 2,400 years ago.” Did Jesus put it back on the table 2,000 years ago?
It does not matter if you come from the same faith community as I do or belong to no faith community, but it does matter how you view the folks you share this planet with. It matters whether you are drawing smaller and smaller circles until it is only you in the circle or if you are drawing larger and larger circles until we are all in your circle including those of us with disabilities which before you may have seen as flawed. My prayer is that you are building larger and larger circles.
You can reach me directly at edcooper@projectdreamagain.com