How do I know what is right and wrong?
Earnest Hemingway wrote:
‘So far about morals. I know only that what is moral, is what I feel good after, and what is immoral is what I feel bad after’.
Is knowing what is right and wrong, really about finding out what is good and bad?
What kind of question is this?
Is this a moral question of doing the right thing? My duty to know what is right and wrong, defined by my moral knowledge and moral values. Yet perhaps it’s an ethical question? In practice as a psychotherapist, I abide by a code of ethics. What about a code of morals? But who gave me my morals? That’s a theological question based on my belief system. On what basis are those beliefs founded, and does that determine whether I know I am right or wrong? Am I bound by a code of conduct based on a set of beliefs? This is really a human rights question. Those principles of individual rights that belong to each human being. Or perhaps knowing, and defining what is right and wrong is significant, because if I don’t’ there will be sanctions/ punishment and consequences and perhaps judgement. Does that mean I’m back to religious judgement?
Or maybe it is merely a linguistic term? I need to cognitively discern what is meant by the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Or is it really asking right FROM wrong? Linguistically knowing the difference so that I understand what is very right or very wrong, or is there rightness and wrongness, or even absolute wrongness? But that’s back to morals. Or is that ethics?
But legally in a court of law they could tell me what is right and wrong. That is why our justice system is constructed. Something is legal or illegal. But now I sound like I’m playing with words again. That’s definitely wrong, or is there a maybe wrong? But right is right and wrong is wrong. That is the law of the land. But which land? If I live in this family, in this community, in this country, I know what is constitutionally determined as right and wrong.
Perhaps it a sociology question? But what happens in a culture, within our culture? Aren’t there terms and social codes of what is acceptable as right and wrong in each family, micro cultural rights, and wrongs? What of a developing country, where my social norms and faith practices and cultural contexts are not understood, appreciated, or are deemed right or wrong?
Or perhaps it is a psychological question where we need to study the mind to understand right and wrong behaviors. Or is right and wrong a part of my pathology and ‘in my character’? But really it is a matter of intuitive knowing right and wrong. But what if my pathology has been disorientated by traumatic events and I have a distorted sense of right and wrong …
I’m overwhelmed! I need a good psychotherapist. But perhaps a psychoanalyst would be just right for this issue. No! A CBT therapist to get my thinking straight. A psychodynamic psychotherapist would work through all my past issues and really set me on the right path, so that couldn’t be wrong?
What of the great Philosophical thinkers? What do they have to say?
Hume, in 1748, wrote, ‘Be a philosopher, but amidst all your philosophy be still a man’.
In the midst of our inquiry, contemplation and investigating we are called to the humanity of right and wrong in everyday life. These are the dilemmas that enter our therapy rooms.
We have moved far from the ideal of Rousseau’s pure State of Nature where we lived as the Noble Savage with no government and law to regulate everyday life. As Hesiod the 8th century Greek poet wrote; ‘They with abundant goods ’midst quiet lands, all willing shared the gathering of their lands’. It was the Golden Age where people were content, living simply, within what Locke, termed the Social Contract with customary codes of right and wrong; ‘I’ll look after you if you look after me.’
Yet, in history this gave way to fear, and chaos. Codes of conduct and competing theories developed. The Axial Age saw a shift in society. For Confucius, it was a social philosophy principle of Ren, loving others. It was the Golden Rule. The principle of ‘what you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.’ It became the universal principal criteria for right and wrong that is still defined in many religious traditions throughout the world.
Ethical principles become more challenging in application. Aristotle’s ancient Greek call to virtuous character differed to Kant’s deontological call of moral duty in the 18th century. In wide social debates we often take a utilitarian view of our actions being right if they benefit the majority, where hedonistic philosophy (Mill & Bentham) weighs up the alternatives and the consequences of choices. Yet, what if my loved one is in the minority? Interpersonal ties, motivating emotions and experiential textures. Choosing right and wrong, applied ethics, in action. This is the interplay with our clients in psychotherapy practice.
Righting the wrongs. Is this the philosophical stance of psychotherapy?
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
Seamus Heaney (1991)
Our need to right a wrong, is this what comes to therapy? A wrong done to us or we have done to others. The regrets in grief, the loss of repair. Healing, forgiveness, accepting, letting go. Risking to embrace the shadow side of self. To hear the narratives of the right and wrong, inflicted, and endured.
Psychotherapy Position: As psychotherapists how do we position ourselves? Do we take a high judgement ground disguised through the language of ‘best practice’? Is it ‘right’ to even have a moral stance and wrong to voice it? Are we influenced by Aristotle’s Golden Mean to find a moderate position, as we navigate dilemmas of right and wrong in our practice? Or do we take a Nike philosophy? If it feels good, Just Do It!
The knowledge of right and wrong. Do we really know? Will we ever know? Does being right, mean someone else is wrong? Is rightness defined by the need for a polar- opposite, - a wrongness? Broad (1940) says ‘there is no Master Principle’. But perhaps there is a third way, a way beyond finite knowing? Can I, like Rumi, extend an invitation to; ‘the field beyond right and wrong, I’II meet you there’.
Joy Winterbotham is a Systemic Family Therapist and Supervisor working in Community practice. She is thankful to all those courageous children and young people who, found creative ways to tell her ‘what was wrong’ so together they could start to ‘make things right’. She is currently working towards her Doctorate in Psychotherapy in DCU.
References:
Broad, C.D. (1940). The Right and The Good. Critical Notice of W. D. Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford, 1939). Mind 49, 4 (p. 228-39).
Heaney, S., & Sophocles. (1991). The Cure at Troy. A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. New York: Noonday Press
Hemingway, E. (1960). Death in the Afternoon. New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons.
Hesiod. (2006). Theogony; And Works and Days. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hume, D., & Millican, P.F. (2007) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rumi, J. (1996). The Essential Rumi. A Great Wagon. San Francisco, CA: Harper
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