Morality and Mental Health
Other people, our moral mirrors: Part 1, Negotiating needs
I recently published a blog post about “Social Anxiety,” concluding that excessive (beyond normal) social anxiety has nothing to do with other people—it is created by our own way of seeing ourselves which we then project onto the way we think others see us. Today, I feel dissatisfied with rendering other people such an insignificant…
Read MoreRacism
“Racism…” he thinks, with a long, drawn-out sigh, filled with dread, despair, confusion, anger, sadness, pain, hopelessness. I am not talking about some hypothetical Man of Color. I am talking about me, when I think about racism, which is often, but probably not often enough. Now that I’ve narrowed it down for you, I will…
Read MoreIntrospection Part 6, Self-acceptance
Introspection Part 6, self-acceptance I recently said the following to a client struggling with shame: “The opposite of shame is not pride. The opposite of shame is self-acceptance.” Moving toward self-acceptance requires self-knowledge, which in turn requires introspection. In Part 2 of this series of blog posts on introspection, I attempted to lay out the…
Read MoreMoral Conviction
Where does moral conviction originate? Does it come from within? Is it instilled in us from something external? How does it arise? Do we need to pay attention to it, foster it, grow it, encourage it, for it to gain strength? Or, does it exist of its own accord, making itself known when the time…
Read MorePower
Power is morally neutral. Power is neither good nor bad. Power just is. It is part of the universe in which we live, part of the human condition, part of life. Power is: the capacity to influence a process to achieve a desired outcome. One way to think about power is to compare it to…
Read MoreObligation
Morality is about other people. If morality is about other people, then our obligations to other people and their obligations to us plays a very central role to morality.
Read MoreDefining Morality
In a recent blog post I discussed the process of “Defiant Morality” leaving for another blog the related process of “Defining Morality,” which will be the topic of this blog post. Defining Morality might be described as the opposite side of the spectrum from Defiant Morality. Defining Morality is this: “in any given situation, do…
Read MoreDefiant Morality
I have for some time been considering how to approach more directly my thoughts on morality—on what is “good” and “bad” when it comes to human decisions, including their behavior, beliefs, attitudes, and judgments. I have wanted to write about this topic directly, but have hesitated. The problem has been that is in my nature…
Read More