Moral Flexibility

It isn't uncommon for us to run into situations where we have to choose between "right" and "wrong". The very basis of the entire society is on the basis of categorizing a particular act in one of the mentioned classes. That is how we judge almost everything around us. And I believe we all agree to disagree on what we consider should be in either classes. That forms the basis of virtually every argument you ever had and every war you ever read about.

Sometimes when we hear disturbing news on the TV or read about it in papers, it makes us wonder "how could someone do that". Sitting in the comfort of our rooms we try to judge/analyze the situation based on the limited and ,often if not always, biased information presented to us in what appears to be a very detailed study. Sometimes we think in today's world we suffer from information overload or is it the case that we are not so tuned to finding "relevant information" from all that is around us.

Moral flexibility is what you are experiencing when your judgement is very much situational. You know about a hedious murder and you believe the criminal should get death penalty. Now you are told the charged person suffers from multiple personality disorder and you feel he should be not in a cell but in a hospital. And what if you now come to know that the charged person faked this disorder.

Moral flexibility is also an expression of personal benefit. It puts you in a lighter more manageable position and allows you to "get away" with something that you could not were you a very principled person. It allows to you create "truth", "right" or atleast the illusion of it, your version of it. It is not a compromise...a compromise will keep you dissatisfied at the back of your mind. This is calm...you know you do it, you agree to do it and you don't complain about it.

You can do because you choose to believe in things in a different way, you gather a new perspective and most importantly because , atleast for you, it solves the problem at hand.

Just a thought :)