Sunday, January 3, 2010

Agnostic Ethics

Modern Bioethics: Morality from the Agnostic




Because we are not religious, does that mean that we are not ethical? Does it mean that I make my decisions differently than believers in a deity?

No. I am skeptical, maybe even noncommittal, but my reflection on an ultimate higher power are questionable. I am not an atheist, meaning that I do not completely deny that there might be a higher power, but as I live my life, I am not going to make decisions based on the belief in a higher power is going to control my life, and the hereafter.

In the words of Thomas Huxley, “Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle... Positively the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”

He states, “I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter...

It is no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions...

That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true. But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal subtleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth.”

In the case of healthcare, or specifically nursing, where does one draw on to make their moral decisions if they are not relying on a deity to mold their decisions. Would it make a difference in the eyes of a believer to treat one of two patients first, if one had worked against the greater good of humanity throughout the course of their life, and the other worked for the benefit of good to all? The answer is that when we have patients come before us, there is no room to make such moral decisions, as the nature of our professional is to treat indiscriminately. I do not have to have GOD to tell me to do this, it is what is right.

Is it a postmodern concept to have no basis for decisions besides individual right and wrong? Zygmunt Bauman might think so. I don’t think so. Postmodern is antiquated, and unnecessary. Beautiful and descriptive in the most complex, yet utterly simple manner, postmodernism is for those who desire to have an excuse to blame their wrongs or rights. Postmodern is to be weak in mind and thought. It is much more powerful to understand how and why you think about your decisions, and not just to accept them because they happened.

No comments:

Post a Comment