The Internalization of Ethics
A Man will be mortified if you tell him he has a stinking breath; though it is evidently no annoyance to himself.
- David Hume
I am the man with the stinking breath. I have found myself in situations where I am no annoyance to myself, and yet because of the reactions of others I am mortified like the man with the stinking breath. I suppose all of us are, more or less. The question I have is whether we should be the man with the stinking breath, more or less than we are.
Why am I mortified? Is it because of a concern, or a desire that I am mortified? When I do something that does no harm to myself, and the only harm that it does do is to others, and merely an offense at that. It is certainly not as if bad breath puts causes life-endangering harm. It does cause others to be repulsed. Perhaps I am mortified because I have concern for more than the physical wellness of others. Perhaps their emotional well-being is an equally important concern. Perhaps I really don’t want them to feel the discomfort of repulsion. Or perhaps, and I think this is closer to the truth, I am mortified because they are repulsed by me. After all, would I show exactly the same concern for the person repulsed, should the sentiment be caused by the bad breath of another? I would not, and I don’t think anyone would. My desire is not to be repulsive because I feel badly when I am regarded as repulsive. Why?
Again, honestly, what does it matter if my breath stinks? I could have a raging case of halitosis, a stench that rivaled the sewers, and yet I could still manage a productive, useful, and worthwhile existence. Nevertheless, I feel badly when other people are repulsed by me. I understand somehow, that when I am repulsive for any reason this is a bad thing. It is so bad that I am mortified into doing something about it. Why is this? It is not because of the effects of my bad breath on others that I am inclined to change, nor because of the effects of the breath on me, rather it is because of the effects on me caused by my effect on others. I understand this kind of complex relationship between myself and others.
That understanding has been a part of my indoctrination into society. It is one of the marks of adulthood. The understanding of this relationship comes from experience. Suppose I bit the neighbor child when I was young. I would have noticed his repulsion and pain when I bit him. My parents, his parents, anyone else would probably have reprimanded me for biting the child. Biting people causes repulsion, I would have learned. People are repulsed by my biting him because it harms him, and they care for him, and I should care for him. We can’t have a world where we all run around biting each other, now can we? Part of the whole process of growing into adulthood is the association of that repulsion with its objects. Eventually, we all internalize that repulsion to a degree, so that we are repulsed in advance to the idea of biting other people. We don’t bite. Biting is repulsive. Repulsion is associated with harms, like biting. That’s the problem.
Bad breath no longer holds as an example, but I can think of a similar situation where something that does no harm to myself is repulsive to others, and I am mortified. The difference is, in this situation, not only am I harmless to myself with my action, but I am helpful to myself, yet repulsive to others, and therefore mortified. For example, when I speak my mind with the force and speed with which my own mind presents the words and ideas to me, they’re received as an attack; upon realizing this I am the man with the bad breath. Often, it is not only the tone and the vocabulary of my expression, but the content that is found to be repulsive as well.
Let’s say for example that I wanted to make a point with the use of bad breath as an example, because that is the analogy which speaks to me most. It is helpful to me to make my point, as it allows me to articulate and clarify my thoughts. It may even be helpful to my audience, who might come to think also on the subject. However, we don’t talk about bad breath in polite company. Emanations from the body of any sort, and the discussion thereof: these cause repulsion. But it’s hard to discuss repulsion without discussing the repulsive. If the repulsive will not be heard then a question about repulsion can never be asked. If we are ever repulsed by something we should not be, or if we are repulsed by something it might be helpful to examine, we can never cease our repulsion so long as it is internalized, so long as we are repelled in advance from anything approaching the subject.
The point is, sometimes we cannot use the repulsion of others as a gauge for the appropriateness of our actions. This means we cannot always use our internalization of that repulsion as a gauge. However, there is still that pesky association between repulsion and harm, which we do not want to cause. When is repulsion an indicator of real harm? Clearly, it is in the case of the bitten child, but what about cases like the bad breath? To what degree does another person’s having taken offense to something constitute harm to them? To what degree is there an obligation to avoid this kind of harm? These questions relate to the internalization of ethics, which is something I think we do to such a degree that it goes beyond ethics (right and wrong) to manners (should and shouldn’t) and then further, the older we get, so that the more people we encounter during our lives, each with their own particular repulsion, the more inhibited we become. There is always the possibility that someone somewhere will find fault with any given action, and the more of those somebodies and their faults that we meet as we gat older, the more we internalize them. Even though we’re constantly reminded to “think for ourselves,” this is what pushes us “down into the rabbit’s fur” and, while it is a process that matures us, unchecked, it can and does easily become the practical death of us.
For example, I was at a rock concert last week, where people had paid good money to be wild and free and fun, since that’s what rock concerts typically are. The lead singer suggested that the crowd do just that, that they let it all go and forget about everybody else for a minute and that each person in the crowd should yell, scream, or do what ever they damn-well pleased. There was silence, mortified silence. Every second of that silence was a waste of the money spent to keep it at bay. I was repulsed and mortified to be a part of that silent crowd in that moment, and it had an effect on the way I see the world. I imagined, instead of Joan Jett up there on the stage prancing about in leather pants that it had been someone in politics, maybe Joseph Goebbels or someone from our own day, someone marching up to a platform, yelling very bad ideas at top volume. And what if that person had said “I could be wrong, and if I am, somebody please say something now…” And I knew that the crowd would be quiet. I lost some faith then.