Exposing the Social Problem of Harms Disguised as Moral Goods

PHOENIX, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- A new website uses neuroscience research and a naturalistic approach to moral psychology to explain how the story of civilizations is also the story of a biologically-induced moral paradox, the paradox of the good, and how it endlessly shapes and reshapes the religious, political and economic landscapes of the world.

Gregg Walborn, founder of http://www.rationalwellbeing.com and the Society of Rational Well Being, explains that, "the paradox is the product of biological processes that bias decision-making and behavior. The paradox motivates individuals and social groups to disguise or represent harms as moral goods to promote or preserve the goodness they believe their norms and values represent."

"When people disguise or represent harms as moral goods, they define concepts such as fairness, justice and moral balancing in terms that favor rights and wrongs that are politically, economically or culturally advantageous to their own accepted norms and values."

From this perspective, Mr. Walborn asks a disheartening question: "In a continuously modernizing world, does maintaining the moral legitimacy of one's norms and values (and the possibility of an ethical life) require the power and ingenuity to disguise certain harms as moral goods?"

According to Mr. Walborn, "rather than a stand-alone ethical system, Rational Well Being is a series of principles, rules and concepts designed to help people evaluate their moral decision-making in the light of how human biology affects moral thought and action."

He continues by saying that resolving the problem of living an ethical life will require ethical theorists to deal with the fact, as expressed by Nobel Laureate Eric R. Kandel, "that everything the brain produces, from the most private thoughts to the most public acts, should be understood as a biological process."

Mr. Walborn says that, "a key goal of the Society of Rational Well Being is to motivate people to evaluate their material and spiritual goals in terms of how some of these goals may be harms disguised as moral goods. This means learning how to reach one's objects of support without harming others (or self) and how to balance and distribute the benefits, risks and costs of cooperating with others to maximize happiness and well-being."

For the Society's perspective on Christian ethics, see http://www.christianwellbeing.com . SOURCE Society of Rational Well Being, Inc.