Ethics For Three Year Olds

 

“When those with power over children stifle children’s capacities to act on their own moral perceptions, they cause the moral sense to atrophy and be replaced by other action guiding motives.” - Patrick R. Frierson, The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori

Even three year olds are old enough to know that everyone should be fair, honest, kind, and that everyone ought to keep their promises and help others when they need help.  Let’s call this  “ethics for three year olds”.  Well, what happens when  many people suffer under a leader who makes a point of violating every one of these ideals everyday?  Unfortunately America has elected a President who lies all the time, who routinely breaks his word, and basically can’t be trusted. This is a big problem, not only for the citizens of America, but also for America’s neighbours as well as the rest of the world.

There’s  not much Canadians can do to stop Trump’s unethical behaviour, other than exercise solidarity and urge our leaders to stand up to Trump’s bullying when he aims his diatribes at Canada, which seems to be happening daily now. 

 I won’t venture to give Americans any sophisticated political advice, other than the kind of advice I would give to myself when I was a parent of a three year old. Parents should set a good example for their children. Try to be honest the vast majority of the time.  Never make a habit of lying.  If you don’t understand how something works, don’t pretend you know just to save face or impress someone.  If your child’s playmate refuses to play by the rules or cheats - tell her to find someone else to play with, someone who is willing to play by the rules. 

Let’s think about what kind of world we want to leave our kids.  Maybe one where the natural world is still healthy and has enough space to thrive.  Maybe one where children can grow up without getting asthma or cancer from industrial pollutants.  Maybe a world where everyone has a fair chance of thriving and being a productive citizen.  

I would tell my younger self:  avoid cynical people who see everyone as out for themselves; who think that playing by the rules is only for suckers.  It’s far better to live in a world where we can trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt.  If they cheat or steal, that’s another thing. We shouldn’t let people get away with that.  We shouldn’t let people get away with abusing others, and there are many kinds of abuse.  What they all have in common is people exercising arbitrary power over others they consider their inferiors - disrespect, manipulation, exploitation, causing physical harm, etc.  Children, women, foreigners, the poor, the homeless, and the mentally ill shouldn’t be mistreated. 

When people have prejudices, it means that they believe bad things about people of a different sex, colour, religion, or ethnic group, without any real consistent evidence.   There’s something called “confirmation bias” - and we all have it to some extent.  But it’s much worse for prejudiced people because  no evidence about the people they are afraid of will change their mind.  No matter how many examples you show a prejudiced person of “those people” being competent and honest, they keep believing the worst about them as a group.  They will look for and remember evidence that confirms their bias, and avoid  and forget any evidence that is positive. But it gets much worse, because the deeper the prejudice, the more likely that a person will believe lies about “those people”, especially if the lies correspond to what that person would like to believe anyways.  They are alright with hearing or spreading malicious gossip even if it is not true, because “those people” are the enemy. They think: “Kindness, and consideration towards our enemy is wrong.  Meanness and cruelty towards our enemies is good.”  This is the way confirmation bias can feedback into  lynching, ethnic cleansing and genocide.  When these things are allowed to happen society is in moral collapse. We want to avoid this at any cost.