Gut feeling and perspective

While writing the précis for our upcoming class, I found myself really identifying with Hegel’s theory about the conscience. He explains that the conscience relies on gut feelings and an understanding of the consequences of actions to determine what the moral choice is in a situation. When this method is applied, morality becomes subjective. Some might have an issue with this as they believe that morality is not subjective and moral choices are the same for everyone. While in theory we might like to believe that morality is a universal constant, in practice it is shown that what might appear as the moral decision to one person would appear different to another.

While we might idealize morality and believe it should show us the clear righteous path, the truth is things are rarely that simple. Most decisions involve conflicts of interest and don’t appear to have an identifiable or correct solution. The best we can hope for is that we make the best decision based on what we know and our perspective. While Kant wants us to believe there is a greatest good that we should strive for, he also says it is unobtainable. This means, just as Hegel points out to us, that the highest good isn’t founded in reality, but abstract pure thought. In this way, it is should be impossible to apply to reality as it does not exist in that realm.

I have long thought that morality was something that could not be universalized. Situations rarely, if ever, appear identical to all the individuals involved. People like to dismiss the idea that “truth is subjective” by bringing up the logical argument that A can never equal ~A. While it is always true that A cannot equal ~A, I don't think that is what the idea of truth being subjective is referring to. Instead, I think the idea of truth being subjective has to do with individual’s perspectives and how they can see things differently. Obviously I’m not saying that two people can look at the same thing and describe it differently, but what I am saying is two people can be involved in a situation in which they see the reasons and causes of things differently. I’m sure everyone has been in a fight with one of their friends in which both parties believe they are right. Maybe the dispute never gets settled, but you move on anyway. Sure you can say truth is whatever can be universalized or something similar, but the thing is we make up the ideas and complex systems. What is truth? Truth is a concept we invented so we could categorize things and convey beliefs to others. It seems as though we sometimes act as though truth or morality is something that predates our existence and we have to try to measure up to it, but really we make these things up. As such, I think it’s appropriate for Hegel to say that moral choice is based on perspective. Gut feeling is the only thing that can count for anything because that’s all we can really be sure of: how things appear to us. Since the only thing we can be sure of is our perspective of events we must base our moral decisions on that.