Sunday, February 28, 2016

Every True Moral Act is Made in Freedom

For years now I've been waving the flag about garden ethics -- how empathy is at the heart of how we should be gardening. I'm always looking at how others speak to our environmental world and how we live in it, and this piece resonated, especially the last paragraph:

"We are empathic beings. As such we are profoundly connected to other human beings, as well as to all of nature. We can feel the joy and suffering of others, and as innately moral beings, we seek to mitigate suffering and promote the flourishing of others, even at a cost to ourselves. True morality carries the marks of insight and imagination. Every true moral act is made in freedom. Yes, we are informed by experience and the values of our society, but ultimately through self-knowledge, we have the potential to become free of their determinative force and choose the good (or evil) freely. In my view this is the moment in which love takes on the character of knowing.

Love allows us gently, respectfully, and intimately to slip into the life of another person or animal or even the Earth itself and to know it from the inside. In this way, love can become a way of moral knowing that is as reliable as scientific insight. Then our highest challenge and aspiration is to learn to love with such selflessness and purity that love becomes a way to true moral insight, one that transcends social construction and biological imperatives."

Read more....

5 comments:

Fishtown Planter said...

I like this quote, but am very surprised that you have not referenced its source. Where did you read it? Who wrote it? Thank you.

Benjamin Vogt said...

FP -- Follow the hyperlink in the first paragraph of the post.

Fishtown Planter said...

Thanks. The hyperlink is barely legible in my version of your blog. But it does not take me to that quotation. I am landed in an interesting spot, with a different quotation, which I also like.

Unknown said...

It is not visible at all in my version.

Diana Studer said...

your hyperlink is only visible once I mouseover - but there is no indication of a hyperlink - until I do mouseover.