Yesterday I wrote about the difficulty in answering can and should questions. I wrote about AI-driven hotels, atom bombs, and ordering pizza. I claimed that it was a matter of personal worldview as to whether doing or not doing something was right or wrong.
What if we solve for tradeoffs versus morality?
What if instead of determining if something should be done, we examine the tradeoffs of doing or not doing something. We start by looking at the immediate effects and systematically expand to second and third order effects. We consider the impacts on others. We consider the impacts on ourselves. And we ask ourselves — can we live with the outcome.
I have a moral compass. And the more and more I reflect on it, the more and more I believe that my compass is not about being right, but it’s about tolerance threshold. I end up assessing if the impact of a decision is below or above my thresholds of tolerance immediately after the decision, a year later, and 5 years later. I find that in the context of tolerance, I feel more contentment.
Well what of right v wrong… could I do something that I could tolerate that may be wrong? Well I argue what standard is used for determining wrong. There are so many ways to look and moralize the world that I don’t believe any one way can truly bring us peace. Certainly a person without a belief in something greater is just as capable of doing something just and loving as the person who recites the Nicene creed. For that reason, I abandon that type of moral view and prefer the framework of tolerance.
The fun and difficult part of my framework is deciding what I can and what I will tolerate — the tradeoffs I will make to achieve a sense of contentment and equanimity. I find that there’s much more that I can tolerate about life and others, and I find that I am able to give myself more grace.
