Where do ethics come from?

As small children, our initial ethics are developed by instinct. Instincts guide us second-by-second, sometimes directing us toward a sense of connection by playing with and helping others, and sometimes toward a sense of control and autonomy by taking what we want or influencing others. As we navigate our world according to our inner needs of the moment, we come into conflict with other humans who have different inner needs.

Those conflicts help us develop rules for behavior based on how other humans are likely to react. Our experience leads us to a set of guidelines that include other people and their opinions. It’s not so much compassionate as it is predictive, but it’s an early stage of ethics in that it involves the first tempering of momentary inner instinct for the good of a longer-term purpose.

Once we include predictions of other people in our ethics, we have a lifetime of learning about other people. People are complex, and have a lot of influences we can’t see, so they can appear quite crazy to us. The first step in coping with this is usually to develop experimentally some basic rules that seem to work in current circumstances. We might call these “coping mechanisms” or “survival strategies”.

If we will live a life without a lot of change or travel, this might be enough to stay out of trouble. The downside to stopping there is that we must stay in our current situation. We’re not very free.

The historical ancestors of the ninja were forced out of familiar circumstances. Originally aristocracy, they had ways of being that had persisted for generations. When their world underwent radical change as a result of war, it became clear that their existing rules for life would now lead only to death.

This kind of crisis stimulates the desire to develop a larger understanding.

When the time comes to develop ethics that might transcend limited local circumstances, we have to use our intelligence and our experience to try to understand what went wrong, and how we might avoid it in the future.

We realize that certain truths persist across individuals. For example, no one likes to have real violence directed at them, and they are likely to respond unfavorably now or in the future. No one likes to be manipulated with lies, and anyone who discovers that they have been is likely to respond unfavorably.

These things are intellectually easy to understand, but they are hard to remember and implement under pressure. Because they are easy to understand, they might seem somewhat obvious during moment of calm reflection, and we might not give them much thought.

The whole purpose of ethics is to use our moments of calm reflection to develop guidelines for when things are crazy, threatening, and out of control.

If we do not do this, then we will act incorrectly in the moment of threat and stress. Once we calm down, we will easily understand the mistake we made, but it will be too late. The damage is done.

Thus, well-developed ethics protect us from ourselves. As little children, the rules of behavior seemed like limitations because they were imposed from the outside, or seemed related to the bizarre whims and attitudes of others. It’s quite possible to get to adulthood and still feel that way.

It is critical that we redefine ethics as personal protection guidelines based on intelligence and experience. It is imperative that we develop ethics by ourselves and for ourselves.

Of course, we can and should take the advice of our elders into consideration. We should not throw away every guideline we received from parents or institutions. Neither should we keep following them blindly, constrained by the inner voices and judgments of childhood. Instead, we should consider each one. From what threat was that guideline protecting us? Is that threat still valid in my life now? If so, does that guideline still apply in that same form, or should it be re-interpreted for more relevance in my life now?

In this process, some advice from childhood endures and remains true today. You will have an even deeper appreciation for and understanding of that advice. Other advice will need modification in form if not in spirit, and you will feel great relief in releasing the tension of trying to fulfill an inner obligation that doesn’t fit your life. You may also discover delightful new truths that the people of your childhood could not predict.

You will find yourself both ethical and free.