2011-11-24 23:18:49 +01:00
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---
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title: Teaching Morality Through Examples
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date: 2011-11-24
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techne: :rough
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episteme: :believed
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---
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# Introduction
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Traditionally, morality is approached through definitions and rules. I tell you
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"consequences matter" and then you know that consequences are morally important.
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This doesn't work. Centuries of debates have shown that no rule really works. At
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worst, it introduces politics. Now it's [consequentialists][Consequentialism]
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vs. [deontologists][Deontology] and we don't get anywhere.
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I want to try a different way. In education, we already know that definitions
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and rules are useless. We need examples and classifications. The words we use
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aren't relevant. So I'm not going to teach you "morality". I'm teaching you a
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specific concept that matters a lot to me. Sometimes I call it *morality*. But
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this time I'm going to call it *liangzhi*. You probably don't know what liangzhi
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means. That's good. There won't be any wrong associations in your mind. It isn't
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a concept that maps to any particular word. You can't translate it. But you can
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learn it anyway.
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Here is how. I will give you a couple of examples. For each example, I will tell
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you if it is liangzhi or not. Then I will give you some unclassified examples
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and ask you if you think they are liangzhi. (Please really answer.) Then I tell
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you if you're right. After the examples, you should get it. (If you don't, I
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failed.) You might not know how to put liangzhi into words and worry. Or you
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might want to say "Oh, liangzhi means X!". Please don't do either of these
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things. Just accept "I now know what muflax means by liangzhi". This is all you
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need. You don't need theories or definitions. You just need to know. Then right
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action will follow.
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# Liangzhi
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## Consent
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## Contracts
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## Duties
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## Honor
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## Liangzhi
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# Some Comments
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This teaching approach is called [Direct Instruction][]. It's based on
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[Engelmann][]'s [Theory of Instruction][]. The name "liangzhi" means "innate
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knowledge" and comes from [Confucianism][]. I took it from [Wang Yangming][].
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The sub-concepts are similarly taken from Pali, Chinese and other languages. You
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can google them if you want. The meanings I taught you don't exactly correspond
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to the original ones, but that doesn't matter. Labels are irrelevant. The more
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alien they are, the better. What you need are wordless ideas and using a
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language you already know will just confuse you.
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The idea that you only need to properly understand something and then right
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action will always follow is called the [Unity of Knowledge and Action][] in
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Yangming's philosophy. You are never divided. You can never fail to do what is
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right. You can only be confused.
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I have covered several important positions in morality. Please don't think I'm
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directly advocating a specific take on them, or that you have to adopt them.
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This is not about politics. However, these topics have lots of good discussion.
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2011-11-26 01:58:08 +01:00
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- Antinatalism
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- Deontology
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