Moral Action- The distribution of power

 A couple days ago I wrote my brainstorm on the components of moral action. When I say moral here what I am referring to is action that sustains the solidarity of a community/society. Solidarity is mutually desired, mutually felt, and mutually shared. It is what brings people into harmony with one another.  Any action that works towards this goal is moral; whereas any action that does more to separate people than it does to unite them must be thought of as immoral. I have suggested that moral action has three components: motivation, knowledge, and methods. In any situation where a person has the potential to act there is a right reason to to act (motivation), a right set of skills to   I would like to redefine the idea of methods to "methods of distribution" or just distribution. How The right motivations and the right knowledge are put to use, this is what is meant by distribution. I suggest that even if a person has the right motivation and the right knowledge, without the right distribution their actions cannot be called moral. In fact, chances are they are immoral. To show this I would like to share with the reader a story. The story is called "The God of Peace." The God of Peace is a short children's story that is written as part of Naoki Urasawa's manga Monster. The story goes like this:

The God of Peace was very busy. He had to blow his trumpet all day long and didn't have time to look into the mirror.

The God of Peace's trumpet brought happiness to everyone. He did not have any time to look into the mirror and poured amazing water to the land. The water created lush mountains, made farming land fertile and grew flowers in the process.

The God of Peace was very busy. He did not have time to look into the mirror and gave names to everyone.

"Your name is Otto. Your name is Hans. Your name is Tomas."

"And your name is Johan."

Johan gave his hat to the God of Peace as an expression of thanks for giving him a name.

The God of Peace was very happy and wanted to see how he looked with the hat. That was when he first looked at himself in the mirror.

However, the reflection in the mirror was that of a MONSTER!

The monster said, "You are me. And I am you."

    What can we learn from this story? There is a God of Peace. What are the motivations of his actions? The God of Peace wants to bring happiness to everyone. To do this he blowed his trumpet, created lush mountains, fertile farmlands, and grew pretty flowers. The God of Peace even gives the people names. A name is the basis of an identity, healthy and fertile land is the basis of a community. The God of Peace is working to bring happiness to everyone. Is this not the right motivation? The God of Peace knows how to work the land to make it good and he knows what individual people need to be good (some sense of identity). Is this not the right knowledge? To be able to make an environment fertile and to give people assurance in who they are without a doubt requires knowledge. Assured people and healthy land are the basis of a flourishing society. And yet, when the God of Peace finally has time to look at himself in the mirror... he is a MONSTER!

     I took this too be literal not figurative; meaning that what "the God of Peace" was doing was actually hurting everyone, not helping them. How could it be hurting them?! The people were fed, happy, and safe doesn't that make the God of Peace's actions moral? I do not think it does, and here is why. You often hear people say they don't want a "knight in shinning armor," or they are not looking for some "superman to save the day" why is that? It is because if you had  knight in shinning armor or a superman taking care of all your problems, making life easy and completely safe, they would be crippling you. You would become so dependent on them that you would not know how to function without them. Let's go back to the story. The God of Peace tells people who they are, he effectively manages their agriculture; imagine what would happen if he were to disappear. It would be chaos. That is why when he looks in the mirror he realizes he is a monster. Before there was a God of Peace how did the people survive? They had their own knowledge and their own motivations. Sure their knowledge was nowhere near the level of the God of Peace's; sure their motivations were no where near the level of the God of Peace's; but they at least had some knowledge and motivation. As things are in the story all knowledge and motivation is monopolized by the God of Peace, it is not evenly distributed. So what happens when the God of Peace dies, or when the God of Peace is sick, or if he has an emotional breakdown? Society breaks down.

    It is irresponsible to monopolize the motivation and knowledge of a community into the bodies of a single or a few individuals no matter who they are. This is an almost universally accepted fact of the real world. That is why when we have something we want to protect or sustain we create multiple failsafes. No competent machine integrates the entirety of its functions through a single gear. To the contrary, truly important machinery not only divides its mechanics among many separate components, but it also contains multiple failsafes. The more centralized the mechanics of a machine is the easier it will break. I realize thinking of communities as machines might be displeasing to some given the connotations attributed to the word machine, but please temporarily put those aside. I do not mean to imply that communities are cold, static, mechanical, or lifeless. What I am trying to convey with the machine analogy is that like a machine, communities are composed of the integration of a multitude of factors (parts) that harmonize together into a larger function. And just like machines communities can break if certain factors are not taken into consideration.

    The topic of this essay is moral action. What I am suggesting here, is that in addition to solidifying the bonds between people morality should also work to be self-sustaining. What good is the ability to form a union if it is prone to dissolve as quickly as you can pull it together? Moral action is motivated by creating solidarity between people, it is equipped with the proper knowledge to supply those people with meaningful lives, but it is also designed to last. i am arguing that having the right motivation and the right knowledge is not as unheard of as it might have been several centuries or millennia ago. At this point in time humanity has produced enough literature and enough science to be able to conceive the right motivations for an action and the right knowledge to complete it (not that it always happens, but it is at least somewhat common). However, what I do not think we have done a good job developing is the right means of distribution of these things. Our actions, be they individual actions or the actions of nations, are often too centralized. To put it another way, I am suggesting that the superman model inherently fails at saving society. If you want to help your community, help your family, help your world, it must be done with them, not for them. You might have the right motivations, and you might even possess the right knowledge to do this, but if you fail to distribute the responsibility/ownership of these things across the community you are attempting to effect, then your efforts will be ultimately immoral. You will look into the mirror one day and realize you are a MONSTER!!!