Garrett Young

An Argument for Virtuous Behavior How should one behave to minimize unnecessary suffering and maximize benefits? Is it practical to be virtuous? For years my interest in these questions stemmed from a casual curiosity. Recently, my motivation to find practical, fact-based answers to these questions increased. While working at a poorly organized agency led by short sighted management, I noticed the consequences of these errors resulted in a chaotic, absurd, and unstable environment My search led me to various reliable resources. I practised paying close attention to my behaviors and the behaviors of others. I learned to listen to my intuition through the admonishments of my subconscious. All of these have helped to illuminate my path through these complex questions. Here I will organize my initial findings on consciousness, classifications of behavior, and the practical benefits of virtuousness. It is important to first consider the concept of consciousness. A simple definition of consciousness is the state of awareness of an internal world, that is to say, knowing one knows. Consciousness gradually develops from birth. Initially, an infant cannot differentiate their body from their mothers. As one grows from infancy through childhood, they learn to differentiate their actions from others, to recognize their face, to develop concepts such as their name, and to express preferences. One begins to be conscious of their emotions typically during adolescence. In addition to incrementally developing awareness, one may experience an awakening of sorts. Consider this recounting by Carl G. Jung given during an interview by John Freeman in 1959 for the BBC’s ​Face to Face ​series: “Do you remember the occasion when you first felt consciousness of your own individual self?” asked Freeman. “That was in my 11th year,” replied Jung. “There I suddenly, on my way to school, I stepped out of a mist. It was just as if I had been in a mist, walking in a mist and I stepped out of it and I knew ‘I am.’ I am what I am. And then I thought, ‘but what have I been before?’ Then I found that I had been in a mist, not knowing to differentiate myself from other things. I was just one thing among many things...” Jung and Freeman go on to briefly discuss Jung’s relationship with his parents ending the line of questions with: “...So the moment of self-revelation was closely connected with realizing the fallibility of your parents?” “Yes, one could say so.” In the beginning of life, it seems that individual experience is contiguous and undifferentiated, like a drop of water in a river. As a beings consciousness develops, their actions, in turn, develop from reactionary and impulsive to intentious and purposed. They begin to develop ideas and beliefs based on their experiences and imaginings. How one acts reflects what one truly believes. One believes what they experience. They experience that which they are aware of. Additionally, one senses the bodily limits of their awareness. Through these processes, they discover their natural autonomy. Understanding the consequences of one's actions helps the individual identify the value of their behaviors. The drive to survive provides a person's first impetus to action and first behavioral problem to solve. Self-preservation is a universal and primary motivator to living things. Therefore, I call the first behavioral classification Survival. The impulses to eat, drink, sleep, avoid harm, and regulate body temperature are ubiquitous in the human experience. These needs are experienced daily and, in modern life, easily met with comparatively less effort and stress than one’s ancestors. These natural and instinctive drives captivate our attention with desire, pleasure, or potentially pain, when activated. If these needs are not satisfied then one experiences increased stress, discomfort, and pain as a biological call to action. When satisfied, a sense of relief and joy is experienced. Each being creates behavioral schemes and enacts them to satiate these drives. Consider the experience of hunger during a typical day at home. While fully engrossed watching a TV show, a need to eat suddenly penetrates one’s mind without any prior thought. Depending on the strength of the impulse, one’s attention is split between the TV and the feeling to eat. Almost immediately and without much effort, the mind identifies available resources, develops multiple plans of action, and assess the costs and benefits of enacting the plans. In mere seconds, a plan to eat is in one’s mind and the decision to carry it out is presented all while simply watching TV. This impulse, planning, and action pattern occurs for each of the survival needs. Additionally, short and long term consequences are considered and accounted for in generating solutions. Behaviors and schemes that put one's survival at risk are discarded or carefully reconsidered in an effort to decrease risk. Interestingly, this category can be taken for granted due to its instinctive nature and the ease of resolution afforded by our technological resources and modern lifestyle. The conscious being begins to become aware of patterns of behavior, including awareness of the consequences of their actions and their various aspects, through repeated attempts to satiate their survival needs. The accumulation of the knowledge of these patterns belongs to the behavioral classification I call Truth. Patterns of behavior that meet one's survival needs inhibit the drive to fulfill those needs, end the associated suffering, and trigger pleasure and satisfaction as a reward. One’s emotional responses to stimuli help to impress the significance of an experience within their memory. One remembers what hurt them and what helped them. When a survival need reactivates, one may recall the viable behavioral patterns they previously enacted. This saves computation time and energy expenditure. The more time one has with a satiated mind the more attention they can spend towards actively improving their behavioral patterns. These patterns may exist as a formula; if I do X then I get Y. These formulas are considered True when following them consistently produces the promised results. These concepts become as real as objects to the conscious being and can be shared with others. Individuals with the same experience are able to discuss their experience thereby sharing with others and potentially improving their understanding. Through communication, one becomes further aware of the limits of their awareness and the unique and private nature of their thoughts. They realize that what they know, others do not and that what they say becomes something others now know. They learn they can present inaccurate accountings, fallible solutions, and misleading actions; if one does X they get Z or if one does Q they get Y. In doing so one rejects their real experience and twists reality for themselves and others. Relying on pretenses can result in error and pain which increases unnecessary suffering and risks the continuation of life. We remember people and objects that help or hurt us. We value things that help us and avoid things that hurt us. This valuation lead us to the view of things as good and bad, as desired and undesired and to the development of morality. I call the third behavioral classification Good. Humans live in social groups e.g. families, communities. Morally right or “good” behavior is taught by family members, peers, and members of an individual's community. It is generally accepted that, at a very basic and simple level, hindering life is wrong and perpetuating it is right. Morality is further shaped by an individual’s thoughts and emotions (i.e. one’s consideration of the costs and benefits of doing right or wrong and one’s feelings when right or wrong behaviors are performed to and by the individual). One notices and understands, through empathy, another’s emotional responses. They experience the consequences of the actions of others as they interact with them. One develops a sense of the quality of their peers by compiling the results of multiple interactions with them. This sense of quality is called character. Doing wrong may have resulted in disadvantageous consequences not limited to degradation, retaliation, expulsion, and even death. Doing right may have produced survival advantages including reciprocation, companionship, and favorable consideration. Take for example the lives of goby fish and pistol shrimp. Some species of goby fish and pistol shrimp develop a mutualistically symbiotic relationship. These relationships are formed in their juvenile stages and last well through adulthood. The goby fish has better eyesight than the pistol shrimp. The goby fish alerts the pistol ship to predators giving the pistol shrimp a better chance at survival. The pistol shrimp can dig burrows in safe spaces. The pistol shrimp digs a burrow and shares it with the goby fish giving the goby fish a better chance at survival. Deciding how to behave is a complex process. I learned it is important to consider what results one desires as well as the limits one is working with when deciding how to act. Identifying these behavioral classifications and the pros and cons of acting within them provides a framework for evaluating behavior. If one desires to live with the minimal amount of unnecessary suffering then choosing a behavioral pattern that is simultaneously in line with each classification increases their chances of success. By evaluating the consequences of doing right by others, with truth, it becomes clear that behaving virtuously is a practically valid solution for perpetuating the survival of the individual and the group.