Are you a decent person?
I want to believe that I’m a good person. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m a good person. As I walk down the street, you won’t find me kicking kittens or tripping old ladies. I don’t litter. Sometimes I even pick up other people’s litter, provided it doesn’t look too gross.
I do not steal or cheat. I do not lie beyond what is normal, which research shows is still a possibly disturbing amount. (A University of Massachusetts study found that 60% of people can’t go 10 minutes without lying.)
Determining if we are a good person is predicated on our adherence to a set of rules. Following the rules is good, breaking them bad.
Thou shall. Thou shall not. The rules of behavior fall under a theory of moral philosophy called deontology, a word I’m using to prove that I know what deontology means, an action rooted in pride and a desire to appear smart — two things which may make me a “bad” person.
We all have encountered situations in which the rules don’t seem to help determine the right thing to do, and consequentialism — the view that the best actions are those who benefit the most people — can put us in some situations that seem impossible. For example, saving five strangers from a burning building is morally favored over saving our own, single child.
Those who can make that kind of sacrifice are classified as “altruists,” and they are decidedly rare. It is a standard that most of us can’t match. But if we cannot be altruists, how can we figure out if we are a good person?
In a new book published by University of Chicago Press, “A Decent Life: Morality for the Rest of Us,” Clemson University Professor Todd May does not offer definitive answers, but he does give us a framework for thinking about these questions that moves beyond “rules.” Importantly, it does so in a way that’s accessible to those of us who are not students of philosophy.
May acts as an occasional adviser to NBC’s “The Good Place,” a show determined to illuminate moral philosophy without falling into the trap of definitive pronouncements. “A Decent Life” seems to be written in the same spirit. Rather than setting the bar at being an “exemplary moral person,” May suggests viewing the world through the lens of the decent, the well-meaning, the kind of person most of us — with some notable highly public exceptions — likely want to be.
May frames this through a series of chapters discussing decency toward those around us, decency toward the wider world, decency toward the non-human, and finally how politics and decency intersect. While no one would confuse it for light reading, May’s style is conversational, frequently funny and overall, he comes across as a very, shall we say, decent guy.
May’s book is not prescriptive but is actually something better: a mediation on how striving for decency is a route toward personal satisfaction and happiness, even in a world that may seem to disadvantage the decent. May shares the conclusions he has personally come to on these questions, but those conclusions do not forestall disagreement.
Being decent is not a mindset or a fixed state, but a process — something we may seek to practice, but in which we inevitably fall short, at least some of the time. The book acknowledges the complexity of human beings and the world at large and offers a way of thinking about those complexities without falling into the dreaded trap of “moral relativism.”
Put simply, I am a better person for having read this book.
by Miriam Toews has the right degree of emotional intimacy and bigger-picture engagement with culture that Laurie seems drawn to.