I say this by way of explanation for what follows : I have been taking a course called Moralities Of Daily Life via an app from Yale University called Coursera.

It is a program that lets you take tons of Yale courses via watching the lectures over streaming video. That’s nothing big, a lot of places do that. But via Coursera, you can also do all the required readings, check out the syllabus, see the prof’s bibliography for the course, and lots of other scholarly things, all from your Android device.

All in all, it’s really bitchin’, and I am so stoked that this kind of thing even exists. I was one of those rare students who were actually there to learn throughout my education, and so the ability to learn all I want for free in a way strikingly similar to actually taking the course is just plain amazing.

They even give you a sort of certificate in the end verifying that you completed the course. It’s nothing like an actual degree in anything but still, nice.

I have already finished watching the first week’s lectures, so when I finish the required reading (and watching), I will be ready to take the quiz.

Which I will crush, of course.

Anyhow, it is with all this awesome philosophy about morality swirling around in my brain that I posted this to Facebook :

“Your question for tonight : is it possible to morally transgress against oneself? Can harming oneself be just as immoral as harming another? Or does our sense of individual autonomy and personal sovereignty preclude such judgments?
What would you do if you were to be morally judged on your actions towards yourself?”

It is a question I have had in the back of my mind since college, but it was only when I started typing it into Facebook that I realized what an amazingly hard and complicated question it was.

And of course, I thrive on difficult and complicated moral questions (I’m sick, I know) and so it is these questions that I will wrestle with tonight.

And you all get to watch! For free!

Clearly, when it comes to the individual unto themselves, moral thinking falls down the rabbit’s hole. Trying to apply moral thinking to one’s action towards themselves is like trying to bite your elbow, or argue with your own echo. All of our thoughts on morality are directed outward from the individual. Morality is meant to guide us in dealing with others in an ethical way.

But do we have moral obligations to ourselves?

Certainly, there is no issue of consent. That, at least, can be safely removed from this messy equation. Everything you do to yourself you consent to just by doing it. You might do things that some part of you does not want to do, but no matter how you look at it, you consent to what you do to yourself.

No matter how self-destructive those things might be.

Still, arguably, if we care about ourselves at least as much as we care about others, from that point of view we would have a moral obligation to treat ourselves at least as well as we would treat a stranger to whom we were favorably inclined.

So can you sin against yourself, then? Can acts which are against your own well-being and self-interest be judged as wrong?

It seems absurd to say they can. It violates our sense of autonomy. We tend to assume, in the democratic world, that everyone is free to do as they please with themselves, and pursue whatever courses of action strike us as a good idea. Even just introducing the concept of morality into how we deal with ourselves feels like a violation against that sacred autonomy, even without any kind of external enforcement implicit in the bargain.

So is the kingdom of ourselves an anarchy? Hardly. We judge our own actions and even our own thoughts all the time. We keep a running tally of whether or not we are good people, and no other scorekeeper can override it. To avoid guilt, we strive to behave in a moral way. Clearly, we are capable of judging ourselves, sometimes quite harshly.

Then why does it all fall down when we try to judge actions against ourselves? Is it just that it creates a terrible kind of identity feedback, self reflecting self reflecting self ad infinitum? Is that what makes this such a difficult topic to contemplate? Or is it something else?

Certainly, the simplest and most appealing answer is to simply say no, it is not possible to morally transgress against oneself. A self-directed action might be unwise, or stupid, or crazy, or even just against one’s best interests, but it cannot be wrong.

That is a very satisfying answer and is honestly good enough for a lot of people and it is only us crazed philosophers who have to take it further and wonder if that means that we are using a different standard of behaviour for us and for others.

But how to judge this? Certainly we cannot simply imagine ourselves doing the same thing to another person. As I said before, we inherently consent to what we do to ourselves. You cannot compare that to doing the same thing to another against their will. And if it is with their consent, then what is the problem?

A better test might be to imagine a loved one is doing the same thing to themselves. Does that upset you? Do you wish they would stop? Then maybe you had better stop doing it yourself. Perhaps it is a sin against self.

That is where the morality of self transects the more usual form of morality. What we do to ourselves does have a real impact on those who love and care about us. If you don’t believe me, then talk to the children of men who died and left their families to grieve because they refused to change their bad habits.

That’s all for tonight, but I might take it up again tomorrow.

I will talk to all you nice people out there again tomorrow, rain or shine.