Morality – Nature’s Crowning Achievement: The Making of Our Moral Compass

By Bill Wilson

In his previous book, Faith Refractioned, the author suggested that faith needs to be periodically refracted by looking at it through the lens of our prevailing understanding of the world.

For our fathers, this was the world of “supernatural beings” and “mystical powers.” For us today, it is the world of science and reason—and faith will only reveal its true beauty when refracted through this prism.

In this book, the author addresses an argument made by religious traditionalists, which says that without God or gods, there can be no morality. He outlines how morality can be explained as a natural phenomenon, how it helps humanity survive and thrive, and how it can be encapsulated within the framework of a moral compass.

The author observes that for our forefathers, morality was obedience to the laws of God. But with the belief in God in sharp decline in most of the Western world, morality either doesn’t exist or it is somehow part of our evolved nature.

Accordingly, through much trial and error, an almost global consensus has been achieved about the elements of a moral code. But this consensus is fragile and demands constant nurturing if it is to withstand the pressures of modern, high-speed living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781728376615

Bill Wilson

Bill Wilson is a transplanted Alabama native and has been a proud Mississippian for fifty of his fifty-seven years. He has been a working artist for the past thirty years and spent three years as artist-in-residence at the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion.

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MORALITY –

NATURE’S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT

The Making of our Moral Compass

BILL WILSON

AuthorHouse™ UK

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Bloomington, IN 47403  USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)

UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)

© 2023 Bill Wilson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/06/2022

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7660-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7661-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921181

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995,

1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Without civic morality communities perish, without personal morality their survival has no value.

Bertrand Russell, Authority and the Individual

DEDICATION

To my wife, Rita, who has been a constant source of encouragement

and a perceptive contributor to my reflections and writings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To those many people whom I have met along the way

who have caused me to reflect and adjust.

To Kieran, for his guiding hand in all matters digital.

To Rita, my wife, for thoughtfully and painstakingly reviewing every draft.

To my good friend Henry, for his insightful comments.

To all the team at AuthorHouse, especially Homer for his encouragement and guidance through the publishing process.

To you all, my grateful thanks.

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE

Changing Times

Chapter 1     Three Hundred Years of Enlightenment Thinking

Chapter 2     Morality and the Enlightenment

PART TWO

Morality Today

Chapter 3     The Existential Necessity for a Moral Compass

Chapter 4     Characteristics of a Moral Compass

PART THREE

Developing and Nurturing our Moral Identity

Chapter 5     The Need to Take Time Out to Reflect

Chapter 6     Outstanding Lives, Stories, Poems, Sayings, and Songs

PART FOUR

What Do We Tell Our Children?

Chapter 7     Moral Stories for Children

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Referenced Bibliography

About The Author

PREFACE

This book is not an academic treatise but simply the product of sixty years of sailing the sea of life, reading, thinking, conversing, and engaging with family, friends, and colleagues. I am not a scholar, nor an expert in neuroscience, or psychology, or philosophy, or theology, but simply an ordinary person who has studied and practiced professionally in a number of fields, and who has felt a constant compulsion to seriously reflect upon significance and meaning as events have impacted upon me day after day. I find myself constantly driven by the words of Socrates: ‘An unexamined life is not worth living.’

I long ago became fascinated by the question ‘Who am I?’

For many years, in trying to find the answer to this question, I simply followed the model of thinking of nonconformist Christianity bequeathed to me by my illustrious forefathers (many of them founders and leaders of the Primitive Methodist Church in the north of England) Gradually, however, through following the path of reason into the world of science via the world of engineering, I found that a ‘bottom-up’ approach to understanding the meaning of life was far more satisfying to my inner being than the ‘top-down’ revelation model which cocooned my forefathers. This change was symbolized for me by the increasing use in ordinary society of the word psychological and the decreasing use of the word spiritual in everyday conversations. I interpreted this, not as a denigration of the non-physiological dimension of human life, but rather to signify a more meaningful, rational understanding of it. And with such an understanding, the realization that the responsibility for achieving fulfilment and enrichment of our lives lay within our own hands as developing human beings and human societies, and not in obedience to the dictates of a supernatural power.

This book is about my personal journey through these complex issues.

In every field, no matter the scholarly depth of enquiry, or the razor-sharp focus on minutiae, ultimately the participant must find some way to live out authentically the ordinary routines of life. In arriving at this necessary accommodation of everyday life, some purity of understanding – from the expert’s point of view – may be lost. So be it. Nevertheless, despite the absence of purity or perfection, the living practice of life will have been enhanced. This is the wellspring of this book.

From such an encounter with life, over many years and embracing a number of fields, I have come to an understanding of human development as an organic process, part physiological, part psychological (neither of which is exclusive of the other): from the moment of conception cells begin to divide and interact and build up electrochemical reactions which culminate, usually in sequence, in the emergence of a self- regulating, self-aware bundle of energy; this bundle of electrochemical energy then, amazingly, begins to probe for an understanding of itself and the impact upon it of the world around it. There are two fundamental characteristics of this new ‘being’ – a determination to survive (normally expressed as the ‘will to live’), and an insatiable curiosity (at first expressed through engaging the five developing senses, and later through language, asking ‘why?’ about everything encountered in the world around it). This extraordinary ‘being’ presently stands at the apex of the whole evolutionary structure of nature, and I cannot but stand in awe of it!

The most critical term in the above paragraph is self-aware, for it expresses a state of being which as yet defies explanation. As Sam Harris says in his inspiring book Waking Up:

Whatever the ultimate relationship between consciousness and matter, almost everyone will agree that at some point in the development of complex organisms like ourselves, consciousness seems to emerge. This emergence does not depend on a change of materials, for you and I are built of the same atoms as a fern or a ham sandwich. Instead, the birth of consciousness must be the result of organization: Arranging atoms in certain ways appears to bring about an experience of being that very collection of atoms. This is undoubtedly one of the deepest mysteries given to us to contemplate.

The purpose of this book is the exploration not of this mystery but rather the emergence of morality within consciousness once in being. It therefore explores the interplay between the two characteristics of ‘being’ mentioned above, the physiological and psychological, and the resultant recognition that cooperation with the ‘other’, that is, everything outside the ‘self’, is the best way not only to secure basic survival but also to satisfy the higher desires now released. It is the satisfaction of this non-physiological (one might say spiritual) characteristic, which I believe to be of fundamental importance to a deep sense of fulfilment in the inner being.

At our birth then, we are primarily a bundle of electrochemical energy but with these two extraordinary defining attributes: a mechanism which enables us to evaluate how best to preserve that energy, and an enquiring mind intent on exploring every aspect of ‘being’, both within and without. Initially, along with the rest of the animal kingdom, preserving that energy simply means finding sustenance for the body. Gradually, however, as that existential need is satisfied, our enquiring mind asks more and more searching questions and begins to evaluate not only the best way to secure its physical survival, but also how it can best satisfy developing inner longings for a sense of fulfilment, contentment, and peace. It is as if we need to find vehicles which will utilize the electrochemical energy of our being so perfectly that we become truly harmonized beings: we need to be plugged in, as it were, to the elemental essence of all life, for our experience of being to become truly authentic. In this process our relationship to the ‘other’ is of utmost importance.

Our insatiable curiosity, our compulsion to reason, to ask the question ‘why?’ which arises within us almost from the day we are conceived – certainly from the dawn of our consciousness of self – has brought us huge benefits. It has led to a continuous enrichment of our experience of life through a fuller understanding of ourselves and the world around us. It has conquered many of our diseases. It has overcome many grievous obstacles. It has greatly expanded our horizons. It has brought us, and continues to bring us, insight into the very intricate web of life itself. With such insight the humdrum, the mundane, the animalistic, the ordinary, is transformed into the extraordinary, the amazing, the profound. Life becomes ‘holy’ only in its totality, and we cannot but stand in awe of it. From time to time our souls are uplifted and enhanced by our glimpse of the unseen agent responsible for all these transformations – love. We become aware that, for the human species, it is love which holds everything together – not hate, not envy, not pride, not selfishness, not power, not status, not possessions, only love; that our own sense of fulfilment and happiness is inextricably bound up in the happiness of the ‘other’.

Our curiosity then, gives rise to an evaluation of that which is ‘good’ for us and that which is ‘bad’. And gradually we come to recognize that having a concern for the ‘other’ outside ourselves is what ultimately brings us total contentment within our inner being. And the ‘other’ is everything that exists outside