Aesthetic Morality and Character Building

The key feature of the 'aesthetic morality' I've tried to developed is that it aims for character building as opposed to the construction of a set of moral rules.

I don't just want to devise the perfect moral system, the perfect set of rules that much of moral philosophy strives for.

What I want to do is change my deepest habits and practices. Which I haven't done very well. But I'm trying.

I want to ask not, 'What is good?'

But, 'How does one become good?'

This may seem like the wrong order for these questions. For how does one know how to become good unless one knows what good is? Doesn't one need to have the end in mind before one devises the means?

I don't think so.

It seems strange. But somehow I think that talking about means, about the conduct of a process, might be a better way of achieving an end than talking about the end itself.

Means very well may be what Gandhi called 'ends in the making'.

The type of end that you would want is contained in the proper means.

If you try to devise the end, however, you run the risk of reverting to means that are not worthy of your end. If you decide you want to be class president, for example, and pursue that end by any means necessary, including lying and cheating, then you run the risk of corrupting the end (blowing the election or getting disqualified) by the reversion to those dubious means.

But if we ask ourselves first and foremost about means then our ends can only embody those means. If we commit to certain principles of action and thought, such as kindness or compassion, then our ends will naturally be in line with those means.

What I'm trying to say is that moral means will always lead to moral ends, but moral ends do not necessarily lead to moral means. Just because we ultimately want to do good for the world doesn't mean that we will pursue that good by noble means. We may become a murderer with good intentions. But if we put means first, and we choose nonviolence, compassion, forgiveness, empathy, and so on as our proper means, then our ends will most likely end up being good.

Proper means lead to proper ends.

Proper ends do not necessarily lead to proper means.

Aesthetic morality, then, is a means focused morality. That is, it puts the questions of means first. How do I become good? How do I become expressive and kind?

Somehow I decided that the means to moral living was habit formation. If I want to live well, I have to change my pre-reflective, unconscious thought and behavior. I have to go to my habitual core.

And I guess somehow that involves the question of ends more than the question of means. Because I never quite say what the end of moral living is. There is no end other than itself. It is a constant means. An end in the making.

Because what is the point of life other than to live it well? To love yourself and others? To try and help as many people as possible and hurt as many people as possible, all while sticking true to your character.

Maybe that isn't what life is about.

Sometimes that isn't what my life is about.

Sometimes it is about all sorts of confusing things.

Sometimes it is all about the angry customer in front of me that I'm dealing with.

Life grows and more often shrinks in size.

But in my best moments I'm seeing a big picture. I'm sticking close to my desired means. I'm acting in the ways that I know I want to act, without knowing what result they will produce. At my best I am smiling, eyebrow flashing, head tilting, making eye contact, and listening or talking.

I'm not sure what the end of all this is. But those are the means I most often want to use.

And somehow I think that aesthetic morality has something to do with this means focused thought.

I said that it is really all about character development. It is.

That sounds like an end.

But it can only be a means. Because one only becomes something by being it. One is only what one does. So there can be no end conception at the outset. One can only choose the means, and become through action.

Hmmm. Getting lost. I think I'm onto something here that I'll work out someday.