Philosophy, Ethics, and Cleanliness

The following article I'm going to link here discusses clean bodies and dirty minds. A recent psychology study showed that people who washed with soap and water were more inclined to be lenient when viewing activities ethical or unethical. Rather, lenient when it came to choosing what they considered satisfactorily moral or not. It made me wonder about how often we 'wash our hands' of the choices we make. Of course, people make that observation all the time when looking at other peoples’ choices:

“You can do what you want with your life, but I would never do that.”

“You guys can argue all you want, but I wash my hands of this situation.”

But, what about our own moral obligations to ourselves? Or our personal ethics when dealing with people we care about and/or friends? It is hard not to step in (or have the desire to) when we see someone dealing unkindly or acting in a way that is harmful to themselves or is simply wrong. But, when we make poor choices, ourselves, how do we reconcile this? Or, what if the choices we make aren’t wrong, but we feel guilty because things didn’t turn out the way we planned after taking a risk or a leap of intention? We feel we should have “known better”, “expected this the first time,” or we just beat the dead horse when thinking about how we could have foreseen the future. In my choices, sometimes I think not so much “what if”, but wonder if I can do something to eradicate my mistake or my results. It is of no use saying I could have avoided a choice I made. I’ve already made my decision. However, can we do something to wipe the slate clean? To change how we feel? To begin anew? That’s the problem with emotions. It seems the only way to wipe them clean is to wait. Time seems to be the solver, but time feels fickle. Sometimes it goes slow. Sometimes it goes fast. When we want it to speed up, it slows down. When we are happy, it moves on again quickly. In the meantime, we are left with the consequences of our choices or anything to ‘wash’ away our guilt or our feeling, whatever it is.

I just wish I knew sometimes what was best for me. I toss around these ideas in my head about what is ‘right’ for my career, for my state of mind, for my friendships, but I’m not sure I know. Or maybe it is that I lack the courage to choose because I am afraid of what I risk losing. With great risk, comes great reward, I always say. Perhaps I cannot even take my own advice seriously.



http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12630193&source=hptextfeature

Don't I know it.