Morals and Ethics: How to Live Well

'What is a Good Life?' 

...asks Donald Dworkin in the New York Review of Books (Issue February 10, 2011)

I wonder what I am striving for, what I am hoping to achieve in my life or with my life. I have done wrong and made mistakes and know the difference - consciousness. I have no problem admitting to making mistakes and realise with experience how much I have learned from them and how little I need to feel responsible for them as long I do learn.  Doing wrong on the other hand, can have learning but a conscious decision to do wrong is very different. That is where the guilt comes.

What is guilt? Is it derived from my Catholic schooling, my parents influence, my peers or is it 'cognitive dissonance' (Festinger, 1957)? What do I do about it? I either change my belief that I am wrong or about what is wrong so I won't feel guilty. Or I find out information that might exonerate me or provide circumstances in which I might not be wrong. Or I demote the importance of the action of the wrong doing. Or I do the right thing so that my actions are in line with my beliefs. Dworkin (2011) suggests:

 '...it is unlikely that we will ever achieve a full integration of our moral, political, 
and ethical values that feels authentic and right. 
That is why living responsibly is a continuing project and never a completed task. 
But the wider the network of ideas we can explore, 
the further we can push that project.'

Is avoiding guilt or cognitive dissonance a good enough reason to do the right thing? Stosny (2008) advocates using the use of our sense of  'responsibilty' rather than guilt to fuel our actions, because it comes from 'basic compassion, with its inherent motivation to improve, appreciate, connect, or protect'. Dworkin (2011) considers ' we have a responsibility to live well and believe that living well means creating a life that is not simply pleasurable but good in that critical way.'

The consciousness I mentioned earlier which indicates the difference in my mind between making mistakes and 'doing wrong' comes across in Dworkin's (2011) explanation of why we should 'live well' (my emphasis):

We are charged to live well 
by the bare fact of our existence as self-conscious creatures with lives to lead.
 We are charged in the way we are charged by the value of anything entrusted to our care.
It is important that we live well; 
not important just to us or to anyone else, 
but just important.

Much in the same way that Smith (1982) mentioned the importance of 'process' over 'product', Dworkin (2011) considers:

The final value of our lives is adverbial, not adjectival -
a matter of how we actually lived, 
not of a label applied to the final result.

So if I want to know, the 'meaning of life', perhaps I need look no further than Dworkin (2011) when he says:

'We can think of living well as giving meaning - ethical meaning, 
if we want a name - to a life.'

Dworkin, R. (2011) What is a Good Life? The New York Review of Books, Issue February 10
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Smith, M. (1980, 1982) Creators not Consumers, NAYC Publications /Youth Clubs UK, Second Edition
Stosny, S. (2008) Guilt vs. Responsibility is Powerlessness vs. Power, Understanding emotional pollution and power, Issue May in Anger in the Age of Entitlement, Pschyology Today

Doing the Right Thing Right

So you want to do the right thing.

1. On the way to the supermarket a young woman asks you for money.
2. A man says he is lost and stops you on the street needing a phone.
3. An 85 year old woman is sitting smiling on the sofa after having a fall and feels well enough to go home where she will have a nap.

What would you do? What helps you make a decision? Do the following accounts help make your mind up?

1. The young woman is a known drug addict
2. The man has an Irish accent and a piece of paper with a phone number and offers you 50p for the call.
3. The older woman's grey hair is matted with blood where there's a small bump and she experiences episodes of dementia.

That's all that I knew or could tell from what I saw and heard. I wanted to help in each case and do the right thing but...

1. I did not want to give the young woman money to feed her habit.
2. I did not want to be conned by a phone scam.
3. I did not want the woman to go home and have a nap and not wake up (due to concussion).

 So...

1. I asked the young woman if she wanted a sandwich and when I returned, with what she called a 'posh BLT', she gave me a 'slap' on the butt with thanks and a smile.
2. I used my phone and called the number for the man and his friend gave me instructions for where he lived and he thanked me saying he appreciated help for and from a 'total stranger'.
3. I made sure the older woman did not go home before being seen by paramedics and her daughter being contacted. 

Would my actions have been different if I had not had people who witnessed what I did? Are my actions those of someone who wants to do the right thing to avoid feelings of guilt or judgement? Is it a belief in 'What goes round comes round' or 'Pay it forward'? Are my ethics or my morals at play?

Is it altruistic? If I got didn't benefit from it or suffered no loss in not doing it - yes. But it made me feel good and if I didn't do it I'd feel guilty. So does it mean if it's not altruistic that its not doing the right thing for the right reasons?

How do you do the right things right?