Forces that impact the choices we make

Reclaiming the ‘science’ in Moral Science [an episodic essay]


Given the inviolability of the principle of being and becoming, and conceding that belongingness is going to be a factor that determines choices that we can make in the process of being and becoming, the question of how and why we make the choices becomes relevant to understand. Learning by simulation is both natural and easy; it is the primary force that impacts the choices we make. We learn to do and be as that to which we belong and want to belong. When we are born we already belong: to a gender, a race, a cohort with specific genetic predispositions, abilities and disabilities, a historical time frame, and so on. Many of these givens overlap and our choices are already made for us as we just learn to be as those in the group.  With time and exposure we want to belong to other groups and hence consciously learn to mimic them as well. Experience teaches us what works for us and what does not. Therefore, this becomes another major force that determines our choices. And, at every point of our lives we are conscious of where we are, and what we have become, and we are likely to think about where we want to get to. Depending on the outcomes of these mental calisthenics we make the choices we do reflecting on what we have done, could have done and ought to do, and contemplating on where we have come to, where we were, and where we want to go. Learning (by simulation and from experience), and contemplating and reflecting are forces that propel us through the processes of being and becoming, as we ceaselessly endeavour to the ideal of belongingness.

[More to come in the coming days]


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