On Morals

Here is a question I read in a philosophy handbook on morals:

Question: John is a moral philosophy student and he believes in moral relativism. His professor, who believes in moral absolutism didn’t like John so he failed him in an exams though John got good grades. Is John right to be angry or to protest the assessment of his paper?

Answer: All beliefs are personal convictions and personal convictions should not have a place in professional/academic relationships. John was supposed to be assessed based on the absolute merit (rightness or wrongness) of the answers he gave in the exams and not based on his personal beliefs. 

I find this scenario very interesting because I think we all encounter it daily in human organisational systems. It’s like saying: Mr. A, believes he can live without breathing in oxygen. If Mr. B suffocates him and he faints, has Mr. B been immoral? 

Lying is immoral

Complete optimism is naivity and every fraudster requires that his victims be optimistic. In my country today, there is religious ecstacy and people are so optimisic that they deny the existence of many problems. Still, denial is not resolution. Nature doesn’t care who believes what. Some even say problems should be seen as opportunities. Right! So if the IRS or the army is dysfunctional does that mean people can start their own armies or tax agencies? And if we all try to solve problems for profit, wouldn’t the common good be in limbo? Maturity always comprise some element of realism which is often mistaken for pessimism. Truth is, optimism indeed can lead to the biggest opportunities or blunders. So lets not only emphasize the former as faith mongers always do. Half truths are lies and lying is immoral.

In the Talons of Neocolonialism

We are bleeding 

Our mothers are bleeding

And so are our fathers

And with every struggle the talons 

Enter deeper into our flesh

There is really nothing we can do

The youth are wayward and we

Can’t blame them

The leaders are bickering over 

A bowl of banku and soup

The people cry famine

Nkrumah, Lumumba, Sankara and 

Others warned us but we heeded not

They said he became a dictator

But at least we know he loved Africa.

Now Africa is just a shipwreck 

– An extension of Europe

We cannot rise unless we begin

To learn and act together

We cannot rise unless we unite

Our people are being exploited

They will continue to suffer

They will continue to die

Unless we unite

We are bleeding

Africa is bleeding in the talons

of the bald eagle.