Post Mormon Ethical Frameworks
Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2024 3:24 am
Adapted from the following interesting YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/iDqIi2pAedo
What do ex-Mormons do when their religious ethical framework falls away? What’s wrong with living without a rigid self imposed ethical framework? Are most ex-Mormons just living with an ad-hoc, flexible framework based loosely on the old Mormon one?
Any new ethical framework for post-Mormon atheists needs to be self-imposed, as we aren’t getting the rules from a religious authority any longer. And it needs to be rigid, planned, and deliberate, it can’t be just made up as we go along.
Why is thinking about this even worth the trouble? For better or worse the vast majority of modern people out there have not chosen to surrender to a specific philosophical or religious framework. When the framework is inconvenient, they break the rules or ignore them and live as if the framework doesn’t exist. Surrendering to the framework means following those rules even when you don’t want to. Should I cheat on my wife, now that I have left the Mormon framework? Why or why not?
Many ethical frameworks come from religious traditions with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom behind them. When you place yourself above them by picking and choosing unbound by any framework, then you are actually depriving yourself of that wisdom. It's better to completely surrender to a framework for as long as you can and then to leave the framework entirely when you can no longer do so. Just like we left Mormonism. But without any ethical framework people are more or less just making it up as they go along.
Without any rigidly followed ethical framework, every decision is essentially just based on emotion and short term self-interest. I like X, so it's good. I don’t like Y, so it's bad. This is how infants navigate reality. Many people have not matured past this stage because doing so takes effort and discipline.
The consequences of not surrendering to an ethical framework are considerable. Modern life is a constantly shifting chaos of inconsistency. What is wrong today might have been right just a year ago, which is an absolutely insane way of going through the world. The limitations of an ethical framework ground our choices in something more permanent, deliberate, and intentional.
So what can our framework look like? It could look like a chimera. You can take something from the Stoics, and something from the Buddhists, and something from the Christians and something from the existentialists, and so on.
Wherever you end up, eventually you're going to want to create a system that you'll be willing and able to surrender to wholeheartedly and this will require you to set limits on yourself. Limitations are necessary. They're like a skeleton which not only protects but facilitates locomotion, as it allows us to move through the world with some degree of confidence and integrity.
All of this is fairly abstract. What’s a real-world example of the pitfalls of ex-Mormons losing their ethical framework?
John Dehlin and John Larson have both noticed that ex-Mormons usually go through a crazy phase after leaving Mormonism. Many times they do unethical things that they would never have done before, like cheat on their wives. John Dehlin himself did this. It was likely easier to convince himself that it was acceptable behavior once he had lost the externally imposed ethical framework, and switched to just doing whatever felt good at the time.
Thoughts? Ideas? Do you have an ethical framework in your post Mormon life? Or do you just wing it and make it up as you go along? It’s easy to say you don’t murder, because most of us aren’t tempted to murder, but what about acting unethically when you know you can get away with it and there is no longer any external framework guilting you into acting ethically? Do you still just follow Mormon ethics without the Mormon belief?
https://youtu.be/iDqIi2pAedo
What do ex-Mormons do when their religious ethical framework falls away? What’s wrong with living without a rigid self imposed ethical framework? Are most ex-Mormons just living with an ad-hoc, flexible framework based loosely on the old Mormon one?
Any new ethical framework for post-Mormon atheists needs to be self-imposed, as we aren’t getting the rules from a religious authority any longer. And it needs to be rigid, planned, and deliberate, it can’t be just made up as we go along.
Why is thinking about this even worth the trouble? For better or worse the vast majority of modern people out there have not chosen to surrender to a specific philosophical or religious framework. When the framework is inconvenient, they break the rules or ignore them and live as if the framework doesn’t exist. Surrendering to the framework means following those rules even when you don’t want to. Should I cheat on my wife, now that I have left the Mormon framework? Why or why not?
Many ethical frameworks come from religious traditions with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom behind them. When you place yourself above them by picking and choosing unbound by any framework, then you are actually depriving yourself of that wisdom. It's better to completely surrender to a framework for as long as you can and then to leave the framework entirely when you can no longer do so. Just like we left Mormonism. But without any ethical framework people are more or less just making it up as they go along.
Without any rigidly followed ethical framework, every decision is essentially just based on emotion and short term self-interest. I like X, so it's good. I don’t like Y, so it's bad. This is how infants navigate reality. Many people have not matured past this stage because doing so takes effort and discipline.
The consequences of not surrendering to an ethical framework are considerable. Modern life is a constantly shifting chaos of inconsistency. What is wrong today might have been right just a year ago, which is an absolutely insane way of going through the world. The limitations of an ethical framework ground our choices in something more permanent, deliberate, and intentional.
So what can our framework look like? It could look like a chimera. You can take something from the Stoics, and something from the Buddhists, and something from the Christians and something from the existentialists, and so on.
Wherever you end up, eventually you're going to want to create a system that you'll be willing and able to surrender to wholeheartedly and this will require you to set limits on yourself. Limitations are necessary. They're like a skeleton which not only protects but facilitates locomotion, as it allows us to move through the world with some degree of confidence and integrity.
All of this is fairly abstract. What’s a real-world example of the pitfalls of ex-Mormons losing their ethical framework?
John Dehlin and John Larson have both noticed that ex-Mormons usually go through a crazy phase after leaving Mormonism. Many times they do unethical things that they would never have done before, like cheat on their wives. John Dehlin himself did this. It was likely easier to convince himself that it was acceptable behavior once he had lost the externally imposed ethical framework, and switched to just doing whatever felt good at the time.
Thoughts? Ideas? Do you have an ethical framework in your post Mormon life? Or do you just wing it and make it up as you go along? It’s easy to say you don’t murder, because most of us aren’t tempted to murder, but what about acting unethically when you know you can get away with it and there is no longer any external framework guilting you into acting ethically? Do you still just follow Mormon ethics without the Mormon belief?