About Ethics
Chas Clifton recently reviewed Emma Restall Orr’s book Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics. Even before reading the book, I found the review (and accompanying discussion) well worth reading, and they have already pushed me to think more about how Heathen values relate to other systems and about the nature and origin of my own ethical values.
In one sense, the Heathen concern with family and community bonds, and with honor and reputation have always made sense to me: growing up in a New England village of 1,100 souls with relatives in neighboring towns, I knew that any actions I took would be a reflection upon my entire family as well as myself. I lived (and still live) in a culture where reputation definitely matters.
I find this culture satisfying in many ways but am less inclined to idealize it than my coreligionsts who come from the city or suburbs. People have always escaped to the city because they found their close-knit communities to be stifling, and I don’t ever want my decisions to be guided primarily by “what the neighbors would think,” which to me is a form of cowardice.
I’m afraid that I have nothing more profound to contribute on the nature or origin of Heathen ethics, and I don’t know that I will have a whole lot in common with Orr. However I’ve already found the review and discussion on Clifton’s blog to be delightfully refreshing, if only because an arbitrary system of rules laid down by [insert deity here] simply wasn’t part of the equation.
hroda on 23 Jan 2009 at 1:54 am #
I wouldn’t want to be identified with some of the so-called pagans running around nowadays. Heathenry is, to me, rooted in an ageless and unspoken tradition that can’t be examined, poked, or prodded. Ethics don’t involve socio-political stances which have nothing to do with folk and Gods- yet I’ve got a feeling that many pagans (and not a few Heathens, too) view modern political opinions and political positions as authentic divine writ. Yes, respect for nature and our animal kin is in nowise wrong, but not to the point where it becomes indistinguishable from a specific political platform. Who’s pagan opinions on ethics hold more water, anyway? A modern commentator or, say, a commentator from ancient times who lived immersed in polytheism? Which belief system does one draw one’s ethics from? I see great potential for a misapplication of ethical living if one isn’t clear as to where one’s inspiration is coming from.
Siegfried Goodfellow on 31 Jan 2009 at 5:01 am #
I don’t think that honor was about being guided by “what the neighbors would think”, or at least, it was being guided by neighbors who valued boldness, who weren’t prying, who gave leeway for being an independent human being, and so forth. It was the integrity and not the conformity of one’s actions that mattered. It’s easy to confuse that in a culture where reputation has become melded to timidity.
Sine on 19 Mar 2009 at 2:17 am #
Just wondering if you have had a chance to read of have heard about “The Other Side of Virtue” A philosophy book tracing the idea of virtue through time and includes quotes from the Havamal and many other not specifically Christian sources. It is written by Brendan Myers and came out around the same time as Orr’s book.
admin on 08 Apr 2009 at 10:51 am #
No, I hadn’t. Thanks for the tip!