This sounds like an extremely Christian, particularly Calvinist, approach to morality. David Graeber also talked recently about the influence of evangelical Christianity on American progressivism...
To be a moral being, Rorty claims, is for there to be “some acts we believe we ought to die rather than commit. … to be a moral agent is to be unable to imagine living with oneself after committing these acts.”
This sounds like an extremely Christian, particularly Calvinist, approach to morality. David Graeber also talked recently about the influence of evangelical Christianity on American progressivism and I hadn't considered before how much of that might be motivating the knee-jerk defensive posture people so often take on these things.
I come from a Dharmic religious tradition and for us your past is past. Your present self either is the accrued karma from your past actions or an eternal soul weighed down by its own karma depending on whether you're Buddhist or Hindu. But it's not like anything you've done in the material world is fundamentally staining your soul with evil or anything. You just stop doing the karmically bad thing and eventually the scales will be rebalanced as you learn your lessons throughout your many lives. Suicide or a life of bottomless self-disgust are misguided attempts to run from your karma, but doesn't actually make any real amends. Simply accepting the natural consequences, which can include guilt and shame, can.
What, then, are our options? Rorty identifies three: “suicide, a life of bottomless self-disgust, and an attempt to live so as never to do such a thing again.” He recommends the third for pragmatic reasons.
The first two options, he argues, prevent us from regaining our self-respect. Without self-respect we will be less effective agents and less able to make things right. If we want to make things right, then we need to choose the third option.
Significantly, this holds not just for us as individuals but also for us as citizens. Without the ability to take pride in our nation’s accomplishments—despite also facing up to its crushing failures and disappointments—we risk losing the will to, in James Baldwin’s words, “achieve our country and change the history of the world.”
This sounds like an extremely Christian, particularly Calvinist, approach to morality. David Graeber also talked recently about the influence of evangelical Christianity on American progressivism and I hadn't considered before how much of that might be motivating the knee-jerk defensive posture people so often take on these things.
I come from a Dharmic religious tradition and for us your past is past. Your present self either is the accrued karma from your past actions or an eternal soul weighed down by its own karma depending on whether you're Buddhist or Hindu. But it's not like anything you've done in the material world is fundamentally staining your soul with evil or anything. You just stop doing the karmically bad thing and eventually the scales will be rebalanced as you learn your lessons throughout your many lives. Suicide or a life of bottomless self-disgust are misguided attempts to run from your karma, but doesn't actually make any real amends. Simply accepting the natural consequences, which can include guilt and shame, can.