The Moral Ambiguity Of Personhood

Abstract

Modern life contains multiple options and possibilities, and people possess an awareness of alternatives that is relatively new in human history. In the distant past, a person occupied a single social role in a small group² in which nobody conceptualized having privacy or having the possibility of changing their station in life. In contrast, we are aware today of myriad ways we could change our lives, allegiances, and careers. Whatever religious or political beliefs we have, we have at least minimal exposure to the fact that millions of people—theoretically bright, caring, and decent—hold quite different, incompatible beliefs. Even if we are certain about our beliefs, the presence of diversity and possibility is part of today’s cultural environment in ways that people in more homogeneous societies never dreamed. As Jerome Kagan puts it, the “extraordinary heterogeneity of values among class, religious, and ethnic groups in the United States and Europe guarantees that each person can count on disapproval of his or her values from some people each and every day.”³

Most everyone is virtuous at the abstract level.

Albert Bandura¹