This reminds me of Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “thought terminating cliché.” The Holocaust by bullets on the eastern front could be rationalized by the Germans through simplistic statements such as “It’s awful and inhuman, but such is the way of war.” Similarly, the concept of racial Darwinism appeals to nature to justify atrocities. In both cases, an appeal to a deeper, unchangeable logic lets the perpetrators make the appeal that they’re morally impotent.

I think that this author’s example of the older sibling wishing they didn’t have the burden of being the only person their wayward younger sibling would listen to is very relatable and makes his point well. I struggle, though, when he goes on to extrapolate to issues like the climate crisis and extinction events. Sure, we can make or not make decisions in our personal lives that can be more environmentally friendly or save the life of an individual animal, but we really don’t have power beyond that, and the impact of those decisions is infinitesimally small in comparison to the magnitude of the issue. So, I think the desire for/aversion to control is kind of beside the point when it comes to such macro issues. Maybe I’m missing something, though?

It should be pointed out that the writer here isn't interested in the question of whether there exists a moral imperative to this or that, or whether or not actual power exists to effect moral change. He's interested in the impact and burden of believing such things.

For example, a Christian may feel a moral burden to save their neighbor from certain metaphysical dangers and experience the same anxieties from responsibility as the brother who feels able to rescue his sibling from alcohol abuse.

Very interesting article. I think it is a very common feeling and something our global society has made ever present, when the tragedies of the world is beamed into our homes on a daily basis.

Ultimately morality is an issue the individual has to come to terms with and control starts there. Breathing positivity into the world is my first step. However small my acts of kindness seem, they are what keeps me going.

Smile to the world and it will smile back!

The essay illustrates the ambiguousness of the relationship between "control" and consciousness (self-determination). The argument is premised on the idea of free will as the foundation of self-determination. That idea (and therefore the premise) is as inexplicable as it is impossible. And so modernists and postmodernists (not to mention also neopostmodernists, which is to say the author and reader alike) are afflicted with both the cognitive dissonance and moral uncertainty (not to say they aren't one and the same, at least in this instance) of the desire for "control" and the unachievable nature of it.

The problem (dissonance/uncertainty) is that the only way to logically prove control is power. And the only way to be morally certain is to have power and not use it unjustly. But injustice is itself a moral perspective.

Morality is not about control, nor is self-determination. It doesn't rely on, relate to, or require control OR power. It cannot. Nevertheless the logical modern position or neopostmodern position demands control, over not just external events but our own thoughts and desires. True morality, and self-determination whether cause or effect of morality, is entirely premised on honesty, both about our desires and the justification for our actions. We are told we should have, or try to have, control, and we don't, even if we have power, and this results in cognitive dissonance.

So by "desire for moral impotence" the author is essentially, though possibly unknowingly, advocating (not merely observing) immorality. (The Trolly Problem illustrates that inaction is as morally hazardous as action, so impotence doesn't really provide the freedom the author suggests.) This amplifies the dissonance and uncertainty, and further it demands that uncertainty is morality and morality must be uncertain. There is a comprehensible "logic" to this, as being uncertain about whether we are being honest or moral is a necessary prerequisite to moral analysis. But it is still ultimately worthless, because impotence is just a poor excuse for lack of control, a semantic game rather than a coherent teleology.

The cognitive dissonance and uncertainty there can be any true morality both (?) disappear, without leaving the immorality or intellectual arrogance the neopostmodernist fears/believes/insists must remain (or be caused by abandoning free will as an explanation of human behavior) simply by properly understanding self-determination. It is not about having control, it is about accurately (and honestly) explaining the reasons for our actions. Assuming brain neuro/psychology explanations are accurate is as immoral as assuming mind social/intention desires are all that ever justify or result in our behavior: a more accurate and exact appraisal/confession is necessary than either binary extreme can support. It is this choosing/deciding whether the past or the future (our neural impulses or our desire impulses) better explain or justify our behavior, in each individual instance rather than as a categorical truth/necessity/morality, which is the cause/reason, the mechanism/logic, and the purpose/result of self-determination.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

man i couldn't get past some of the bad examples in this essay:

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>It costs significantly more than most people think to save a life by donating to the most effective charities — about $2,300. But that’s still only about half as much as the average American spends at restaurants each year.

this is a very poor comparison. restaurants provide food, employment, familial and social engagement which are all critically valuable for a social species. the idea that there's a moral dilemma between eating and saving a life (and that both can't be had) is ludicrous to me.

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>Imagine your younger sibling is going off the rails – drinking too much and partying too hard. Their grades are suffering. Your sibling doesn’t listen to your parents but they look up to you; you know they will listen in the end. So you know that you, and only you, can intervene and make them get back on track. You can sit them down and have the difficult conversation that neither of you want to have. In other words, you have a great degree of control over your sibling.

i'm familiar with alcoholism/addiction and the idea that "the looked-up-to sibling" can simply sit down and have a talk with an alcoholic and thereby save their life is extremely naïve. not only do people not have that control but it ties in with a common cycle of dependence that makes the problem worse.

there might be more substance to this essay than i can see but, trying hard, i can't make sense out of it.

Its a common mistake from phils and psychs to confuse "emotions" with "morals" specially if they didnt read Foucault. In a nutshell...read the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues of christanity, u will see that they try to trach people that the morals of a society have the same value/ bias inside of the individual, that they can be find quasi inside of you, in your soul. But they are constructed and produced to keep you in line, to discpline and "normalize" urself in the relationship to others and the reflect often enough the opposite of what u think, believe and desire. Thats exactly the reason why they are the way the are, because indivual desire conflicts often enough with the relationships/normatives in a society. For example why the word "good" means equally something moral and something emotionally "good"? Because they "should" be the same...but are they always...?