Do we know our morals enough?

In June, Suzanne Waldron and Rabbia Siddique, along with special guest, Simon Eassom, scratched the surface on the above question. Do we know our morals enough?

Joined by a full contingency of guests in the launch event, the discussion went deeply quickly, and stayed that way. Musings on how we define morals, how we can access our morals in times of crisis, humanity and connection.

The questions we’re still pondering:

• Has society’s moral compass changed over time and should we be concerned about this? I am always surprised when people are open about cheating on their tax or breaking the law, for example rolling back the km’s on their car before selling it, taking cash sales so that they don’t have to declare on their income tax, stealing goods from work.

• Are parents no longer teaching their children about values and morals? I ask this because it appears that bullying, both in schools and in social media, towards both children and adults, seems to be increasing? Have adults simply lost their moral compass themselves and therefore no longer instil such values in their children?

• In understanding our morals better, a mentor of mine once told me years ago to “feel the pull and lean in”. It was a way to explore what’s pulling us into a certain direction, or even what would trigger us in certain situations. I guess my question is how relevant is “feeling the pull and leaning in” from using your intuition when it comes to our morals.

• There are people and entities in the world that profit in terms of money and or power from their ability to polarise the community. There was a time that this was so much harder to do because we all didn't know the inner workings of everyone's private lives and innermost thoughts - all the things that are now shared on social media - I believe we have a moral responsibility to coexist. We cannot simply shut down relationships based on the fact that we realise we disagree on matters that feel important. How do we embrace and lovingly accept the people who feel like our opposites when we are being led to believe that we have nothing in common and we are surrounded by people who see them as our enemies?