Communal Vs Societal Ethics

 Communal vs Societal Ethics

 Communal Expectations

Entering and leaving a community is a commonplace occurence. Entering a church, we might conform to expectations of quiet and respect. When we leave, we re-engage our normal form of behavior. While a priest might be endeavor to conform to such expectations on an ongoing basis, for the vast majority of the congregants such expectations would prove prohibitively difficult to live out constantly. Even though congregants may aspire to a churchly mode of conduct, even if such aspiration is their highest goal in life, socially expectations are still confined to a specific location, so that individuals may associate or withdraw at their choosing. On a particularly bad day, when disaster has struck or some other emergency has arisen, congregants might not attend church at all, acknowledging that even a focused effort to behave as expected might not be possible.

The voluntary nature of communal association opens the door to aspirational expectations. You might attend community gatherings only on your best days, when you can muster the most effort to fill challenging expectations. Even if the expectations are too burdensome for everyday life, that cost might be worthwhile in focused interactions.

 Societal Expectations

Societies cannot be easily engaged and disengaged. To leave a society is to uproot one's life and to effectively sever most social connections. As such, burden from societal expectations must necessarily be lower than the burden from engaging with a community.

Societal expectations must be achievable even on our worst days. If a conflict at work or home spilled over to an impolite interaction at a grocery store, that interaction should not result in excommunication.

 Positive Expectations

Any positive expectation is quasi-religous in nature. To expect that someone will do something means that you expect nothing else is more important at that moment in time. Totalitarian ethics, ie those with positive expectations, might be justified or even desirable in specific communities, where individuals may self-sort by temperament or value system.

However, imposing a totalitarian ethic on a whole population is tantamount to religious persecution, when you socially censure people simply because they do not follow your god, your highest good.

A pluralist, multicultural society permits a myriad of highest goods. One person might pursue truth above all else. Another person might pursue charity. Yet another person might pursue their own financial gain. In a pluralist society, all of these pursuits are allowed. Differences in individual temperament make it unlikely that any one such goal will be motivating to all people. Allowing all of these goals lets everyone pursue most fully whichever good seems highest to them.

Positive social expectations are incompatible with pluralism and multiculturalism.