We have now covered everything in our list except one — belief, which is the thorniest one to deal with. Within cognitive psychology, belief is defined as a “propositional attitude”. The combination of beliefs that one holds forms a worldview (or belief system), which organizes the different experiences and subsequent actions that one takes. Our worldview is such a fundamental part of ourselves that it comes as second nature to us; it is the closest conscious phenomenon we have to our primal instincts. One way to think about different belief systems is through the metaphor of different sports. Many different sports use the same physical space, for example, a field. On a similar field, different games have different rules and objectives, which leads to player actions having very different meanings in each game. In American football, players have multiple ways to score, including touchdowns and field goals. In soccer, the only way to score is by moving the ball into the opponent’s goal post. In the former, players grab the ball with their hands, whereas in the latter, it would be considered a foul. The unique gameplay across different team sports also changes the types of roles that are in the team, with each game having its own set of player positions. Similarly, beliefs help people understand what is valuable, make sense of their actions in their society, and identify and perform the roles that they play. This view is summed up by a quote often attributed to C.S. Lewis, “We are what we believe we are.”

We can generally agree that, like cognitive tools, belief is not innate but rather acquired through experience. For instance, we are born with the natural instincts to eat, survive, and procreate, but no one automatically has the belief that they are a citizen of any nation-state. At the same time, however, beliefs are not only hard to change, they are often an aspect of ourselves that we cannot consciously choose, especially if they are inculcated in us since childhood. Beyond biological relation, a shared worldview is often what ties us to the closest people in our lives. Oftentimes, this shared worldview takes the form of religion. Given the all-or-nothing nature of many religions who proclaim their belief as the sole version of the truth, the choice to leave the religion that one was born into can have grave consequences as it often costs the leaver their family and community. Such conversion (or deconversion) stories have been told by authors like Tara Westover in her best-seller “Educated” and Shulem Deen in his memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return”. Belief systems stem not only from religion, but also science, ethnicity, nationality, and in this era of fake news, conspiracy theories. The choice of swapping entire worldviews is usually caused by pivotal and sometimes traumatic experiences that prompt a person to question their fundamental beliefs. A historical example is Leo Tolstoy’s mid-life crisis, which led to him writing his seminal essay “A Confession”. Which of us, however, has the choice to dictate what experiences we have in our lives? 

Moreover, people usually avoid having their lives upturned. That being said, I do think that people generally want to behave in ways that are mutually beneficial for themselves and their wider community. To do so, we should critically evaluate our beliefs from time to time. This is not easy and requires moral courage because we may have to admit that we were wrong. Drawing our attention inward and reflecting on our own lives is an important element of self-renewal and gaining agency over our own development. The cultivation of inner life, however, may be made increasingly difficult with social media and our digital devices constantly begging for our attention.

A common theme throughout this essay, therefore, seems to be that attention and awareness are crucial in facilitating change in the mutable aspects of ourselves. Even though the body and unconscious mind are resistant to change, the conscious mind is far more pliable — we can learn new knowledge and thinking approaches, revise our base assumptions which help to frame our world, and become better at interpreting our experiences and their meaning in our lives. I would argue that such changes are meaningful and can have a huge impact on an individual’s life and that of their society. We often hear words that describe personal change. Some Protestant Christian churches use the term “born again” to describe the conversion to Christianity. After recovering from a particularly grueling ordeal or brutal setback, we may feel like a “new person”. Needless to say, these are figures of speech, but we find such internal changes so significant that we liken them to rebirth.

It fascinates me how the plasticity of our mind seems well-matched to continual sociocultural change. When Darwin coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest”, he was not referring to physical strength but being “better adapted for the immediate, local environment”. Similarly, our social survival depends on the ability to adapt and/or respond to emerging sociocultural norms. Our mind, therefore, is a tool for us to resist premature obsolescence and remain a part of human discourse. However, just because we are able to change, does not necessarily mean that we do. The philosopher John Rawls has described our birth as a lottery. Our childhood conditions affect us throughout our lives and are the result of sheer luck. We should acknowledge how we often unwittingly become the people we are. To be an ally of change, both for ourselves and others, we need to practice compassion and non-attachment. Change is difficult — being kind to ourselves and others goes a long way in that struggle. By non-attachment, I do not mean to stop caring about the people you love but rather to give them the space to change. This applies equally to those whom we dislike. If we are too keen on sticking to an impression of a person, we are limiting their ability to change through our interpretation of who they were and how they ought to be.

Some of us may be struggling with who we are or trapped in incessant cycles of thought. Where there is change, there is hope. The belief that we can change gives us hope that tomorrow may be better because the inner conditions that we find ourselves in can and will change.

In everyday situations, human beings are forced to make decisions based on a set of non-conscious beliefs and value systems. These form part of one’s intuition in dealing with immediate, urgent considerations, usually leaving the person no time to carefully make sense of the given scenario. These intuitions form a set of working principles with which we navigate our world.

One of these working principles that most would agree with is the idea that all lives have equal value. When this working principle is put to the test, however, we can easily see how some people are usually “more equal” than others. More often than not, this general principle is overridden by other non-conscious intuitions based on the specific situation faced by any individual. The more interesting observation is how these intuitions seem to be the same for most people. These complex, intuitive value systems appear simply as common sense to most, but the mechanics of it is completely invisible and yet generally universal.

We shall now turn to a classic thought experiment to test this guiding principle: the trolley problem. Suppose we have a train moving at an extremely high speed and reaching a fork and you are the train operator. Let us assume that the train tracks were not properly designed, and this fork leads to the same destination. It is up to you to decide which train track to use when the train has reached the fork. It just so happens that a fifty year old man and a baby were on either sides of the fork. Let us also assume that avoiding the choice of selecting one path is impossible, that you have to make a decision about who you would save. More often than not, most respondents to this question would choose to save the baby than the old man. If the guiding principle that “all lives have equal value” is true, statistically it should be proven through an equal number of respondents choosing between the baby and the old man. A preliminary conclusion at this point therefore, is that humans are predisposed to believing that the length of our life is related to its value. This suggests that it is more fair for someone to die if s/he has been able to live a relatively longer life. The first guiding principle has been easily thwarted by the introduction of age.

This scenario would be a serious dilemma for most ethical systems. Take for example both Kantian and Utilitarian ethics. A Kantian ethicist would argue that one has equal duty to save both lives, but it provides no answers as to which life should be saved. The Utilitarian argument is as feeble in this context; the decision of who should be saved has to be made based on weighing the pains and pleasures that result because of the choice. First, to make that analysis within a split second is impossible. Second, the analysis of pain and pleasure is so subjective that one case could easily be argued over the other, given ordinary circumstances (that both individuals have loved ones who still exist and would feel pain from their death).

From a purely economic standpoint, saving the baby is not a fiscally wise decision. Due to the intertwining, complex nature of modern civilisation, it is reasonable to argue that our lives are supported by the society at large. Most of our essentials are purchased and have been through the hands of many people before our use. Therefore, everyone is incurring a debt to society starting from the point at which they are born by being a dependent of the larger society until they become a working adult. A child is nurtured through the care of parents to become a responsible citizen who would eventually contribute to society and begin to pay off his dues slowly. The baby is and would remain a dependent for the immediate future of his/her life. The 50 year old however, assuming that s/he has led a normal, productive life, has already paid his/her dues to society and perhaps has already contributed a significant portion to the society’s well-being in general. The economic argument for saving the baby therefore, is the potential that s/he has in contributing more back to society compared to the old man, which is only a hypothetical possibility.

The conundrum of the relationship between the length and the value of lives continues in philosophy. As Epicurus has mentioned in his Letter to Menoeceus, he argued that death is not evil, but instead indifferent. Since Epicurus believed in the hedonistic thesis that the human experience boils down to pleasure and pain, much like the proposals of later Utilitarians, death is by itself a neutral occurrence since it takes away the possibilities of experiencing both pleasure and pain (Scarre, 87). Epicurus’ argument further extends to the implication that when we die does not matter, because at the point of death, we cease to be.

Feldman tries to refute Epicurus’ argument by proposing hypothetical possible worlds that one’s life could be compared to (Scarre, 91). Feldman argues through the analogy of the dead ploughboy the other better lives he could have led. His case falls apart easily because for every better scenario that can be imagined, a worse outcome can also be fabricated.

In Death, Shelly Kagan argues that death is bad through the deprivation account, which is essentially similar to arguments made by Feldman. He later concludes by saying that puzzles to that question remain. Before diving too deeply into the argument about the evil of death, one can clearly observe that one of the causes for all these debates is how humans are intuitively predisposed to believing that a longer life is an inherent good.

However, these do not fully explain our intuitions to choose to save the baby because both individuals have the potential to live long, fruitful lives. Even if we take into account this assumption however, the same intuitions apply: the baby would tend to be saved significantly more than the old man.

Now assume that you, the train operator can look into the future and see the lives of these two individuals. Suppose the child and the old man both have an equal amount of time left living in the world. This additional information shifts the scale, but not significantly. It is almost as if we see our lives as a time bomb, with a set-off time of the average life expectancy at any given moment. The longer the time we have left, the more valuable the life of an individual.

However, when more details are added to the situation, the balance tips. Suppose the baby and old man each have ten years more to live, but the baby died young due to a painful disease whereas the old man dies healthy in his sleep. This additional information causes us to want to save the old man more than the baby. Again, suppose the baby does not grow up to lead a fruitful life, for example s/he suffers a depressing illness throughout his/her life or mixed with wrong company earlier in his life and wastes his entire life as a criminal, whereas the old man goes on to lead a relatively shorter but happy period of time. The same intuitions to save the old man apply.

Arguably, this adds another dimension in this procession of our intuition. These series of intuition tests start to give form to our intangible, complicated intuitions. Our intuition seems to work like a non-conscious operational flow chart, driven by our values and priorities at any given moment. It accepts exceptions to rules and is extremely flexible at dealing with complex situations, and amazingly all without deliberate, rational thought. At this point, a simplification of our general disposition is that humans value the potential of lives for pleasure. Death terminates this potential, and therefore is seen as an evil.

Although our intuitions give us guiding principles which are very useful in everyday life, we should not stop challenging them through rational thought. Bringing these intuitions to light is important for us to take action. These intuition tests reveal the irrational but generally universal traits of human intuition. When we know our tendencies toward certain choices, we can make better assessment and judgment about whether they are truly good decisions. Although humans have the ability to rationalise and make good and deliberate decisions, we have to realise that much of our lives occur through intuitive, automatic reaction. The analysis of intuition could point toward a direction for more robust ethical systems. By understanding our intuitions, we can also make better sense of our impulses and direct more meaningful lives for ourselves.

Works Cited

Scarre, Geoffrey. Death. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007. Print.

Kagan, Shelly. Death. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Print.