Learning from the Lives of Others (2024)

When Conscience Calls: Moral Courage in Times of Confusion and Despair

Kristen Renwick Monroe

Published:

2023

Online ISBN:

9780226829081

Print ISBN:

9780226829074

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When Conscience Calls: Moral Courage in Times of Confusion and Despair

Kristen Renwick Monroe

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Kristen Renwick Monroe

Kristen Renwick Monroe

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Pages

174–204

  • Published:

    October 2023

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OXFORD ACADEMIC STYLE

Monroe, Kristen Renwick, 'Learning from the Lives of Others', When Conscience Calls: Moral Courage in Times of Confusion and Despair (Chicago, IL, 2023; online edn, Chicago Scholarship Online, 23 May 2024), https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226829081.003.0012, accessed 25 May 2024.

CHICAGO STYLE

Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Learning from the Lives of Others." In When Conscience Calls: Moral Courage in Times of Confusion and Despair University of Chicago Press, 2023. Chicago Scholarship Online, 2024. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226829081.003.0012.

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Abstract

What broader questions emerge from analyzing moral courage? Are there universal moral values? Or is moral courage – like other ethical behavior – relative, thus depriving us of objective tools to distinguish fanaticism from moral courage? Does empirical evidence justify believing in universal values? And if context shapes basic values so much that we lack moral absolutes, what does that suggest for establishing courts and laws designed to administer justice for crimes against humanity? Equally important, does studying moral courage help us personally when we are overwhelmed by confusion and despair? Must we have hope to carry on? No. Hope can facilitate, initiate, and drive moral courage but hope is not necessary for moral courage to exist. We can operate ethically without hope. We can behave morally simply because that is what we must do to remain human. Any of us, no matter how disoriented, lost, or uncertain, can dig deep within ourselves to imagine new scenarios, new ways of viewing the world. We can stand firm and assert moral values in the face of oppression, cruelty, and hatred, taking strength from our own most basic humane values anytime we need to rediscover our own moral compass.

Keywords: universal moral absolutes, moral relativism, hope

Subject

Moral Philosophy

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