Inspiration Series - Morality

Inspiration Series

Morality

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one”

Marcus Aurelius

Upon developing my book series ‘One Crown & Two Thrones’ I sat back and asked myself, what is it that you wish to address through your story and characters? And several answers came to mind, but the biggest and most prominent of these was MORALITY.

What is morality?

Well this is a philosophical debate in itself, but to me personally morality is a set of codes and beliefs in what is seen to be either wrong or right amongst a society or other groups like religion, philosophy and culture. The debate on morality has been going on for thousands of years and most likely will continue whilst humanity exists. Morality can be observed and challenged through different lenses such as ethics, politics, philosophy and science and the further you dig into these areas the harder it becomes to truly define morality. But if you were to ask someone what they believed defined morality they would most likely respond with the general concept of Good V’s Bad and in general terms that is correct, but morality in truth, is complex and at times a little overwhelming and most importantly an individual’s perspective of morality is unique and influenced by many different factors such as religion and culture, so can morality be truly defined and understood? I don’t believe so, because we are all different and even under certain social codes of conducts which may greatly influence our beliefs, we still may view morality in a different light, that is why it is still hotly debated today, even with the aid of great philosophers.

How ought we to live?

“We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.”

Socrates

At first I really debated the need to put a God at the centre of my story, but I asked myself why I needed a God at the heart of my story and the reason is pretty clear, God represents omnipotent power and He is at the top of the hierarchy and with that morality is a natural assumption. God can represent anything that places itself above another and I wanted to challenge that concept and the concept of a perfect God, of which I do not believe in. I think we all too some degree debate the existence of God or higher being and I wanted to look into that personally. Despite Heiden ( God) playing a pivotal role in my book series, it is the triangular relationship between himself, his two surviving grand-children , Celestine and Heidan and his arch enemies, led by Lagar that proves interesting. At the start it is quite clear cut it is dark v’s light, bad v’s good, but as the series moves forward, the main character, Celestine begins to observe and ponder the deeds of her grandfather and his flawed nature, she challenges the general concepts of religion, power and authority, mainly because she wishes to better understand her enemies and wishes to further her thoughts on the prospect of becoming an heir to her grandfather’s kingdom and whether or not she is right for the role. Celestine wants to find out whether Heiden’s moral code of conduct is legitimate or is it a system which is flawed and corrupt, a system of autonomous power and authority. Do you need a God to be moral? Do we need a moral code of conduct to survive socially?

Am I in over my head?

Off course! But that won’t stop me from trying to discover some hidden truths. Fortunately my book series is not a philosophical lecture, it is merely asking the reader to think about morality and what it means to them. Are the actions of my characters correct or immoral? Do the enemies of God have a legitimate reason besides the wish to harm others, to stand in opposition to Heiden’s code of conduct? And is it right for God to order his servants to act immorally for his own benefit?

Celestine will meet many people on her quest to over throwing her half-brother from what is rightfully her throne, she will find herself among varying kinds of groups and individuals that differ in religion, politics and ethics and part of that is in order to train her own thought process before she makes a decision on whether or not to pursue her throne. The questions that Celestine will face are questions I am sure we all have to tackle with at some point, questions that I tackle with personally and this alongside the moral dilemmas of other characters is my way of trying to understand morality in all its varying forms.

Research!

Studying morality is intense and so I will provide a brief list of books and papers that I have found interesting.

·        Richard Swinburne –God and Morality

·        Fredrick Nietzsche – On the Genealogy of Morality

·        On the Soul/ Politics – Aristotle

·        The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli

·        A Treatise of Human Nature – David Hume

·        Utilitarianism – John Stuart Mills

·        Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

Conclusion

Next week I will looking at war and how Celestine will truly find herself conflicted as her pacifist beliefs take on the universal war which can only be brought to an end through the use of physical violence, is there another way in which to bring peace without bloodshed? Has there ever been a bloodless revolution?

Stay tuned and leave any comments below, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on morality and what it means to you and how you are writers instil this within your characters and stories.

Iseult O’Shea.