If hawks and doves married moral codes

In his article "The Limits of Empathy" David Brooks cites subjects of the famous Stanley Milgram experiments, Brooks notes they, "felt anguish as they appeared to administer electric shocks to other research subjects, but they pressed on because some guy in a lab coat told them to."

And "Nazi prison guards (who) sometimes wept as they mowed down Jewish women and children, but (…) still did it."

The Nazi's genocidal interpretations of this if/then equation I posit was: "If I kill these people, then I'll protect my self."

Code of Moral Action

Rather than this alternative: "If I kill these people, then I am violating my job as a humane man." Or, put another way: "If I kill these people, then I couldn't live with myself."

Neither are static expressions of empathy or compassion. Instead, they speak to transaction.

The Nazis chose to "trade" other lives for their short-term gain. They could have made a different choice, like: "I am not willing to trade my morals to save my job/rank/title, or even, my life."

This latter choice is the kind both soldiers and peace-activists make often daily. It is not a self-detached behaviour. Rather it is a conscious choice to enact one's code of conscience.

As Brooks notes, "this is a code oriented to positive, enacted passions."

I'd add the active pursuit of living up to this pro-social standard produces rich returns for ones self-identity. And powerfully demonstrates in the "doing of acting humane" how others, too, can raise their moral standards for living.

Imagine if soldiers and peace activists connected their passionate forces to demonstrate how real people sustain their core moral ground by co-developing and building non-violent, humane societies?

And, most important, achieved their highest moral standards, together.