On the WI Pagan email list that I am subscribed to a woman recently posted a questions about ethics. She indicated that she didn't feel that 'an it harm none' and the 3-fold law provided enough of an ethical structure. She felt that they didn't encourage community service or being a "good wife, good husband, loving parent, or respectful child, etc." I thought she made an interesting point. Some of the responses stated that having more rules didn't help Christians to be more ethical, or that they liked the freedom to determine right and wrong for themselves, another compared following such rules to being sheep and said they would be in an organized religion if they wanted that.
I have felt for a long time that "an it harm none" was a very good rule, particularly combined with the 3-fold law. To me, it sets a kind of base level ethic for everyone while still leaving how it is applied up to the individual. And yes it takes thinking about to determine how it applies but that wrestling with the ideas, the philosophy, the ethics of a touchy situation is an important way to develop one's own ethics and morality. While the person mentioned above doesn't feel that it encourages such things as community service I think that the idea inherent in the 3-fold law could be considered to do so. The idea is quite simple, what you send out returns to you whether you send out positivity or negativity. Community service is a way to do good for a large number of people at once and therefore may return a lot of good to the individual. People who have done volunteering often speak of getting back more than they gave in good feelings so that certainly encourages them to do it again, perhaps to tell others that it feels good. The same thing applies to being a "good wife, husband, parent, etc". There is a pay off for doing so in the 3-fold return that surely acts as encouragement to continue.
And I would certainly argue that blindly following rules laid down for behavior that makes one a "good anything without those actions coming from one's heart and mind does not produce good. If being a "good" wife, for example, meant following a 50's example of housewifery then I would not be able to do it, and if I could do it I would be deeply unhappy. I would certainly not have an intimate relationship with my family since I couldn't tell them how miserable I would be or they wouldn't be happy and I would then not be a "good" 50's housewife. The behavior must arise from within, from one's own deep sense of what is right and proper in any particular situation. How can someone else lay down rules that would be appropriate for any and every situation? And how does one develop a strong ethical and moral sense if one has never had to struggle with the ideas but just accepted someone else's moral code without working it through for oneself?
Copyright © 2000 Kyril Oakwind