The Middle Way Society was founded to promote the study and practice of The Middle Way. The Middle Way is the idea that we make better judgements by avoiding fixed beliefs and being open to practical experience. We challenge unhelpful distinctions between facts and values, reason and emotion, religion and secularism or arts and sciences. Though our name is inspired by some of the insights of the Buddha, we are independent of Buddhism or any other religion. We seek to promote and support integrative practice, overcoming conflict of all kinds.
In a recent middle way group discussing consequential ethics, we wondered how groups with diverse beliefs, ethics and approaches can work together to make effective decisions that account for a wide range of conditions, whilst at the same time avoiding conflict and argument?
Many thinkers have considered this problem and we might gain from looking at their ideas. One that came to my mind was Edward de Bono’s process of “Parallel thinking” which aims to enable groups to reach decisions as efficiently and effectively as possible, by considering the situation from several different perspectives and avoiding an adversarial framework.
For those unfamiliar with the idea, parallel thinking uses the metaphor of “six thinking hats” each of which represents a mode of thinking.
Illustration by Lorna Edwards
De Bono categorises the thinking modes as follows:
Blue – Overview and process
White – Information, facts and figures: What do we know, or need to know?
Black – Caution and criticism: What are the risks we want to avoid?
Yellow – Optimism and positivity
Green – Creativity and possibilities
Red – Emotion and intuition: What is our gut instinct?
To begin the process one person can take the role of facilitator – guiding the process – wearing the “blue hat”. The group then works together through each of the modes in turn, ensuring everyone is coming at the problem from the same direction (in parallel) at the same time. Hopefully, in this way, we might avoid an adversarial situation, where one person with a positive perspective on an idea might argue with someone with a negative view – often to little effect.
Individually, we can use this thinking process when seeking to integrate our our own judgements and actions in the context of complex conditions. We might consider “trying on the hats” to see which we habitually use. Then perhaps we could try on a hat we are less attracted to to gain a better perspective.
Here’s a short film explaining how the process can be used in practice:
Have you used this process in groups or individually?
What other thinking processes do you find useful in making judgements?
The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be at 7pm UK time on Sun 20th Dec 2020. This will be the fourth of our series of talks and discussions on ethics. This is the middle of three sessions where we will be looking at the three classic approaches to morality in turn: virtue ethics, ethics seeking good consequences, and principle-based ethics. We will be asking what a Middle Way approach implies for what we consider to be ‘good’: is it becoming a better person, fulfilling good goals, or obeying the right principles? Or is it all of these? If so, how do we fit them together when they sometimes contradict each other?
The consequential way of thinking about ethics tries to help us make better judgements by thinking carefully about what would lead to better consequences, and making these our goals. This is the basis of utilitarianism, which is often the default way of making public decisions on contested issues in the modern world. Thinking rigorously about consequences based on evidence is often a good way of making us face up to conditions: for example, thinking about the pros and cons of vaccination in a way that weighs up the balance of evidence of its consequences . However, for individual judgements, what this approach often fails to take into account is that our goals are not fixed, and they are based on imperfect and changing information. Nor is it always clear what goals are the right ones. Other ways of thinking about ethics (using virtues or principles) may help us to adapt our goals by thinking about them in a different frame.
There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on virtue, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with more basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 10th Jan) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.
Here is the video from the session:
Suggested reflection questions
How much do you carefully consider the weight of evidence about the outcomes of each course of action when making moral judgements, particularly on socio-political issues? Think about an example of an issue where you have changed your view, and what determined the change.
Do you think we should make individual decisions (e.g. about starting or ending a relationship) in the same sort of ways we should weigh up public issues (e.g. covid vaccination)? If there’s a difference, what is it?
How do you tend to decide what are the right goals to pursue? For example, if you consider a project you’ve given priority to and put energy into, what was your justification for thinking it was important and should take priority?
A New Buddhist Ethics (despite the title, this book, written in 2008, is more about issues of practical ethical judgement using the Middle Way than it is about Buddhist ethics as traditionally understood)
The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be at 7pm UK time on Sun 6th Dec 2020. This will be the third of our series of talks and discussions on ethics. In this and the following two sessions we will be looking at the three classic approaches to morality in turn: virtue ethics, ethics seeking good consequences, and principle-based ethics. We will be asking what a Middle Way approach implies for what we consider to be ‘good’: is it becoming a better person, fulfilling good goals, or obeying the right principles? Or is it all of these? If so, how do we fit them together when they sometimes contradict each other?
Virtue ethics, as the focus of this first session, is the approach to ethics that starts with the idea that we should become better (more virtuous) people. A ‘virtue’ is basically a good habit, and the idea of a practice, such as mindfulness, seems to be very much about cultivating good habits. However, we need to think about what makes a habit ‘good’, and the problem is that different groups have different assumptions about that ‘good’. Integration will be suggested as the key idea that can help us decide what is a virtuous habit for us on our specific path. However, developing good habits also doesn’t automatically make our decisions right, and virtue ethics still leaves us needing to make judgements about what to do in specific situations.
‘Allegory of Human Life’ by Cagnacci
There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on evil, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with more basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 13th Dec) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.
Here is the video from the session:
Suggested reflection questions
What virtues do you most value and most want to cultivate?
Are there any tensions between cultivating those virtues and other needs or goals in your life? How do you think you can use the Middle Way to help resolve these?
The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be at 7pm UK time on Sun 22nd Nov 2020. This will be the second of our series of talks and discussions on ethics, and is on the topic of evil. Evil needs to be acknowledged as an important aspect of human experience, rooted in our sense of threats and need for security from danger. Our intuitions about ‘evil’ human qualities (such as cruelty, deception, or megalomania) also often reflect aspects of absolutisation in human judgement. However, we also have a strong tendency to absolutise and project evil, to ‘demonise’ other people or things by treating them as wholly evil, when they are complex. To practise the Middle Way in relation to evil, we need to try to distinguish what is actually a threat to us from the things or people that we may unthinkingly label as ‘evil’.
There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on responsibility, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with more basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group on 29th Nov which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.
Here is the video from the session:
Suggested reflection questions
What sorts of things or people do you tend to feel are ‘evil’? To what extent do you think you are justified?
Is it possible to identify evil judgements in a person rather than evil character?
The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be at 7pm UK time on Sunday 8th November. This will start off our new series of topics, on the Middle Way applied to ethics and politics, with the topic ‘Feeling Responsible’. The practice of the Middle Way is closely related to developing our sense of responsibility, but it’s important to distinguish this from the social institution of holding people responsible. The latter has an important role in society, but it is easy to treat it absolutely by applying the assumptions of total freewill or determinism, and thus interfere with the actual development of felt responsibility.
There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on integration of belief, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with more basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group on 15th Nov which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.
There is already a video on responsibility which will be embedded below, and you might like to watch either before the session or afterwards for further background:
Here is the video of the actual talk and Q&A on the Network session:
Some suggested reflection questions:
What are some examples of things you feel responsible for, and how do you relate to that sense of responsibility?
Are there any things on the edge of your sense of responsibility, where you feel you could helpfully stretch that sense a little?
What conditions or practices do you think have helped you develop your sense of responsibility in the past?
Are there some things you definitely don’t feel responsible for, or even perhaps that it’s a bad idea to feel responsible for?
