Santeria ethics

[Mary Ann Clark]

"How do I separate right from wrong?"



Philosophers and theologians have been asking the question, how do people know the difference between right and wrong. Are people born “good” or “bad”? Is the knowledge of right and wrong innate? Is there a universal code of ethics everyone knows and should follow? Or is knowledge learned and thus cultural and contingent?

Most ancient thinkers (and many more modern ones) obviously were never around young children. Augustine of Hippo is one of the few ancient writers to notice that little children are barbarians who must be tamed and trained by their parents, guardians and teachers. From this observation he developed the doctrine of Original Sin, the idea that all humans are born with the a sinful nature acquired from the first sinners Adam and Eve and that only through the sacrament of baptism can this sin be removed. This became part of the justification for infant baptism. Augustine apparently didn’t notice that even after baptism children continued to be little monsters that had to learn the manners and mores of their society.

Regardless of what each of us think as adults, we first learned to judge right from wrong from our parents, teachers and, perhaps, our siblings and friends. Because this is learned rather than innate knowledge, each of us has a slightly different set of criteria for judging whether something is right or wrong. Growing up in a small-town Catholic environment I learned the basics, don’t lie, steal, cheat, or hurt someone or something else, with a particular twist. As an adult I’ve modified and adjusted my ideas and actions according to the way my life has evolved. Many of the absolutes of my childhood have been modified as I grew and aged, as circumstances impinged on my childhood ethical stances.

Today my ethical decision-making is completely situational; almost every absolute must be modified by the particular situation of the moment. On the one hand that makes ethical decision-making difficult but on the other it makes me a more sympathetic person as I can understand why someone may do something that on its face appears absolutely right or wrong but upon further investigation of the nuances of the situation it just the opposite.
Personally, I try to act in such a way that the most good and the least amount of evil results from my actions. I am become more and more conscious of the impacts of my simplest actions and try to act accordingly. That’s not as simple as it sounds. Every action has positive and negative effects and the best we can hope for is to minimize the negative and maximize the positive.

Santeria ethics recognizes that what might be right for one person or at one time and place may not be a good action at an other time and place or for a different individual. Thus every person must learn not only the rules of their society but also the personal ethical and moral constraints of their own lives as they are lived out over time. One of the reasons we use our divination system is to receive guidance from the Orisha as we make decisions and proceed with our lives. Sometimes we “can’t see the forest for the trees” and need an other opinion of where we should go and what we should do. Divination allows us to ask the deities these questions and receive an answer specific to our situation. But you can’t bother the deities with every little decision and thus we all must make the best choices we can at the moment they are required, hoping that they are more right than wrong.