Why and Because—The Art and Science of Moral and Ethical Understanding explores a basic question: How do you know what is right?

Ethics is something we have innate knowledge of, but it takes a good deal of effort to fully understand, express, and apply properly. The problem with innate abilities is we often don’t know how we do it. If we asked 100 people how they maintain balance, we’d likely get 100 different answers. We may not understand how we maintain balance, but that lack of understanding does not prevent us from doing it—it’s automatic.

Many people think they get their understanding of ethics from the authority figures in their lives: parents, schools, religions, government, and other cultural influences. The prominence of these influences and our reliance on them as means of enforcing order and justice has led many to believe that ethical understanding is relative, or worse—nonexistent outside of a cultural context.

Ethics exist and it transcends culture and time. Why and Because aims to promote greater understanding of the fundamental and immensely important topic of ethics.

Since the Aristotelian Revolution, we have marched towards a greater understanding of the universe. In order to preserve the vestiges of religious dogma, we separated philosophy from religion, and science from philosophy, leaving us ignorant to more basic knowledge—knowledge of thyself.

We will explore where moral authority comes from and how to challenge those who claim moral authority when they are in the wrong. There is a paradox at the heart of ethical understanding: If we are all born with ethical knowledge, then why is everyone’s understanding of moral matters so varied? This paradox and much more will be discussed.

With the world increasingly shrinking, resources depleting, and cultures merging at an increasing rate, it is important that we all have a better understanding of our shared foundation in ethics.

This book will teach you how to understand what you were born knowing. Ethical understanding is the process of learning how to derive ethical truth from innate knowledge. Ethical understanding is an elusive obvious—it is easy to do if you know the rules; and challenging if you don’t.