“Repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing t

"Repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead"

This phrase is part of an article "Coming to Terms with Vietnam" documented in Harpers by Peter Marin, Dec. 1980. http://www.harpers.org/archive/1980/12/0024455

"All men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm: first by what they do, then by what they make of what they do. The condition of guilt, a sense of one's own guilt, denotes a kind of second chance. Men are, as if by a kind of grace, given a chance to repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead.""

This quotation rang my bell on the first time that I read it and has continued to resonate for me each time that it comes to mind.

Morality is, I am convinced, one of the most important concepts in human existence. It is vitally important and, I suspect, almost completely mystifying to the average Joe and Jane. It certainly is mystifying to me.

Understanding the meaning of this concept is vital for our welfare as a species and I am convinced that we must do a better job of comprehending its meaning.

I think it would be worth while to analyze the above quotation in an effort to develop a meaningful comprehension of aspects that make up morality. But there are many important moral aspects within this quotation and I think we must focus upon only one at a time. I would like to examine, in particular, the phrase "repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead"

Cognitive science, often in the form of cognitive semantics, provides us with a means for comprehending the nature of morality.Our moral understanding is often manifested in commonly used metaphors. To do bad to someone is like taking something of value from that person. To do good to someone is like giving something of value to that person. "Increasing others' well-being gives you a moral credit; doing them harm creates a moral debt to them; that is, you owe them an increase in their well-being-as-wealth."

We are dealing with moral considerations much as we do with financial matters. We maintain a mental balance sheet upon which we record debits and credits of moral dimensions.Do you think that it is possible to make a moral payback to John, who died in the war, by doing a moral good such as helping the nation to become a better democracy?