Like many of you, I was thrilled to receive my CTR box, and most importantly, my CTR ring.

(Now that I think of it, I don’t recall seeing a CTR box for some time. Do they still hand out CTR boxes?)

40-ish years later, I’m not as enamoured with the whole CTR concept as I was at that age. More specifically, I’m not as enamoured with CTR rings as so many of my LDS friends and neighbors seem to be.

My non-enamourment is rooted in the sort of statement that “Choose the Right” is.
“Choose the Right” is, in my estimation, a vacuous Categorical Imperative.

What, I hear one or two of you asking, is a Categorical Imperative?
The idea of the Categorical Imperative is the centerpiece of Immanuel Kant’s theory of ethics. Kant held that morality shouldn’t necessarily be subject changing circumstances or to calculations. His focus was on duties and obligations. He thought, rightly or wrongly, that it ought to possible to distill morality into a single sentence. If it is possible to distill all of morality into one single statement, then that statement would be a moral principle that can be applied by everybody in every circumstance. It would be an imperative (instruction, order, rule) that is categorical (universal, without exception).

If you, for example, tried to take all of your moral rules and principles and intuitions and guidelines, and you tried to encapsulate them in a single phrase, you’d probably end up with something like the Golden Rule. That is the sort of thing that Kant was looking for. Regardless of the ethical predicament, you could apply the Golden Rule. Steal the candy bar? Report a tax dodger? Give a fiver to the homeless guy who approached you outside McDonald’s? In any of those situations you could apply the Golden Rule. That is the idea of the Categorical Imperative. Is there a moral principal (the imperative) that can be applied without exception (categorical)?

(for reasons beyond the scope of this post, Kant didn’t think that the Golden Rule worked as a Categorical Imperative, but I use it to give you an idea of what he means.)

In trying to formulate the Categorical Imperative, there were errors that Kant was keen to avoid. One was that he wanted to avoid making it too specific. If it were too specific, it could not be categorical. Principles like “always say please and thank you,” or “don’t beat your children,” or “honesty is the best policy” might be great rules to live by, but because they have specific content, they only apply in certain situations and to specific persons. They are not universally applicable, i.e. not categorical.

On the other hand, it would be easy to formulate the imperative in such a way as to be content-less. If your rule is “always do the right thing” it really doesn’t help you decide what the right thing actually is. If your guideline is “be excellent to each other” you still need further information to know what interpersonal excellence actually is before the guideline has any meaning. Compare “always do the right thing” and “be excellent to each other” with the Golden Rule and you’ll see an important difference. The Golden Rule in instructive because it is suggestive of what your choice or action ought to be, whereas the former statements are not suggestive in the same way. Because statements like “always do the right thing” and “be excellent to each other” are not suggestive of correct morality, we consider them to be vacuous (empty, content-less).

Therein lies my issue with “Choose the Right.” Although it is treated as a Categorical Imperative, it is not suggestive of what “the right” is. “Choose the Right” is empty and meaningless, it is a vacuous Categorical Imperative.

If one accepts “choose the right” as a rule to live by, then one is left with a content-less moral guideline, and will therefore be dependent upon an outside source to supply that content. Those of us grew up LDS and accepted the maxim “choose the right” became dependent upon the LDS church to supply us with the knowledge of what our correct and moral choices and actions ought to be. We externalized our moral sensibilities.

For the CTR graduate, morality does not flow from an internalized moral standard (or conscience), but from an externalized set of relatively arbitrary rules. Instead of developing a set of moral intuitions, feelings, and guidelines, the CTR graduate is left to act out of obedience to the (current) rules of the church.

Normal psychological development follows a fairly standard pattern. Lawrence Kohlberg described moral psychological development as a set of stages. In the earliest stages of development, right and wrong are determined by the consequences of our actions ( my hand was slapped for stealing from the cookie jar; stealing from the cookie jar is to be avoided), then we start to learn that there are rules that we need to be obedient to (don’t steal, tell the truth).

Eventually, those lessons from childhood become an internalized 2nd nature (in Psychodynamic terms, we develop a Super Ego) and we no longer ask ourselves “will I be punished if I get caught; what is the rule on this?” because we have internalized our ideas of right and wrong (our conscience), and act accordingly.

If however, one willfully conceded his or her morality to an external source, by default, morality is not internalized. One’s normal moral development is stunted, and moral development remains similar to that of the child who requires an adult to tell them not to take the toy from the other child, and who requires threat of punishment to not take the toy from the other child.

How many times have you heard (or perhaps even said) something like “if there is no such thing as God there is no such thing as right or wrong” or “if there is no threat of punishment in the afterlife, then anything is permissible?”

I, Holy T, don’t beat my kids. Regardless of whether God exists or not, I don’t beat my kids. Does it have anything to do with fear of punishment in the afterlife? Nope. I suspect there is no afterlife, yet still I don’t beat the kids. Why not? Because as an adult, I have internalized morality independent of obedience and fear of punishment.

What happens if you, a person with normal moral development, violates your sense of morality? What if you, in a moment of poor judgment, get violent with your child? You have internalized a moral emotion that tells you that what you did was wrong. You feel guilt. Guilt is the healthy moral emotion that is derived from your internalized sense of morality.

On the other hand, what if the person who has not internalized morality violates one of the moral rules that he or she tries to live by? Because they have not internalized their sense of right and wrong, that sense cannot produce the appropriate guilt. Instead, the moral emotion stems from the fear of punishment or of being found out. The person with an external morality would be motivated by the avoidance of shame instead of the avoidance of guilt.

Compare this to your experience growing up in the Church. Specifically, think back to Bishop’s interviews when he asked you probing questions about your sexual behaviour.
The church wants you to be motivated by the avoidance of shame.

What I see in Mormonism (though this is by no means limited to Mormonism) is a conflation of goodness and obedience. Although the external actions of a good person and an obedient person might be indistinguishable, the moral status of the actions of the good person are not the same as the moral status of the obedient person.

When making decisions regarding moral questions, I might be motivated by a calculation of what might bring the most happiness or minimize suffering, or I might be motivated by my sense of compassion or empathy, or by any number of noble reasons.
If, however, I’m motivated by obedience, or by fear of punishment, I don’t seem quite as honorable. To use the example once again of not beating my kids, what would you think of me if you knew that the reason I didn’t beat my kids was that I believed God would punish me in the afterlife if I did? The corollary is that if I didn’t fear eternal punishment, then there would be nothing to dissuade me of abusing my little ones. You would judge me, at best, amoral.

Even if it is true that God does not want me to beat my kids, and will punish me if I do, it is still not God’s will that determines the moral status of that act. If God were to say “okay, now you may beat your kids” would it suddenly make it right? The question itself seems nonsensical because of our intuition that it is wrong to beat children regardless of God’s will. It seems to me that if God says “don’t beat your kids” it’s because it is already wrong. Wrong is wrong, not because God says it is wrong; God says it is wrong, because it is wrong.

There are consequences to growing up in an environment where morality is derived from an external source. Those who grow up in an Authoritarian home (where obedience is a virtue, non-questioning of authority is valued (Dallin H. Oaks anyone?)), (as a sweeping generalization) tend be more right wing. They tend to be less critical thinkers, rigid in their black and white thinking, with a hostile and punitive interpersonal style. Because such youngsters were never taught their own moral reasoning skills, the boys in particular are more likely to go through a period of rebellion when they get their first opportunities for independence. They are more likely to adopt a punitive law and order view of the world, and accept an “it’s only illegal if you get caught” approach to dealing with the world.

So to bring this all back to the discussion of CTR rings, I despise what they represent:
- A poor attempt at a categorical imperative
- that makes one dependent on external sources of morality,
- making one dependent upon the church
- implying that a person is moral to the extent that they want to avoid being caught and shamed
- An external locus of moral control
- indicating stunted moral growth,
- The priority of obedience over intrinsic goodness
- making independent moral reasoning improbable

When I see an adult wearing a CTR, my opinion of that person drops just a little.

related, but not specific to CTR rings.

Furthermore, I think that the conflation of goodness with obedience is antithetical to the LDS conception of God. In LDS theology, we are ostensibly on a path toward our own Godhood, just as our God worked his way up from mortality up to Godhood, just as his God before him, and his God before him, and so on and so on, into infinity.

If my morality really is derived from obedience to God, then my source of morality is external to me, as it is in God. Is God’s source of morality internal to him? No, it lies in his prior God. Well, what about that previous God? His morality is likewise external to him—in his prior God. If this is an infinite chain, then there is no first link in the chain, no ultimate source for the morality. If it is true that morality requires a source to which we are obedient, then in Mormonism, there is no ultimate source. The LDS conception of God make its own version of morality untenable.

I never heard or remember anything like a CTR Box. I might have been too late to that game as I was a primary aged child in the late 50's. We had no CTR ring, but it seems to me that we had some sort of a bandelo with stuff we earned to put on it.

Is a CTR box like a cigar box? hehe

The brethren don't want members developing internal loci of morality. They want members dependent upon the church as the external locus of morality. CWTCSITR: Choose What The Church Says Is The Right.

I was long gone by the time the CTR bull$hit started. I would however accept a CTW (Choose the Wrong) gift should one be offered.

Ron Burr

CTR-Choose Trojan Rubbers. The Boner!

good one!

Ron Burr

"For the CTR graduate, morality does not flow from an internalized moral standard (or conscience), but from an externalized set of relatively arbitrary rules. Instead of developing a set of moral intuitions, feelings, and guidelines, the CTR graduate is left to act out of obedience to the (current) rules of the church."
Exactly. Every injunction like this, choose the right, or follow God, is in the LDS church held captive to the idea that it is the LDS church leaders who define right and wrong, and say what God wants for you, so there is no way to learn how to make moral decisons for yourself.

I think of most categorical imperatives as incomplete sentences. Such as, "Choose The Right...and the Mormons will tell you what the right thing is."

I don't like WWCD, either. "What would Jesus do? The Mormons will tell you what he would do."

Life is full of complicated exceptions. The finished sentence is more specific, for example, "To thine own self be true." What does that mean? But the finished sentence is, "...you will not be false to any man." But, maybe that is not always your life-long, never-changing approach. You will want to tell Grandma that her hat looks nice, and your neighbor that you enjoyed her kale cookies.

I find little slogans and couplets too confining to ascribe any general, universal meaning to them. This is also the problem of Mormonism. Like they say, "One size does not fit all." LOL

You miss the meaning. It is conditioning for "Choose the Republican".