Form and Substance: Decorum & Religion Help Shape Proper Expressions of Being [10"TU]

I have long wondered about the relationship between form and substance, action and reality. Like everything, I suppose, the question is deep and wide, and books have been written to explore it. It came to mind as I watched a man help an elder in a wheel chair. It seemed obvious the man was not his father, yet he treated him as if he were: gentle and patient with the wheel-chair, helping with a shoe after check-in at the gate, caring and giving and being-with.

Of course these things happen constantly everyday between un-related folks. Indeed, blood relation is hardly a guarantee of civility, or even good manners. Too often the very opposite is the case.

Yet, the substance of being related, of being a son or daughter suggests something. Implies. More than that: the substance requires particular responses and actions. This is the is-ought problem of philosophy and it is all over our everyday life.

We were considering son-to-father, but if we flip it we may find easier clues. What is implied in the substance of being father? This is the is question, begging for an ought. If I am a father, or intend to be, what is required of my behavior? What form must I adopt that will be the proper expression of my being father?

It simply is the question of ethics: what is the nature of things and how does that nature insist I act if I am to cohere with it?

To do otherwise is to incohere, and incoherence is not a good outcome on any reckoning.