Nurturance and work

Let us understand from the beginning that nurturance is work, hard work – that is, the nurturance of children in a family. Within the context of business and of earning a living, Nurturant Parent morality has something very different to say about work than does Strict Father morality, where work is the application of self-discipline for the sake of self-reliance. In that morality, whatever the work is like, it is moral in itself; and if work imposes hardship, well, hardship is good for you, since it builds character.

But Nurturant Parent morality says something different about what work ought to be and the kinds of jobs that ought to exist in a nurturant society. First, Morality As Self-Nurturance says that working at an unsafe or unhealthy job is not necessarily moral. Hence, work should be as safe and healthy as possible, and worker safety should be a major priority. Second, Morality As Self-Development says that work should promote and not impede personal development; thus, employers, whenever possible, should have such things as educational programs and other personal development programs or should try to arrange employment to allow workers to take part in such programs. Third, Morality As Nurturance implies that work should maximally promote family life and stable communities through, say, parental leave policies, day-care centers, flexible hours, and not forcing employees to relocate over and over again. It also implies that work should maximally protect and enhance the environment. Work that pollutes rivers, destroys rainforests, depletes the ocean's fishing stocks, and so on is not moral work. Fourth, Morality As Happiness implies that work should not be alienating, or boring, or deadening to the human soul and to one's aesthetic consciousness. Work should rather be as enjoyable and rewarding in itself as possible. Additionally, workplaces should make aesthetics a consideration in the conditions of work. Fifth, Morality As Empathy says that work should promote empathetic contact with other people as much as possible. It should not just be working at a machine all day. Sixth, Morality As Fairness implies that people should be paid fairly in proportion to their work.

In short, Nurturant Parent morality has many implications for how work should be set up in a society and for what the dignity of work is. Supplying jobs of some kind or other is not enough. A nurturant society cares about the kinds of jobs they are and what consequences they have – not just what they pay! But it also cares very much what they pay and how equitable pay is for the amount of work done.

Nurturant moral boundaries

We have just seen that the metaphors of Moral Strength and Moral Self-interest apply with very different consequences when subordinated to the rest of the Nurturant Parent system. The same is true for other metaphors that have high priority in the Strict Father moral system. Take the metaphor of Moral Boundaries, where action is conceptualized as motion, and motions away from certain paths and out of certain regions is prohibited. The effect of the metaphor is to say that certain specific types of actions are prohibited or required and that violations of those prohibitions or requirements are dangerous to society because they gradually change the prevailing mores in an immoral direction.

There is, not surprisingly, a version of the metaphor of Moral Boundaries in Nurturant Parent morality. The statement of the metaphor is exactly the same as it is in the Strict Father model. But its role in the service of the metaphors of Morality as Empathy, Nurturance, and the rest, changes how it applies. Instead of just specific kinds of actions being strictly prohibited or required, there are in the Nurturant Parent model prohibitions against actions with anti-nurturant consequences. For example, actions that are likely to lead to an impairment of people's health are immoral in Nurturant Parent morality. Such actions are transgressions, pure and simple. Examples include allowing poisonous chemicals to be dumped in public water supplies or inducing teenagers to smoke and thereby develop a cancer-causing tobacco addiction. These are moral transgressions. Such kinds of actions are over the line of moral behavior.