Brett Dye asked...
Asked by Brett Dye - 31/08/09 at 10:08 amwhat about another “easy” one, is there such a thing as right and wrong?
in the moral sense, not in the accurate and inaccurate sense.
(kyoo-fahy-ah)
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August 31st, 2009 at 10:38 am
Actually, I was just thinking this yesterday… What is “ethical” largely dictates what is right and wrong, however what is ethical is open to interpretation. At the end of the day all living things, human beings included; are creatures of instinct, and no matter what wrapper of social acceptability we may wrap ourselves in, the underlying instinct will always rule out, therefore there is no real right and wrong, because right and wrong will only ever be a perception held by an individual or particular group.
All actions we carry out will be actions that our instinct deems to be correct, they are just distorted by the ’social ideal’ once in a while.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
A person tend to set some rules on his personal experiences and his past..his learnings and his culture..that is the basis of judging these worlds..sometimes these are derived from past experiences of others..
ACTION is neither good nor bad!!
A soldier in border kills another one to save his country –
A thief kills another person to steal his money
in both case – the action (killing) is same but the ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’ depends upon the motive behind the action…its called KARMA.. in India
September 1st, 2009 at 9:50 am
I like the karma perspective!!! One thing to consider is that, as morals are the rules of social convention that allow society to function healthily, or even just function, these rules are then tempered by the overriding evolutionary forces (Natural selection, environmental pressures etc..) that first led to the state of that society. Hence, one is informed by the other.
If a resource is scarce, then people may kill to obtain that resource. This would eventually result in a genetic line who were better at protecting said resource and therefore, sustaining the social group.
Problems occur when moral codes get intermixed with things such as tradition or religion. A moral standard for one religious group may not be acceptable or logical 200years down the line (see catholic birth control attitudes…we are overpopulated now!).
If right or wrong is dictated by these a moral rulebooks…we need words with the publisher…every book seems to be different! But that is because perception is relative to each individual or group of individuals with commonly held beliefs.
Maybe we should think of right or wrong as averages rather than the digital form they take.
September 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Ahhh, but you deny the answer in the question. Morailty and Accuracy are facets on the same jewel of truth and goodness.
Society’s ethics may change with the era but whenever we do something that is contradictory to nature’s laws, we say that we have done something wrong. This needs some examples:
If we condemn a female of 14 for getting pregnant when obviously she has all the hormones and biological capacity to become pregnant, we are doing wrong.
When we build a bridge under the tolerance that physical science indicates is needed because it is too expensive to build it properly, we are doing wrong.
When we damage the ecosystem that keeps us alive, we are doing wrong.
These are all scientific (accurate/innacurate) issues and call it morality or call it being true to reality, we come out with the same conclusion: right and wrong do exist we just need to see the truth.
September 5th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Right and wrong do not exist.
This is a man made morality code invented to make society run smoother.
When i say ’smoother’ i am of course referring to the act of survival.
The concept of right and wrong is directly connected to the will to survive.
Early tribes of man may have killed in order to obtain a resource that he felt would make his village or tribe the more powerful tribe…power meaning the ability to sustain children and therefore a bigger tribe…more people, larger tribe, larger need for resources, the more resources the more power…of course…when the head of the tribe realizes that the larger tribe next door could quash his tribe then another way to survive needs to thought of…the exchange of goods…wealth…the wealthier you are the more power you hold over larger groups of people,of land, of resources…the concept of right and wrong change and become a part of what governs people because if there is no concept of wrong and therefore punishment…how does ones tribe survive with everyone playing havok and killing and raping and taking what everyone has…your own people are killing each other…so you make laws as too what is right and wrong so that you have control over the people…who then stop fighting and fight for you instead because what have given them is trust in their survival…again…there is no right or wrong…its a man made concept in order for the few to control the many…of course if you want to survive in some kind of societal context then following the rules of whats generally seen as being the difference between right and wrong is a pretty good idea.
Think about it…the bible/any bible from any religion…a set of rules in order to keep a group of people from killing each other by threatening them with punishment after they die in hell…that would put the shits up anyone with half a brain wouldn’t it?…makes sense to me.