So, I’ve been chatting with my buddies lately, and it’s turned into a bunch of debates about right and wrong. I think I have a pretty solid moral compass, I’m not bragging haha, but most people I know can’t really explain why something’s right or wrong without getting all circular or contradicting themselves.
So, how do you figure out what to do? No judgment, just curious. I’ll share my thoughts below.
Thanks!
Edit: Oh, all you lil’ philosophers have brought me a cornicopia of thoughts and ideas. I’m going to take my time responding, I’m like Treebeard, never wanna be hasty.
Do what you think is right, but spend some time considering if it’s right or not first.
Recognizing when you’re not considering and just going by intuition or emotional response would probably already put you ahead of most of us.
Empathy seems to be necessary (but I’m not sure if sufficient) for logical moral consideration because you cannot justify your position if you purposefully ignore another’s, and considering someone else’s perspective without prejudice is empathy.
Pee when you have the chance.
I’m caught in a loop.
When going out into the cold during the winter, especially if you are going on a bit of multi hour journey … poop first, even if you don’t feel like it.
How do you poop when you don’t feel like it?
Or just
shitpiss on the floor 🎵Hahaha, I know right!
My standard for “good” practise is: if everyone adapt said practice, then the world would be better off.
Even though the effort of a single person can be futile; if I cannot chance my behavior for a cause I believe in, how can I expect the rest of the world to do the same?
Leave a better world behind than you entered (to the extent you are able to as an individual).
Define better for me
There are lots of different meanings. Pick one. Make people happy. Leave something that will help the next generation, whether it’s planting trees or a park bench or curing cancer. Be kind to people along the way to enable them to see the best in humanity. There are lots of ways to make things better. Just pick one and do it.
I’m not asking for general ideas, do you have a definition you ascribe to, or does it just change to suit the situation
Rather, why are you unable to define it for yourself? It’s not that hard. Helping things towards balance (like helping any angry, sad, or greedy person to be less so, etc., or trying to heal a physical or emotional wound as appropriate) is a fine start.
The cub scouts have a rule: leave the camp better than you found it
It’s a great rule to apply to everything in your life. Small improvements add up over time and benefit those who come after
I start with my ideal, which is “I want the most amount of people to be as content as possible for as long as possible.”
Then I build a heirarchy of groups in relation to the ideal, and it comes out in stepped groups, starting with me, immediate family, social group (further family, friends, colleagues), local community, government, humanity. This set allows me to target my focus, if Im content and safe, I can focus on helping my family be the same, and each level builds up to and allows for the next.
Now I can identify where to focus i need rules on how to act, i know what my goals is, but i need to make sure my actions arent counter to goal in some way, a set of rules like commandments (that can only be divined through experience) mitigate the possibility. Christianity does a good job of picking out the things that are counter to my ideal as it is, so mine are basically modelled after that.
- No killing
- No stealing
- Dont lie
- Dont covet
- No adultery (though I’d say this covers breaking any agreement/commitment made)
- There’s probably a couple more I’ve missed but I’m short on time
And for it to be fair for me to expect anyone else to follow the rules, i must first, this is the connection between rights and responsibilities If I want to claim a right, it is my responsibility to ensure others receives that right.
So basically I know if I follow that schedule, I really cant consciously do any wrong and can sleep right knowing I mad the best decision.
Let mek now if Im being incoherent anywhere, happy to discuss whatever.
It’s right if it brings happiness to yourself and the world, it’s wrong if it brings pain to yourself and the world.
It is also right to follow rules if you don’t have a clear understanding of the situation, because (hopefully) those rules were made with an expertise that you don’t posses.
Nice, very good, I’m gonna poke some holes for arguments sake, I like a good discussion.
What’s right?
And what if bringing pain is better long term, like a needle with medicine, whats a statement that draws that line?
Learn the difference between a necessary risk and an unnecessary one, and whenever possible, decide with intent when to deploy the latter.
Other than that, leave things better than you found them. That goes a long way.
If you want to judge the character of a person:
Observe how they treat those they have power over, usually in terms of social hirarchy or economic position.
Edit: Read the question wrong. Be nice to the service workers you rely on to get things done, like janitors, servers, cleaners, basically the bottom ranks of the totem pole.
If you have to ask why and need a selfish reason:
These people often are in positions where they can sabotage you, make your life difficult or slow you down. You really dont want to scream at the people who handle your importent paperwork, which can easily “get lost in the administration”…
I would take it a step further with indigineous teachings that those with great power use it for the greater good, understand the central role of women in communities and respects the sanctity of all that is living, human and non-human.
To me, that is a good person and I believe that every person has the potential to be good.
Don’t be a dick.
Drink enough coffee to shit before leaving the house.
Always shit on company time
And use 1 ply with no bidet?
Savages.
Im sure you’ve got some other principles you could share. Theres more to life than caffiene and deffication, surely.
Before enlightenment, caffeinate and defecate.
After enlightenment, caffeinate and defecate.
Don’t attract too much attention to yourself and you can get way with a lot of shit.
What are you most basic principles for life?
Spell check
Ugh.
Wrong, IMO, is defined by the violation of the will of another.
That’s the common element to all things that are broadly considered wrong.
For instance, if somebody chooses to give you something, that’s a gift and it’s fine. But if you take that same something from them against their will, that’s stealing, and wrong. In both cases, the exact same thing happened - a thing went from being their possession to being yours. The difference - the thing that separates the right act from the wrong one - is that one was done according to the will of the other person, while the other was done contrary to their will.
And the same holds true consistently - assault, kidnapping, rape, even murder - none of them are characterized by what happens, but by the fact that it happens contrary to the will of the “victim.” And in fact, that’s what defines a “victim” - whatever has been done to them was done against their will.
And it should be noted that there’s an odd sort of relative aspect to this, since the exception to the rule is the violation of the rule.
What I mean by that is that if one decides to violate the will of another, one is instantly wrong, which essentially negates the requirement that ones will not be violated. Your will to violate the will of another not only can be but should be itself violated.
I also have an idea for reconciling the need for an effectively absolute set of moral standards with the fact that morality is necessarily subjective and relative, but that’d require another, and likely even longer, essay.
There’s a lot of nuance not mentioned. Coercion, duress, extortion. Nevertheless, as I read your reply, I’m reminded of Kiterunner, in which the anti hero’s dad explains that sin boils down to stealing: murder steals a life, adultery a spouse, etc.
So let’s start with a hypothetical scenario. (I know strawman, but we’re talking about meta levels of philosophy here and experiments like these usually serve very well to prove a point or contradiction in someone’s logic)
If there is a serial killer who can never be satisfied and can escape any sort of containment given enough time. Is it wrong to execute them?
That actially gets into the second thing I mentioned.
My view is that morality is best seen to function in a sort of math-like way - individual acts have a fixed moral value, and the moral value of an entire course of action is the “sum” of all of the relevant “integers” that make it up.
So, for instance taking the life of another contrary to their will has a negative moral value always. There are no exceptions - the value of that individual act is always negative.
However, protecting people from a known predator has a positive moral value, and similarly always has that value.
And depending on the severity of the threat and the severity of the response, it’s possible for the “sum” of those two acts to be positive, which is to say right, and even as the value of the individual act “taking the life of another contrary to their will” remains negative.
That’s not to say or imply that I believe that acts can be assigned actual numerical values - rather it’s just a way to conceptualize the matter - to hopefully provide the absolutism that morality needs to be even-handed while still allowing for the flexibility it needs to be useful.
So to your question - in and of itself, taking the life of another contrary to their will - even if that other is a serial killer - is wrong. However, protecting people from a known predator is in and of itself right. So the two need to be weighed against each other, and I would say that if the risk the killer poses is sufficiently great (certain or near enough to it to make no meaningful difference) and if there are no other at least equally certain methods to prevent future killing, then execution would be justifiable. Which is to say, executing him would have a positive moral vaue, in spite of the fact that taking the life of another contrary to their will always has a negative valie in and of itself.
There’s much more nuance to all of this - issues with the necessary unreliability and potential deliberate misrepresentation inherent in predicting the future, differences of opinion regarding the relative values of various acts and thus potentially the final value of the course of action as a whole, different methods for resolving disagreements on those things, and so on and on. But that’s grist for other mills.
I try to live my life happily while causing the least negative impact for others.
Be kind
