right or wrong

@sakshi,

sakshi wrote:

if something is right to me then why is that it is wrong to others?

Because "right" and "wrong" are subjective and need to be debated then agreed to. There is no universal objective "right" or "wrong". Some will try to claim that there is but there is not. Others will try to claim that their god dictates what is "right" and what is "wrong" and if you don't believe in their god, you still are subject to what they are claiming to be right or wrong anyways.

I have my own personal way of determining what is right and wrong for me.

Here is my way of reasoning.

If the act injures or causes unnecessary harm to another person it is wrong.
If the act helps or aids another who may be in harm or injured it is right.

If the act injures or causes unnecessary harm to oneself it is wrong. (questionable)
If the act helps or aids oneself from preventing harm or injury it is right.

If the act damages or destroys property that does not belong to you personally it is wrong.

If the act protects or secures the property that don't belong to you personally it is right.

The third aspect can be questionable for example consuming drugs is not necessarily bad but when they are abused they can be harmful. There is always a point when an activity can become harmful but recreational use is rarely ever harmful.

There are of course other examples of how things could potentially be harmful such as dangerous sports which if done safely don't actually cause harm unless the safety measures fail. This is where I bring in the aspect that if it is one's own doing with full acknowledgement of the potential for harm then it is not wrong to partake in the activity.

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@sakshi,

sakshi wrote:

if something is right to me then why is that it is wrong to others?

The answer to that question is that there is no individual morality... Morality is a form of relationship, one essential to all societies, and to be an individual and to be immoral alike mean stepping outside the bounds of ones community...

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@sakshi,

Depends on the nature of ethics. If ethics is subjective in nature, an action could be right to you, wrong to X, Y, Z, and also right to A, B & C. However, if ethics is objective in nature, then there can only be a right or wrong form of conduct for all persons involved.

For example, look at a case of rape. If ethics is subjective, the rapist could certainly hold that they are doing what seems morally right. You might hold that rape is morally wrong, and list a number of reasons why, but unless those reasons are objectively true, it wouldn't matter. You could argue it out till the cows come home but there would be and could be no right or wrong outcome in terms of moral conduct. Subjectivists do think ethical agreement/disagreement functions in this manner. They say ethical judgements do not express propositions or statements of fact and therefore cannot be true or false.

Do I think subjectivism suffices for the nature of ethical judgements? No. I am a moral realist and therefore think there are objective matters of fact when it comes to ethical matters. Well at least I'm hopeful lol.

1 Reply

@bigstew,

bigstew wrote:

Depends on the nature of ethics. If ethics is subjective in nature, an action could be right to you, wrong to X, Y, Z, and also right to A, B & C. However, if ethics is objective in nature, then there can only be a right or wrong form of conduct for all persons involved.

For example, look at a case of rape. If ethics is subjective, the rapist could certainly hold that they are doing what seems morally right. You might hold that rape is morally wrong, and list a number of reasons why, but unless those reasons are objectively true, it wouldn't matter. You could argue it out till the cows come home but there would be and could be no right or wrong outcome in terms of moral conduct. Subjectivists do think ethical agreement/disagreement functions in this manner. They say ethical judgements do not express propositions or statements of fact and therefore cannot be true or false.

Do I think subjectivism suffices for the nature of ethical judgements? No. I am a moral realist and therefore think there are objective matters of fact when it comes to ethical matters. Well at least I'm hopeful lol.

Ethics is never subjective... There is never an individual morality and never was one...

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@Fido,

Quote:

Ethics is never subjective... There is never an individual morality and never was one...

You'd be surprised how many people would at least try to disagree with you.

1 Reply

@bigstew,

bigstew wrote:

Quote:

Ethics is never subjective... There is never an individual morality and never was one...

You'd be surprised how many people would at least try to disagree with you.

I am moral enough to let them... How would you expect them to learn, or would you prefer some one enforce their moral norms upon them as law does??? If you see humanity as moral beings, you have to appeal to their morals sense to change their behavior though it means them changing their own behavior in regard to moral arguments and considerations you present to them...

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I interpret this 'right' or 'wrong' interpretation as normative.

There are are also non cognitive, meta- ethical interpretations.

Example:
'Why are prescriptions, such as human extinction is 'right' or 'wrong' true.

1 Reply

@Anomie,

Anomie wrote:

I interpret this 'right' or 'wrong' interpretation as normative.

There are are also non cognitive, meta- ethical interpretations.

Example:
'Why are prescriptions, such as human extinction is 'right' or 'wrong' true.

Morals have a logic that can usually be determined after the fact, but it is insufficient cause with which to formulate laws...One thing that is absolutely illogical is any reason for death, because life is a predicate for reason... Even if you say that it is good the people are willing to die for their country it will always be illogical that all people will die for their country because when one dies for their country they die so others, like themselves and related to themselves might live... Even after the fact, if you look at many people who died in defense of this country, in defense of freedom, or died for independence; they were the greatests of fools, in every sense betrayed by their honor by dishonorable men... There will always be fools and dishonorable men until dishonor is seen as the true crime to be stamped out where ever it raises a hand... Instead, we make a great show of honor, and attack the effects of dishonor, and never get at the roots of dishonor; but no society was ever long alive without honor, which admittedly, most people have enough of to keep them at peace with others...We would all be in better shape if we did not so honor dishonor... If we would look hard at those who have always run our society, and managed our wars, who have always taken their livings out of the mouths of the people before they could be swallowed, who have sold us dreams and promises and kept our gold, and meat, and resources... So long as the dishonorable are honored there will always be more dishonor, more immorality and more crime than the police and prisons can house... Societies rot from the top down, and ours is really in bad shape...

1 Reply

@Fido,

I agree with your interpretation of cultural phenomena, such as 'honour' or 'dishonour', however I do not believe that 'right' and 'wrong' are objective values, perhaps intrinsic, which appears to be the case when it is defined by sense organs.

Is mass extinction (comet) from the nomological properties of the universe 'wrong'?

1 Reply

@Anomie,

Anomie wrote:

I agree with your interpretation of cultural phenomena, such as 'honour' or 'dishonour', however I do not believe that 'right' and 'wrong' are objective values, perhaps intrinsic, which appears to be the case when it is defined by sense organs.

Is mass extinction (comet) from the nomological properties of the universe 'wrong'?

Right and wrong are moral forms which are objective only in the sense that life which is the meaning of all meaning is the objective fact however elusive it is, that gives all moral forms their meaning, or value... Your life, and your sense of right and wrong can seem totally subjective to me, as mine might seem to you... Taken together, we must see that to each of us, there is nothing more real than our own individual lives by which we judge all things more real, or less so.... Right and wrong are all moral judgements people make based upon the need of society for life and health and peace... It is culture rather than morality which forces people into contradictions... Greed, for example is thought the worst of vices by many people; but culturally the argument is made that good will come out of greed, that a narrow view of self interest will result in the general welfare of the people... It never has, and never will, and the contradiction is obvious for those who look, as is the contradiction between war and peace... We take peace as an essential element of a happy society, and yet embrace war as a method of achieving peace when realistically, one can only enjoy peace in the shadow of endless wars whose outcome is all but certain that take the best and the brightest... As for your question regarding the rightness and wrongness of natural disasters it is easy enough to see that people seeing the event unfold might well judge it bad, but with no one left to judge, that no judgment would be made...

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@Fido,

Quote:

Ethics is never subjective... There is never an individual morality and never was one...

This is a joke, right?

If not, I got these rocks, let's go find some adulterers.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:

Ethics is never subjective... There is never an individual morality and never was one...

This is a joke, right?

No... Morality is a moral form, and all forms are also forms of relationship... Simply reduce it to the rediculous if nothing else works, and you will understand... If you were the last person on the planet, would it be possible for you to do either right or wrong, to be moral or immoral???

One must be moral to be a member of society, and everyone puts themselves out side of society by immorality whether that be concealed or not; and everyone is only so much a member of a society as they accept the morality of the society... This does not mean that the morals of a whole society cannot be defective... It is immorality and defective morality posing as morality that destroys all societies... It is morality which makes men, and women free; and immorality which makes slaves of humanity... No matter what power a person may hold, if they are not moral they are not free, and if they are not free, and moral; then they are not endowed with the qualities required to live socially, and to defend their society...The immoral among us are those who are slaves to their desires, or are those who would enslave others to satisfy their desires, and each of these groups whether master or slave feeds on society, and takes more than they produce as their own...The immoral society is in decay, and no matter how much some few look for morality and the power that comes with it; such societies are doomed to fail and to be replaced...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido,

Throughout the history of mankind there have tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of societies. The have had vastly different views on morality from slavery to sex with children to abortion to homosexuality to alcoholic drinks and gambling and stoning adulterers.

How many human societies do you consider to be moral?

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Throughout the history of mankind there have tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of societies. The have had vastly different views on morality from slavery to sex with children to abortion to homosexuality to stoning adulterers.

Are you suggesting that they're all right?

2 Replies

@joefromchicago,

I am suggesting that either every society is a moral society, or that none of them are.

The idea that we just happen to be living in the one true moral society is a bit hard to swallow.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am suggesting that either every society is a moral society, or that none of them are.

Why all or nothing? What rules out the possibility that some societies are moral?

maxdancona wrote:

The idea that we just happen to be living in the one true moral society is a bit hard to swallow.

Who said that?

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

Why all or nothing? What rules out the possibility that some societies are moral?

Which ones Joe?

Normally people think their own society is moral. For you and I that would be 20th/21st century Western society (which was quite different from even 19th century Western society). Are there any other societies that are moral? It is hard to think of a historical society that didn't do something that we would find quite abhorrent from treating women as property to using children for sex.

Even the "noble savage" mythology that White Americans constructed of the Native Americans we displaced falls a part as soon as you start looking at the facts. A modern American would find things they found gravely morally troubling in any of these cultures which featured killing adulterers and leaving old people to die.

I would be interested in whether you can give an example any other culture outside of modern Western societies that we would now consider moral.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:

Why all or nothing? What rules out the possibility that some societies are moral?

Which ones Joe?

That's not an answer. It's not necessary to identify some society that is moral in order to explain your position that either every society is moral or else no society is moral. Your position is apparently logical, not empirical, so it's really irrelevant whether or not some society can be identified as moral.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

maxdancona wrote:
Throughout the history of mankind there have tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of societies. The have had vastly different views on morality from slavery to sex with children to abortion to homosexuality to stoning adulterers.

Are you suggesting that they're all right?

I would consider each that lasted any length of time to be moral which is the same as saying virtuous and just... Societies die most often from their own injustice which they little recognize and cannot combat... We are all weakened by injustice... The society that holds down its women and treats them as second class citizens if citizens at all denies to itself the intelligences of their intellects, and often even the benefit of their injustry... At the point of all failure, people recognize that the slavery they know at present is not at all superior to the slavery they are threatened with from without...The freedom they surrender to their own leaders they in the end surrender to all... Morality is essential to liberty, and those who trade on either to have the stuff of life are already doomed...

1 Reply

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