What is right and wrong? what is good and bad?

Re: What is right and wrong? what is good and bad?
axl roses wife

There is not - in my opinion - an absolute concept of right and wrong.
In history we can see different ethical and moral rules.
Any society, in given conditions of space and time, has it's own values.
You are raised within the values of the society you belong. You can fight them in order to impose new values, new rules.
But moral rules are always related to a specific society and historical period.
In Plato's dialogue "Protagoras", I support Protagoras point of view.

yes i agree. However surely when you say that moral rules are always related to a specific socity and historical period surely this only means actual laws and ways that you conduct yourself in public according to society, it doesnt actually mean right and wrong change, just the way you percieve them does.

Personally i dont believe in right and wrong, you cant see them, you cant define them so how could they be absolutes? they exist only in someones minds, just like god.

surely if they were absolutes, everyone would react in the same way to the same action, everyone would be able to say exactly what they are.

I agree with val on this, but I would like to take it one step further. The moral rules should not be related to society, but to every single action. There is no trancendent moral code in any society. There is merely the inherent desire to exist in goodness. If every situation is different, then we cannot use the same moral code on them all.

Moral codes vary from person to person. They are developed through genetic and memetic evolution and tend to create working systems for societies, but not necessarily the best.

I don't believe in an absolute moral code, I follow my own but only because I have little choice in the matter.

excellent question. i hope someone will come up with an answer that doesn't involve religion or appeal to self-interest. as a matter of fact, moral codes based on religion often do appeal to self-interest, in the form of a promised reward or threatened punishment in the afterlife or reincarnation.

yeah, my argument always has been to my christian parents that if i do a good deed then its cos im nice, but if they do one then its because they want to go to heaven. Does this make vicars bad?

im sorry yitwail, but even though im not religious, all my actions are based on myself. This doesnt make every action i do bad though. On the contary, im quite a nice person, but the main reason im nice is because if im nice to people they will be nice back to me too. The effects in my life are that i have quite a lot of love/hate relationships with people.

The only moral codes i know without a basis on religion are utilitarianism and kant's deintological ethics. I dont think much of either.

right and good is anything that is pleasurable to or benefits me.

All else is wrong and bad.

what if its unpleasurable, but you learn very important lessons from the experience?

there's also Spinoza's *Ethics*, which is even more impenetrable than Kant. as to your parents, if i were in their place, i'd say, good works without faith means nothing; that's what the Bible says. on the other hand, i say, as long as you're a Christian & you repent sincerely, you're saved. if i could just give up my agnosticism, it would sure simplify some things. see, i prefer that virtue be its own reward, if i only knew how to be virtuous.

incidentally, Spinoza claimed to believe in God, but not the sort of God one could build a religion around.

what does spinzoa's ethics contain?

I'm too shallow to concern myself with such things.

i'm a dilettante, so it's too technical for me to describe. but the Ethics is patterened after Euclid's Geometry, i believe, so he starts with axioms, then proves theorems, dealing not with geometric properties but rather his concepts of ethics. the only other thing i remember about Spinoza is that he was a pantheist, so he considered God & the cosmos to be one and the same.

o.k, well by the sound of things this discussion would be a lot simpler if we left him out.

and blueveinedthrobber, good for you!!!

Cyracuz

There are moral codes in any societies. What is a society? A number of individuals with different interests, belonging to different groups, each of those groups with its specific interest. A society is a set of opposite forces, and the dominant moral - like the laws - is always a compromise between those opposed interests, reflecting the influence of the group, or class, more powerful in the moment.

I also believe that there is no worldly view on "Right and Wrong" it changes because society is always changing. Things are always becoming more culturally just and over time things become accepted. Why do you think you can kill someone in the name of your country but cannot kill someone in the name of your god. Morals are based on man's views and depending on where you are they differ. For example in US pot is illegal but if you go to amsterdam you are permitted to smoke it. So does that make it "wrong" think about all the other things that are bad for your health yet are legal.
Right and Wrong is all based on your own personal integrity and background whether it be based on religious values or personal ideas from other men. Only you can determine for yourself what you see as right or wrong, but don't take this to heart. I don't want people going around killing people because they think it is right. lol Does anyone know the name of that movie in which the father claims he is enlgihtened by god to kill so called "demons" in other people and he gets his kids to help him. Its a good movie

you're probably refering to Frailty with Matthew McConaughey and Powers Boothe. it was a good one.

well done discreet. very true!!

Val wrote:


I'd like it better if everyone just minded their own business.