Right or Wrong - who determines that? - Page 13

Originally posted by: chatbuster

it's more from a sense of self-preservation rather than from any deep-seated moral sense of right or wrong.😉 Isn't that how we define right in broader sense? something that does not harm us and if you throw moral sense into the mix then it is empathy and something that works for greater good also. If humans are omnivores than choosing to be vegeterian becomes a moral issue not absolute right or wrong issue.

and no, not everyone chooses self-preservation over moral values. for example, people signing up for war-time duty aint exactly looking after their own skin, are they? the kamikaze pilots also thought they were doing the right thing at the expense of sacrificing their own lives, werent they?😉

Nope.. they were put into a mindset in which they would be mentally ready to die. Suicide is unnatural and an aberration in creatures whose instinct is to survive. While individuals who commit suicide do under depression, religious groups commiting mass suicide or suicide bombers do it under peer pressure, brainwashing and promise of martyrdom or 70 virgins. As qwerty said before fighting for a cause is a moral decision for soldiers.

am not sure there's any great revelation to be had if we talk about trivial choices we make everyday in our lives. we can all agree that milk is better than rum. ok, at least most people wld agree.😛 not so for the other burning issues, whether they are moral, political, religious, life-style or in other fields of endeavor. and those are the issues that one feels more passionately about, that consume more of human attention.

now let's take your last statement about freedom and responsibility. very few choices in life are so trivial that we can immediately tell it wld not affect others. mostly whatever we do affects others, some positively, others negatively. real-life aint just figuring out that 2 plus 2 equals 4.😉 it's more subjective than that, and we dont always have the luxury of picking between obvious choices. Like what issues? we mentioned the most difficult ones involving killing and some lite ones about serving alcohol..😉

We have a primal understanding of good and bad, of right and wrong, highly developed sense of morality, of what it means to suffer not only our own pain but also the pain of others. Our moral behaviour may be scattered all over the place but our moral judgement is pretty consistent from person to person which is why Clinton had to lie about Monica or Spitzer had to resign from governorship.

Originally posted by: lighthouse

We have a primal understanding of good and bad, of right and wrong, highly developed sense of morality, of what it means to suffer not only our own pain but also the pain of others. Our moral behaviour may be scattered all over the place but our moral judgement is pretty consistent from person to person which is why Clinton had to lie about Monica or Spitzer had to resign from governorship.

Going back to Shruti's post about someone else teaching us right and wrong which impedes on our ability to make choices,- All of us carry moral grammar- equivalent of our ability to grasp speeach which is nothing until someone teaches us the language. in the same fashion our built in sense of right and wrong is nothing until someone teaches us how to apply it. All of us have conflicting morals which is why it is difficult to make the right choice sometimes. 😊

Excellent.. 😊

Originally posted by: lighthouse

We have a primal understanding of good and bad, of right and wrong, highly developed sense of morality, of what it means to suffer not only our own pain but also the pain of others. Our moral behaviour may be scattered all over the place but our moral judgement is pretty consistent from person to person which is why Clinton had to lie about Monica or Spitzer had to resign from governorship.

lol. good to see you discounting qwerty's findings of similar human behavior.😉 with your own admission, you're finding behavior scattered. yes, the new twist is that now you're pinning it all on judgment being similar.😉 unfortunately, it aint similar even on those terms. which is why people with good conscience can and do make different judgments😉

Going back to Shruti's post about someone else teaching us right and wrong which impedes on our ability to make choices,- All of us carry moral grammar- equivalent of our ability to grasp speeach which is nothing until someone teaches us the language. in the same fashion our built in sense of right and wrong is nothing until someone teaches us how to apply it. All of us have conflicting morals which is why it is difficult to make the right choice sometimes. 😊

good. you seem to be getting somewhere closer to our position that things are never as stark clear. there are indeed conflicting emotions, tradeoffs, morals, duties, and how one negotiates through those is what makes us all different from others..

Originally posted by: chatbuster

good. you seem to be getting somewhere closer to our position that things are never as stark clear. there are indeed conflicting emotions, tradeoffs, morals, duties, and how one negotiates through those is what makes us all different from others.. No we are photo-copies of each other in the moral world.. we will think and behave similarly.. in those terms we are just morally mediocre junta... people who think they can redefine morality are those who want to wriggle out of this situation because they "think" they can do better when infact they are no where close.. to getting it any better...

Originally posted by: chatbuster

good. you seem to be getting somewhere closer to our position that things are never as stark clear. there are indeed conflicting emotions, tradeoffs, morals, duties, and how one negotiates through those is what makes us all different from others..

You misinterpreted my post... no one is disputing conflicting scenarios , infact our life and death example exhibits it to be the most difficult challenge one could face but it is not something one faces on a regular basis unless one is a surgeon ... Look when a mother decides to abort a child for whatever reason may be , threat to her life or not wanting to have that child it is clear to all that she knows what to do and goes ahead with the decision and deal with agony/guilt later on which are moral issues..

Let's see what else could be difficult- changing jobs, moving from home/India to wherever the job takes one, getting married, having kids etc but these aren't issues one faces over and over on a regular basis in their lives and if it seems difficult to make a choice on everything due to its circumstantial nature then I would say a person is of indecisive nature and wants to have it all and not because one is unable to distinguish between right or wrong but actually being greedy and wanting it all. I mean people have no problems parting with major chunks of money in stock market which can be far more risky in terms of creating impact then anything else we face in our daily lives, then deciding between rights and wrongs shouldn't be a problem.

Nature is very decisive in its actions and does everything with conviction but we seem to muddle it up with morals and render ourselves unable to make the choice when we know right from wrong. I feel it is also because we are attached to the end result very much..😛 In difficult situations , one has to carve out primary goal by weighing all risks, rights and wrongs and stick with the conviction without attaching oneself to whatever the result may be. I think people in olden days with scarce resources and choices were better at making judgement then we are in times of abundance. most of us see it in second generation NRI kids who seem clueless about their career goals compared to the ones who came here with little or nothing. 😊

Originally posted by: lighthouse

You misinterpreted my post... no one is disputing conflicting scenarios , infact our life and death example exhibits it to be the most difficult challenge one could face but it is not something one faces on a regular basis unless one is a surgeon ... Look when a mother decides to abort a child for whatever reason may be , threat to her life or not wanting to have that child it is clear to all that she knows what to do and goes ahead with the decision and deal with agony/guilt later on which are moral issues..

the question of abortion again is not a clear-cut good/ bad choice as you might be suggesting. there are good moral reasons for why someone might find it justified even without any threat to life- like what kind of life they could give their unborn kid as an unmarried mom for example. and even when they decide to have the kid, while someone might find it morally wrong to give their kid up for adoption, someone else might find that to be a sacrifice to have their kid placed in a well-off home. no one size fits all situation. no one necessarily is trying to do the bad thing always. there just happen to be a range of viewpoints and feelings in RL situations, a lot of them valid, a lot of them in opposition to what someone else might do under the exact same situations. it's not all moral black and white as you are implying.

Let's see what else could be difficult- changing jobs, moving from home/India to wherever the job takes one, getting married, having kids etc but these aren't issues one faces over and over on a regular basis in their lives and if it seems difficult to make a choice on everything due to its circumstantial nature then I would say a person is of indecisive nature and wants to have it all and not because one is unable to distinguish between right or wrong but actually being greedy and wanting it all. I mean people have no problems parting with major chunks of money in stock market which can be far more risky in terms of creating impact then anything else we face in our daily lives, then deciding between rights and wrongs shouldn't be a problem.

Nature is very decisive in its actions and does everything with conviction but we seem to muddle it up with morals and render ourselves unable to make the choice when we know right from wrong. I feel it is also because we are attached to the end result very much..😛 In difficult situations , one has to carve out primary goal by weighing all risks, rights and wrongs and stick with the conviction without attaching oneself to whatever the result may be. I think people in olden days with scarce resources and choices were better at making judgement then we are in times of abundance. most of us see it in second generation NRI kids who seem clueless about their career goals compared to the ones who came here with little or nothing. 😊

simple question for you- will people faced with different real-world situations reach the same conclusions on what's right or wrong? can they? let's even assume they are not trying to harm themselves or anyone, the benchmarks you seem to have attached to moral decision-making.

Originally posted by: qwertyesque

Nope.. they were put into a mindset in which they would be mentally ready to die. Suicide is unnatural and an aberration in creatures whose instinct is to survive. While individuals who commit suicide do under depression, religious groups commiting mass suicide or suicide bombers do it under peer pressure, brainwashing and promise of martyrdom or 70 virgins. As qwerty said before fighting for a cause is a moral decision for soldiers.

call it mindset or whatever. point is that bhagat singh and all the other fighters who lay down their lives for the country did so out of a greater purpose than basic self-presevation. bad example.. all these guys worked under an altered state of mind. Also the terrorists of today who blow themselves up are not exactly in sane mind either...

lol. they all worked under an altered state of mind? is that the case too with the parents who would sacrifice their lives for their children if they were faced with that ugly choice? are they too under the influence? witchcraft, LSD maybe? 😆

Originally posted by: qwertyesque

you are the one arguing for rules, not us.😉 it's all black or white according to you.

Originally posted by: lighthouse

I see just don't get caught.. 😆 now if they wanted to do the right thing, they would have taken phone off the hook before getting busy.. 😉

on second thoghts, it's not feasible....coz u see.....the eleventh commandment – thou shalt not be found out – is the only one that is virtually impossible to keep these days.😆

Originally posted by: qwertyesque