Right and Wrong

@dancinginchains,

Quote:

Ah, then recall your Bible stories. Adam and Eve were banished from Eden for eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I agree with you. Right and wrong is a contextual thing.

explain that story to me, i never read the bible, i just looked at the pictures

@Quatl,

To me, the difference between good and evil relies upon which is greater...the loss or the gain?
But. Does that make it right to kill someone that annoys you if you know you won't get caught just because the gain for you is greater then the loss?
I think not. So, that makes me rephrase it to the gain/loss of the whole society/species, depending on your views. I prefer to say species for myself. I'd like to think that people should be working for a common good, although one person's view on what is the "common good" is probably very different from another person's view on it. If it weren't, we probably wouldn't have way.
If more people will benefit from something then suffer, then I feel that it's the right thing to do.
If more people will suffer, then it seems wrong to me, no matter who the sufferer is, whether it be a rapist or a murderer, or a close friend.
Because we can't forsee the future, sometimes we don't know whether something will be "right" or "wrong" in loss/gain type terms. That's when moral questions arise. In theory, it should be possible to find ways that stay within the boundaries of right by doing something that helps many people and doesn't harm the perpetrator so much, assuming there is one; Don't we have jails so we don't take human life, an act typically considered evil?
Then again, there is the limiting factor I put in before by saying the human species...not animal, or anything else.

How much is an animal life worth?

To me, an animal should never suffer because they are much more pure and innocent then people. Therefore, assuming that anything that would cause them to suffer would be wrong, I put some store in how much the animal is loved, used, or how much it gives to the environment that we need to survive.

@Doobah47,

Doobah47 wrote:

Cocaine interrupts the synapses and causes a person to be more creative, whether with conversation or music or art or whatever...

Anyway my theory of good vs bad, is basically that good is creative and bad destructive.

First off by your theory of good and bad while you justify your opinion that cocaine is good, you also concede to the opinion of myself and others that it is bad. Meaning that while in some ways you disagree with us, in other ways you don't. Just pointing it out, not making any underlying implications or assumptions.

That being said I'm still not sure I agree with regard to creativity. Cocaine does excite the same part of the brain as music and sex, this has already been shown in psychology, but to say that it causes creativity in my view is stretching it.

@dancinginchains,

This is a bit persnickety:
Right and Wrong are word that equate with absolutes and accuracy, when associated with good and evil they tranfer to the absolute ends of what everyone has been discussing as a spectrum of sorts.

Good and Bad / Good and Evil are opposites in the middle of that spectrum that may or may not overlap depending on the relativity.

So to say it is right or wrong that someone murdered murder firmly places an action/motive whatever on one end or the other of the spectrum of non-universal context in which it is being judged. They are the words to use if one were to discuss absolute accuracy of a specific question in ethics

To say it was good or bad that someone murdered takes motive, consequence, and public opinion into account. They are the words one would use to discuss situational ethics.

To say it was a good or an evil act that someone murdered crosses the whole spectrum and is both universally and non-universally contectual, one might say it is inter-contextual.

@Quatl,

lol sorry if I've jumped the gun (only got as far as reading the first post here) but this looks like a trick question.

There is no defined right and wrong. We only have individual experience and laws or other rules we live by. If you look at how each of us is raised, you'll most likely find that we take our own backgrounds as acceptable. Even where we don't there will frequently be influencing factors. Every single one of us has our own interpretation of what is right and wrong. On the larger scale, every society has their own ideals and interpretations of right and wrong.

I can answer your question with a simple "Treat others as you would be treated yourself", but even this won't be constant between people. One man's notion of acceptable won't match another's.

There are constant values of course that have generally been programmed in from childhood. Compassion, love, a general desire to aid others is seen as good. Murder, hatred and a general desire to do ill or harm others for personal gain is seen as evil.

@simon phil,

re: eating fruit (knowledge of good and evil)

Here you have the chaos effect. What would we be without knowledge of good and evil? Would it even be possible not to have knowledge of good and evil? Indeed without knowledge that eating such fruit is bad, how would you know it was wrong? I tend to read that story as "God made sure man was able to think for himself. God was pleased and left them to get on with it for a while". heheh.

@dancinginchains,

dancinginchains wrote:

I've been acquainted with some fellow members already and so I have an idea what some people might respond with, but not everyone. I'm interested to know what view you all hold on this topic.

What is the difference between right and wrong?
What is characteristic of each?

I figured this topic was broad enough and a fair topic to put in the Ethics section.

Dancinginchains, Smile

:)Just as all meaning is biologically based, so to, right and wrong, right and wrong along with good and bad refer back to the well being of the body/biology. In the short term or with forethought the longterm consequences of your actions or the actions of others will be judged--the price of being a social animal. Wink

JUDGEMENT!

@simon phil,

I like what you said about eating the fruit, simon. How could Adam and Eve have made the good choice to not eat the fruit, when they didn't even know what good was? Of course, one could also say, yet they made the evil choice to eat the fruit without knowing what evil was.

Perhaps a way to reconcile that story to the current thread, is to ascertain that evil is often committed in ignorance, but good will most often happen through instruction. We learn, from society, experience or whatever else we value, what is good and how to do it. But lack of instruction, a non-desire to garner valuable and utilizable direction, will most likely lead us to evil. I suppose that would place knowledge as paramount to morality, which might be more or less controversial, I'm not sure.

@Solace,

Solace wrote:

I like what you said about eating the fruit, simon. How could Adam and Eve have made the good choice to not eat the fruit, when they didn't even know what good was? Of course, one could also say, yet they made the evil choice to eat the fruit without knowing what evil was.

Perhaps a way to reconcile that story to the current thread, is to ascertain that evil is often committed in ignorance, but good will most often happen through instruction. We learn, from society, experience or whatever else we value, what is good and how to do it. But lack of instruction, a non-desire to garner valuable and utilizable direction, will most likely lead us to evil. I suppose that would place knowledge as paramount to morality, which might be more or less controversial, I'm not sure.

Solace,

:)Interesting, Albert Einstein has a piece on the benifits of society and the individual, quite in keeping with the sentiments expressed above, yes, it is society and culture which humanizes us all, we would indeed be wretched without said conditioning. Wink

@dancinginchains,

dancingchains,

That which is wrong is not right and that which is right is not wrong. That is the difference.

Regards,
Lee

@Quatl,

'Right' or 'wrong' or neither...
Being amoral, I find what is, Is.

@Nocturne,

Nocturne wrote:

dancingchains,

That which is wrong is not right and that which is right is not wrong. That is the difference. Regards,
Lee

Nocturne,

Judgement! Smile

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

'Right' or 'wrong' or neither...
Being amoral, I find what is, Is.

Nameless,

That is the point, is, is just that, it is, only judgement makes it anything else. You are quite right, is, is beyond good and evil, it is amoral. It just is! Smile

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Solace,

:)Interesting, Albert Einstein has a piece on the benifits of society and the individual, quite in keeping with the sentiments expressed above, yes, it is society and culture which humanizes us all, we would indeed be wretched without said conditioning.

If culture humanizes us then it must be animals who created culture. Why don't you say instead, that the life of the body is the result of sex, but that the life of the mind is the result of culture, and also the continuation of culture. The life of the body lives and dies. The life of society is made eternal because each picks up where others leave off, and then in time set down their labors and die while others carry culture forward. Culture is not static and neither are people. Each figures into the dynamic that is humanity. Culture, as the Germans call civilization is all that is apart from us, and our individual being, yet, each is a product of culture and each can mold culture slightly to their will, so, we don't exactly make culture, and it does not exactly make us, but it makes us what we are.

@Fido,

Fido,

:)Sounds like a new thread to me, it would make a good one. It is too, as a culture we decide through our collective judgement what is right and what is wrong. Some excellent insight Fido!! One of my favorite topics for sometime has been, context defines, this certainly underlines the importance of context. Wink

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Fido,

:)Sounds like a new thread to me, it would make a good one. It is too, as a culture we decide through our collective judgement what is right and what is wrong. Some excellent insight Fido!! One of my favorite topics for sometime has been, context defines, this certainly underlines the importance of context.

Culture is like the ocean to the fish, and like the fish we cannot judge what we are in. It is our milieu, as you say: context.. If culture is the only perspective from which we can judge anything, how then do we judge culture?. I think we have to recognize a wisdom in it that is never exactly intentional. It is the method by which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next, and one might rearrange the bits and pieces of it, but no one can add to it significantly or detract much from it.

@Fido,

Fido,

Society, culture, the container and the content. Society you might say is a secondry womb, which we never grow out of. If this theme is to be continued, perhaps you should start a new thread for this topic. Of course if there is more to be said about how society determines what is right and what is wrong, then we would on topic. Smile

@dancinginchains,

dancinginchains wrote:

I've been acquainted with some fellow members already and so I have an idea what some people might respond with, but not everyone. I'm interested to know what view you all hold on this topic.

What is the difference between right and wrong?
What is characteristic of each?

I figured this topic was broad enough and a fair topic to put in the Ethics section.

The concepts of "right" and "wrong" are only relative to the person, or consciousness that is perceiving. There's no objective or innate "right" or "wrong", as the universe does not judge.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

The concepts of "right" and "wrong" are only relative to the person, or consciousness that is perceiving. There's no objective or innate "right" or "wrong", as the universe does not judge.

Your conclusion is incorrect. Right and wrong are inevitably based upon survival, and wrong kills the beast. Nature ultimately judges right and wrong, and we have the choice, but nature has the hammer. Look at morality. Does it not always re-enforce healthy behavior, and condemn the causes of social disease? Think about it.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Your conclusion is incorrect. Right and wrong are inevitably based upon survival, and wrong kills the beast. Nature ultimately judges right and wrong, and we have the choice, but nature has the hammer. Look at morality. Does it not always re-enforce healthy behavior, and condemn the causes of social disease? Think about it.

You're making a grave over simplification here.

For one, you're regarding the survival of a species as good, when it fact it really doesn't matter to the universe. If the beast dies, that is not wrong, it's just existence and ultimately means nothing. Nature, also, is just a term used in an attempt to explain what we don't understand, a differentiation from humanity, and attempt to have something concrete. There is nothing concrete.

Also, what is healthy behavior? Again, the universe does not judge. Such a thing only exists because we place meaning to it. Likewise, condemning social disease only has a negative connotation because we apply it as such.There is no objective "right" and "wrong". Such a thing can only be subjective.

As for morality, does it always condemn the causes of social disease? Absolutely not. In fact, morality separates us as a species, and can be viewed AS the social disease. Think about it.

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