What is right and wrong?

@Fido,

Right is what keeps us satisfied and wrong keeps up our distaste.

Neither one is of much use without the other. Both are actually pretty useless.

@hammersklavier,

Consider this: You get in a fight with your significant other. While you bicker back and forth, it occurs to you that this fight will continue until one of you ends it. So you get up from the argument, explain that you cannot continue as the argument is going no where and you leave. Once you leave, your significant other kills themselves out of a strong feeling of neglect.

Was your action right or wrong?

#2: You and your girlfriend (I am male so I can only see this one from my point of view), in a heat of passion, make love and she ends up getting pregnant. Concerned about the child, you go and get a second job, work all day and night and when you see each other, you are too tired to do anything and so you sleep a great deal. Realizing that you have been far too worried and that she could not raise a child in this environment because it would be unfair to you and the child, she goes and gets an abortion. She knows that your views on abortion are somewhat wishy washy so she does so without telling you in order to save you the extra grief. Was this action right or wrong?

Before you answer for each of these, let me explain that neither one is right or wrong. My reasoning may be a bit backwards in most of your minds but I will attempt to explain.
In the first situation, your choice was to walk away in order to end the discussion: you took the action which seemed most correct. The result was that your significant other killed themselves. This would, by most ethics, define your action as incorrect, especially deontology. So your action was right and the results wrong.

In the second scenario, she took the action which she felt was in the best interest of everyone. She knew that the child would not be raised properly and she loved you so much that she wanted only to make you happy. Thus she took a life. Again, by most ethical standards, this is wrong and yet, by standards of the situation, she took the best action that she was aware of.

In the first example, the results were not known because the perverbial "you" did not know everything about the situation so took action according to the knowledge that you had.

In the second, the result were known but were considered the lesser of two evils. Taking a life was better than forcing three to live in misery. So were these right or wrong actions?

These situations may seem ridiculous and extreme but let me simply say that both have happened to me. These types of situations are what have formed my opinion of right and wrong. I have come to the conclusion that, without absolute knowledge of the situation, that is to say without knowing EVERYTHING about the situation, you cannot hope to make the best choice because you do not know all of the options available to you. Without making the best choice, you can never hope to be "right". All you can hope for is a close proximity to something remotely close to correct. In other words, if everything HAS to come down to right and wrong then you shall always be wrong as you do not know everything about a situation. So if there IS a right and wrong then we are never right, but if there is not then all we have is action and consequence (cause and effect).

@Joe,

Joe wrote:

Right is what keeps us satisfied and wrong keeps up our distaste.

Neither one is of much use without the other. Both are actually pretty useless.

Consider their real purpose: They are forms by which we structure our relationship... Think what kind of world we would have if you could never tell some one what you thought of them standing on your dink...

@hammersklavier,

Dichotomy doesn't equate to choice. You must consider the role of intentional action in determining moral responsibility for your proof to work.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Consider their real purpose: They are forms by which we structure our relationship... Think what kind of world we would have if you could never tell some one what you thought of them standing on your dink...

Why would i have to them that "standing on my dink" was right or wrong? Couldnt I merely say "ouch" or "hey, I believe you have something under your shoe".

@Joe,

Joe wrote:

Why would i have to them that "standing on my dink" was right or wrong? Couldnt I merely say "ouch" or "hey, I believe you have something under your shoe".

If you tell some one it hurts, they might do it again... If you tell them it is wrong that means it is interfering with your relationship... Especially if you intend to use it later....

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

In other words, if everything HAS to come down to right and wrong then you shall always be wrong as you do not know everything about a situation.

... I'm not sure I get your meaning ... the way I see it, there are four possible outcomes of a right/wrong choice:

1. right intent; right result
2. right intent; wrong result
3. wrong intent; right result
4. wrong intent; wrong result

... and given that the vast majority of choices are not nearly as life-changing as the painful experiences you relate, sometimes it's hard not to get a "right result" ... for example:

1. I come to a stop sign on a deserted country road and I stop, look both ways, and proceed - nobody gets killed (right intent; right result)
2. I come to a stop sign on a deserted country road and I blow past it - nobody gets killed (wrong intent; right result)

@Icon,

Results cannot be right or wrong, they can only be preferred or not.

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

Results cannot be right or wrong, they can only be preferred or not.

... only if you're wearing a lab coat, perched in a spaceship and totally removed from the tumult ... "preferred" and "not preferred" do not suffice to describe my subjective sense of right and wrong ...

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

If you tell some one it hurts, they might do it again... If you tell them it is wrong that means it is interfering with your relationship... Especially if you intend to use it later....

So i guess what your saying is that, we can only get people to do what we want if we make them feel bad.

Something is wrong when it is something we dont like.
So using the term wrong is making someone feel bad that they did something you didnt like.

Im not trying to be sarcastic, it seems to me, that is the gist of it.

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... I'm not sure I get your meaning ... the way I see it, there are four possible outcomes of a right/wrong choice:

1. right intent; right result
2. right intent; wrong result
3. wrong intent; right result
4. wrong intent; wrong result

... and given that the vast majority of choices are not nearly as life-changing as the painful experiences you relate, sometimes it's hard not to get a "right result" ... for example:

1. I come to a stop sign on a deserted country road and I stop, look both ways, and proceed - nobody gets killed (right intent; right result)
2. I come to a stop sign on a deserted country road and I blow past it - nobody gets killed (wrong intent; right result)

I consider "right" to be the best possible outcome or intent. This is not possible because you do not know everything about a situation. Without absolute knowledge there is no absolute "right". So you can come close but there will still be a better action or result that you were unaware of. Thus, you can never be "right". you can come close but you are still wrong in saying that you took the right course of action or got the right result.

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... only if you're wearing a lab coat, perched in a spaceship and totally removed from the tumult ... "preferred" and "not preferred" do not suffice to describe my subjective sense of right and wrong ...

Right and wrong only pertain to the metaphysical realms of intent and obligation.

You cannot say that one state of affairs is more "right" or "wrong" than another.

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

I consider "right" to be the best possible outcome or intent. This is not possible because you do not know everything about a situation. Without absolute knowledge there is no absolute "right". So you can come close but there will still be a better action or result that you were unaware of. Thus, you can never be "right". you can come close but you are still wrong in saying that you took the right course of action or got the right result.

... does that mean you also consider "wrong" to be the worst possible outcome or intent? ... in which case you can never be "right" nor "wrong"?

@hammersklavier,

In all reality, right and wrong are in the mind and have no place in conjunctive reality. When you have two things which define, by antithesis, each other, they cancel each other out. These things cannot be truths. If you take an action and the results occur, some may view it as right and some may view it as wrong. So who is correct and who is incorrect? There is no way to tell because right and wrong are false concepts within the self. They are like blame or guilt.

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

Right and wrong only pertain to the metaphysical realms of intent and obligation.

You cannot say that one state of affairs is more "right" or "wrong" than another.

... I suppose that's one way of looking at things - a form of dualism with intent-obligation on one side and state-of-affairs on the other and no connective tissue between ... personally, I like to think that my actions have a little more impact on the state of affairs than that Wink

@hammersklavier,

Well paulhanke, Philosophy is not about what you would like to believe. It is the science of truth.

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

So who is correct and who is incorrect? There is no way to tell because right and wrong are false concepts within the self.

... personally, I might reword that as "... right and wrong are false concepts when projected outside of the self." ... I know that won't carry much weight with most of the folks on this forum ... but that's okay - I'm discovering that there are a number of (respected?) philosophers who have already tread the path upon which my inclinations are taking me ... just last night:

Quote:

... choice and the effective effort involved in it are themselves such contingent events and so bound up with the precarious uncertainty of other events, that philosophers have too readily assumed that metaphysics and science of fact and truth are themselves wisdom, thinking thus to avoid the necessity of either exercising or recognizing choice.

In briefest formula, "reality" becomes what we wish existence to be, after we have analyzed its defects and decided what would remove them; "reality" is what existence would be if our reasonably justified preferences were so completely established in nature as to exhaust and define its entire being and thereby render search and struggle unnecessary. What is left over (and since trouble, struggle, conflict, and error still empirically exist, something is left over), being excluded by definition from full reality is assigned to a grade or order of being which is asserted to be metaphysically inferior; an order variously called appearance, illusion, mortal mind, or the merely empirical, against what really and truly is.

John Dewey, Existence as Precarious and Stable

@Icon,

Icon wrote:

It is the science of truth.

... for some, maybe so ... for others, philosophy is about finding those truths to which science is blind ...

@Joe,

Joe wrote:

So i guess what your saying is that, we can only get people to do what we want if we make them feel bad.

Something is wrong when it is something we dont like.
So using the term wrong is making someone feel bad that they did something you didnt like.

Im not trying to be sarcastic, it seems to me, that is the gist of it.

The object is not to get people to do what you want; but to do what is right... Life is a form of relationship we share, and we share many forms within life; and since it is cooperative, that we share much and depend upon others for our needs we must find words to achieve our goals and express when they are not being met... If it were possible to take my food out of your mouth I would have to justify that act to myself, and If I could not justify it to you I might be endangering my own life, your life, or our lives with my actions... We really want what is best for us, and that is right...We know right and wrong by its effect on life... The terms, the forms are not about making people feel good or bad, but in maintaining the situation where words and forms have meaning, and this requires life...

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... for some, maybe so ... for others, philosophy is about finding those truths to which science is blind ...

Blind deaf and dumb...WE must sense the world before we can measure it... Moral reality is not physical reality... We see the effects of all moral truths in very subtle causes... But it does not matter whether injustice results in a homicide or in war, because if you look enough at life you can see what becomes of people deprived of justice... The cause is simple to cure, but not easy... People clearly love injustice until they are its victims, and how can anyone stop what so many enjoy????

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