Morality/Ethics

[The_Gadfly]

I've been reading Introducing Ethics from the Introducing... series, and it's got me thinking about moral laws.

So I ask you, people of Gaia:

Is there a right or wrong? Should there be a set of universal laws? Is right or wrong all in the mind of the perpetrator?

Any thoughts on morality would be acceptable.

Think carefully, this is an important issue.  

[rave kitty king]

the dark cheetah canonly reply that morality is like instinct...there is never just 1 answer, each beast must answer life's questions on its own. answers lie within the primal brain.  

[Captain Chemosh]

*the orochi whispers quietly in your ear*
Their issss a law already isssssn't there? We've only hidden it with politicssss. That law issss the law of the jungle, eat or be eaten...  

[The_Gadfly]

Both sound much like the Socratic method. Your ethics are from your "true self", but are shaped by your community. If you give into the madness of politics, that is what your moral laws will shape into. But if you only listen to yourself, your moral laws will shape into something much different then society wants you to be. In other words, there are no one set of moral laws, it is different for every person.  

[The_Gadfly]

Chemosh of Krynn

*the orochi whispers quietly in your ear*
Their issss a law already isssssn't there? We've only hidden it with politicssss. That law issss the law of the jungle, eat or be eaten...

But the laws of the jungle have been buried. People used to live in fear of a brutal death, for there was no moral grounds. They braced themselves around every corner. To help satisfy their fear, they decided it would be of common interest to set moral grounds.  

[Furrie Princess Nala]

Morality (While we all agree on its meaning) depends on the persons views. Like taking the life a person that just killed someone i see as wrong while, You might think it is right. (Not sure if you do or not just saying to make a point.) To say that we can all agree on the same moral guidlines is impossable since, We are all different on how we think. However! We do have some close guidelines for it.  

[12neowolf34]

I think morality has a lot to do with the laws of society and how society views us. There are many laws I dont agree with, and many moral issues I have problems with. However, I find institutions such as church and local law enforcement sadly necessary. The only thing keeping some people from committing horrid atrocities is the fear of being caught. Q.E.D, I knew an individual that viewed murder as natural selection, and if he had killed someone, it was their fault for not being stronger/faster than him. The only thing that kept him from killing people was that same fear. In a sociological sense, humans are just as cruel and malicious as animals, but the institution of fear is enough to sustain the norms of society.

Saying something like, "wrong is defined by the individual" is naive and callous. Charles Manson justified the murders carried out by his followers as completely fine, stating that since he found nothing wrong with it, there was nothing wrong. It is used more often than not as a creed for sociopaths, and all too often used as an excuse to act rebellious by people who dont fully understand the concept.  

[Lazurkri]

and yet the usage of the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't viewed as mass murder, and was viewed as neccessary.....

My views on morality are different than most peoples, due to being raised in a military family. I feel that the usage of the A bomb, for example, was neccessary to prevent more bloodshed. and it told the Soviets they'd better not do anything stupid, or they'd eat radiation.

In my opinion, universal enforcement of a set of laws, unless backed up by a almost universal policing force, is impossible. Dictators have tried it before, and it has always failed.

Unlike some here, I believe that a basic human being, raised normally, will be a good person, if the society he is raised in is relativly good.

in short, Morality is almost always brought up AFTER something has happened, not before....

make of it what you will. I stand by what I say.  

[Furrie Princess Nala]

Ok hate to sound like a tree hugger but i feel truthfully that while humans may think they are doing right i think nature and the spirits of the world decide whats right or rong not us humans.