BS: The difference between right and wrong..

09 Jun 10 - 05:58 PM (#2924196)
Subject: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Georgiansilver

OK so people say we all know the difference between right and wrong... so what is the difference and how do we know?????

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09 Jun 10 - 06:01 PM (#2924198)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: MarkS

How about - right is when everybody does whatever they want, but without:

Violence
Coercion
Deception

Mark

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09 Jun 10 - 06:32 PM (#2924223)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Paul Burke

Terry Pratchett had a good description of evil: when you treat a person as a thing.

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09 Jun 10 - 06:43 PM (#2924230)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

We all have a strong basic instinct about it, Gs. We base it on concepts such as fairness, justice, honesty, the rule of law (though some laws are arguably unjust), helpful vs harmful intent, that sort of thing. We also base it on the concept of the Golden Rule...which is to treat others as you would honestly wish to be treated, were you put in their place.

People don't always know what's right and what's wrong, however. Sometimes they get confused by conflicting loyalties, politics, law, religion, family, financial pressures and considerations, command structure, patriotism, racial ideas, class consciousness, fear, and selfish concerns of all kinds.

So it's not as simple as it might seem at first glance.

I think that most people usually feel they are doing "the right thing" in the moment they do it, even when they do great harm. They may feel quite differently afterward, however, when they have seen the results of their actions.

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09 Jun 10 - 06:45 PM (#2924231)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T

Right is when you limit your personal desires such that you do no harm, physical, material, or psychological, to others, while respecting also their right to satisfy their desires on the same basis.

Wrong then is self explanatory.

Don T.

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09 Jun 10 - 07:00 PM (#2924247)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Lox

I'm right, you're wrong.

QED

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09 Jun 10 - 07:16 PM (#2924259)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Can't remember which one of the great philosophers said. It is a code of conduct that for a society to succeed must follow and those that don't will fail ...

Here is my take on US history, people ask me all the time what is government getting bigger what happened yada yada ... Well the government is set up for individual freedoms. In the past we had a code of moral conduct, I am not talking about Christian only, people of any faith followed something like the 10 commandments which were universal to a successful society ... If you have a moral code of conduct to follow, not based in law but based in either religion or humanity in general, you don't need new laws everyday ... if the code was followed ... you would not need a law to keep kids out of the factory because people won't do it. Why because it is wrong. But as the morality, the general code of conduct across all men of good will, christian or otherwise broke down, the hole created needed to be replaced by law.. hence more and more and more laws ... Right and wrong can be attributed to a code of conduct that is universal to a society of man that succeeds ... don't steal, don't kill ... if it doesn't exist or cultures that don't follow a guide of conduct as such., the society collapses and history has shown that

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09 Jun 10 - 07:18 PM (#2924262)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: kendall

Simple. The Golden Rule.

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09 Jun 10 - 07:25 PM (#2924270)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Captain says in 3 words what take me a paragraph ... LOL

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09 Jun 10 - 07:31 PM (#2924275)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: gnu

The difference comes when people, as individuals, decide they will prosper for their their own benefit and for the benefit of their offspring at any cost.

It's simple... it's survival. And it's bolstered and justified by the crime and slime that pervades the very institutions that we look to for justice. The courts, the political systems, the politicians, the corporations, the banks, the religions... it's every wo/man for her/himself and screw everyone else.

It's pathetic, but it's simple... from the slums to the mansions. Been at it since human time began and it's gonna take a while yet to fix it. But, we always have hope.... I hope.

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09 Jun 10 - 07:45 PM (#2924285)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

Yes, when a society fails morally to a really drastic extent, then its general collapse is definitely on the way.

Governments as we now know them inevitably arose as human societies moved beyond a band or tribal stage, got much larger and more complicated, and started dealing in money, the printed word, property, trade, commerce, the creation of trained armies, and so on. You simply can't regulate and manage all that stuff without a modern government, so for us to pursue our present way of life government is not merely a choice...it's a necessity.

The breakdown of morality in society has, I think, occurred primarily due to people's constant quest to make more money...and they sacrifice normal morality in pursuit of that objective. Find almost any vice that is festering in a society, follow the trail back to how it got started, and you'll discover that someone stood to make a lot of money from starting it.

I don't believe, Oldude, that government is set up primarily "for (to secure and protect) individual freedoms". It would be really nice if it was, but I don't think it is. That's one of the things that a government concerns itself with, yes...because the public demands it...but it's not the essential or primary concern of a government.   It's a much secondary issue. The primary concern of government is to organize and manage a nation's commerce, its jurisdictional concerns, its hierarchical authority structures, its military concerns, its territorial concerns, and its body of law.

After they get all that in place...yeah...they'll give some thought to individual freedoms... ;-)

I don't believe, for example, that your American Revolution was fought primarily to secure individual rights. Uh-uh. That's the popular myth, but it wasn't the reality. The American Revolution was fought primarily over financial and jurisdictional issues between the Yankee traders and businessmen in New England and the British Crown. They fought that war over MONEY! The British crown could have avoided the whole mess had they had the sense to make the financial concessions that the New England traders wanted and not put a tax on various imported goods to the USA, but the Crown was too arrogant and set in its ways to realize how serious the situation was until matters got quite out of hand. They blew it.

I think you'd find that when it came to "individual rights", people in England and in Canada had just the same kind of individual rights on a day to day basis as Americans did in the years both before and following the American Revolution....and that has remained so to this day. Americans aren't any freer than Canadians or Englishmen, and they never have been in my opinion. When it comes to individual rights, we're pretty much dealing with the same basic situation.

The Revolutionaries, however, had a new government to found, and they had to strongly motivate the people who were being recruited to fight for them. They couldn't just say it was just about money and jurisictional issues...although "no taxation without representation" was a major slogan nonetheless. They had to put it in more dramatic terms. They had to say it was about "freedom", "liberty", and grand stuff like that. So they did. And it's been believed ever since.

Well, if you'd grown up in Canadian or English schools, you'd be perhaps surprised to find that the British are just as proud of their "individual freedoms" and their "liberty" as Americans are...and they figure it all began with the Magna Carta! ;-D

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09 Jun 10 - 08:23 PM (#2924302)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Bobert

What Kendall said...

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09 Jun 10 - 08:49 PM (#2924311)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Paul Burke

Another take:

Left is right. Right is wrong.

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09 Jun 10 - 09:43 PM (#2924323)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Interesting take LH ..... good food for thought and research

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09 Jun 10 - 09:51 PM (#2924325)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Rapparee

No. If you turn left to get someplace then right is left because left was right.

Are you looking for the absolutes, the basics, which transcend every culture and every set of mores and morals? In short, ethics? The things like "Don't kill anyone unnecessarily" and "Help the other guy"? Or things like "Jesus will hate you if you eat that"?

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09 Jun 10 - 10:28 PM (#2924341)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Bill D

The answers are all right in here.

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09 Jun 10 - 10:35 PM (#2924343)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

From a reading of the New Testament, Rapaire, I find it hard to believe that Jesus would hate anyone... ;-) That's just not his approach at all. Some of his followers might hate you, though, if you do something they don't agree with.

Bill - ARGH! Maybe next week.

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09 Jun 10 - 10:59 PM (#2924351)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Rapparee

Immanuel had the answers, you betcha. He could answer the Big Questions. As they used to say, "If Kant can't, nobody can."

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09 Jun 10 - 10:59 PM (#2924352)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Rapparee

(Besides, Bill -- I had to read that for my course in Ethics. That and a whole lot else.)

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10 Jun 10 - 02:09 AM (#2924384)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Doug Chadwick

How about - right is when everybody does whatever they want, but without:

Violence
Coercion
Deception


If someone peacefully and openly cultivates cannabis purely for his own use, there is no violence, deception or coercion involved but the law will say he is wrong,


DC

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10 Jun 10 - 02:54 AM (#2924394)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Ebbie

There are three directions to choose: Right. Left. Wrong.

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10 Jun 10 - 04:33 AM (#2924425)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Dave the Gnome

If Immanuel Kant, Ghenis Khan. Anyway - I wouldn't believe a word of that text. Remember -

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table

David Hume could out consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel

DeG

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10 Jun 10 - 05:50 AM (#2924454)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: MikeL2

hi

Right is doing what my wife tells me !!!!

MikeL2

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10 Jun 10 - 09:08 AM (#2924542)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Bill
it is just the opposite, a religion based on love , Compassion and tolerance. It is the corruption of men for power that distorts it and cause the problems in history. Even Jefferson, Franklin and the other founding fathers noted that. Their slamming of Christians was based on the corruption in the churchs. The teaching however was another story ..

About March 1, 1790, [Franklin] wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion...:

    As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...." (Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)

He died just over a month later on April 17.


A person who believes truly in Christ, would not and cannot do what others who Claim to follow him did and still do. But I don't want to turn this into a religious thread. I will submit however, the code of morals that was followed though out the course of US history and based on the teaching of Christ lead to a whole lot less government. People back then were far less likely to do some of the things we see today. Which requires a new law every time to plug the morality hole that was lost .. We are a nation to worship or not worship as we see fit. The country was not founded on any religion but the moral code of conduct that most followed helped keep people from cooking up such ponzi schemes and other stuff we see today. So Religion can be a very positive force .. but never at a government level . It will always corrupt and become destructive. Why I hate preachers trying to meddle into politics. If they spent their time on faith issues and morality of their parishioners, everyone would be better off, including indirectly the country

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10 Jun 10 - 09:17 AM (#2924547)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

And when is the last time any one of us heard of an Amish guy being arrested for stealing, or murder ..? It doesn't happen because their code of moral conduct is based on the teachings of Christ .. it is good for religion and good for the nation .. not a bunch of new prisons being built to hold those drug dealing Amish LOL

The "religious right" we see in America today, they have no clue about their own faith and or their government .. Religion is a personal matter, not to be used for politics, it is guaranteed corruption of faith to do so.

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10 Jun 10 - 09:38 AM (#2924559)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

"Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality." --Thomas Jefferson to James Fishback, 1809. ME 12:315

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10 Jun 10 - 10:54 AM (#2924619)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: SINSULL

Dan - I love a challenge.
Amish Crime:
http://www.google.com/search?q=amish+crime&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

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10 Jun 10 - 11:07 AM (#2924628)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Rapparee

I was gonna say....

Having spent 28 years working in Amish areas and counting some of the Amish among my good friends at the time I can assure you that crime among the Amish is just a prevalent as among the rest of us.

What truly distresses me are the "Yankees" who prey upon the Amish, as the Amish will only rarely report a crime. I know of three "Yankees" who grabbed a slightly mentally challenged Amish girl while she was walking to her home, raped her repeatedly, infected her, impregnated her, and threw her from their van at 30 mph. She lived, and in this case the Amish community called in the sheriff, who had the three in jail in short order. The Amish forgave; the Yankee community was ready for a lynch party, but the three ended up with "life without parole."

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10 Jun 10 - 11:27 AM (#2924643)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

my friends, I learn something everyday ... I probably should qualify my statements as to my location. But as Rap just said they don't report it ... excellent points, I stand corrected

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10 Jun 10 - 11:35 AM (#2924645)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Sins, reading those articles it looks like with everything else in life there is exceptions to any rule ..Boy there will be bad people in all walks of life regardless of the moral code they are suppose to follow. I would love to see the statics overall and how as a group they stack up to the US society as a whole ... that would be cool

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10 Jun 10 - 11:45 AM (#2924653)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

By the way, I am in no way affirming that their way of life is good, better or best ... Just saying the follow a moral code of behavior. But their society is also complex and somewhat corrupted by the leaders of their faith ... From some of the Amish I know, I really do not like even a little bit how women are treated ... Frankly they are worked to death in that culture ... but it is not their code of the 10 commandments that tells them it is ok ... it is the dynamic of their culture that does that.   Morality as written by their doctrine of faith would say it is wrong to do that ..

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10 Jun 10 - 11:54 AM (#2924659)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Ok ok, here is the point that I ponder often ... and you folks can help me ... If a group of people, are raised by personal faiths (no specific faith or even no faith) but raised with the concept ..
"Thy shalt not steal", "Thy shalt not kill"

is that group, more or less likely to do such acts ...? I pose it as a question. It is a good question because if the answer is yes than any general belief in a non law based morality is good for any nation. If the answer is no , then no framework whatever will lessen the number of laws or crimes against others in the society.

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10 Jun 10 - 12:02 PM (#2924662)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: IanC

It's a bit complex, but you might get some idea from the per capita murders statistics here.

The USA is around average at 24th, with Colombia being top (drug gangs and weak government), South Africa 2nd (still integrating after decades if a repressive minority regime) but Jamaica is 3rd. The UK is 46th with about 30% of the murders per capita of the USA.

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10 Jun 10 - 12:04 PM (#2924663)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Amos

With all due respect, there is no single code or single definition available. Generally, right actions are those acts or omissions which enhance broad survival of self and others, their symbiotes, etc. but that's an awfully broad guideline.

Every act (committed or omitted) has a consequence and a context. The context is essential to any evaluation of the act. Even the Golden Rule can fall short in situations where it is not reciprocal such as defending oneself against a rapist, for example.

All that said, there seems to be an instinct toward optimal rightness inherent in the human mind or spirit, but it is very easily pushed down out of sight when individual greed or neurosis comes forward.


A

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10 Jun 10 - 12:16 PM (#2924671)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Amos
you are in line with many of the great philosophers ... what is the Latin term Concenus Gencium (sp) or something like that ... a code of the individual that leads to a successful or unsuccessful society.

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10 Jun 10 - 01:24 PM (#2924733)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: GUEST,kendall

A student of Rabbi Hellil asked him to explain the Tora and the Rabbi said, "That which you would not have others do to you, do not do to them.All the rest is commentary" The Rabbi lived from 70 BC to 7 AD.

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10 Jun 10 - 02:58 PM (#2924829)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Paul Burke

Rose tinted glasses, the pervading sin of the religious.

Amish child abuse.

I'd like to bet that nobody can come up with a crime that is always wrong,or a virtue that is always good.

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10 Jun 10 - 03:29 PM (#2924858)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: GUEST,Doc John

De Sade wrote something like 'what is right for me may very well be wrong for you'. As the slave owner might say to the slave. But why do we think slavery is wrong? Did someone tell us? It's certainly not the Bible: Jesus doesn't mention it and St Paul actually condones it. Perhaps that's how the owners and traders could happily go to church each Sunday. What do other holy book say? Perhaps we just followed Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By.

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10 Jun 10 - 03:35 PM (#2924864)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Amos

Human empathy is one reason, Doc. Them as has it are more likely to seek optimum solutions across a wider spectrum instead of the "what's good for me" blinders common in some circles.

A

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10 Jun 10 - 03:39 PM (#2924868)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Then right and wrong is an individual decision? In which case it explains how people can murder without conscience? Seems to me it is a function of basic humanity, be it conscience, religious beliefs or just DNA ... a code of morality exists in everyone .. when it doesn't you have the greed, the murder ... and hence more laws to fill the hole that was left by the lack thereof

So abandon anything that expresses any morality?   seems to me that is a mistake also ... but that is just my opinion

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10 Jun 10 - 03:50 PM (#2924879)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Ahhh now I see , and if someone breaks the moral code ... regardless   we throw it out as defective ... interesting ...

Kinda like the written law, if some one steals we remove the law preventing stealing because it must be defective ... got it .. clear as a bell to me

So Capts golden rule doesn't apply because one person broke it .. so we shoot em ..

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10 Jun 10 - 04:00 PM (#2924889)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)

I don't know. There are historic/social codes which objectively seem to make no sense bar the mindless adherence to rule, and there are ethical or humanitarian ones based on the principle of minimisation of suffering for others (such as Buddha and Jesus advocated).

It bothers me how many religions appear to place the former over the latter.

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10 Jun 10 - 04:40 PM (#2924927)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Well here is my thought process since the thread was about right or wrong. Man is a social being, I suspect we are born with some sense or learn really quickly how to get along and what to do around others. I believe the moral guidelines are supported throughout our life by either our religious beliefs , or in the case of no belief's by our humanity. I don't believe it is an accident that the many good friends I have here on mudcat hail from all systems to no system of belief, and pretty much to a person are good loving and caring people. That the standard of morals for a successful human being in society is pretty much the same if the society they live in is a successful society and lasts.

I believe that if our society , would get back to a general guide line of moral conduct, be it supported by our faith or simply our humanity, we would have much less of the crime, drugs and other issues. Hence we would see less laws to fill in the hole, and for me, each law that is passed erodes individual freedoms, eroding the Constitution ...

anyway that is my take on right or wrong.

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10 Jun 10 - 04:46 PM (#2924932)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Joe Offer

I think there's more to ethics than simply "do no harm." I think we have an obligation to make things better, and to alleviate suffering - and obligation for social justice covers it pretty well, although Glenn Beck might disagree. Yeah, I think I'd agree with Kendall that the Golden Rule covers it.
Most religions seem to have been founded on the Golden Rule, and often they spend most of their energy finding ways to prove that the Golden Rule doesn't apply to them....

-Joe-

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10 Jun 10 - 05:12 PM (#2924941)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Joe
   very true, but where does the ethics come from? What if they passed a law that said it is ok to steal on Tuesday .. Why would no one here do that. It usually goes like this

Because it is against my nature to do such things
ok, why, the law just said it is ok

Because it is not right ... why ..

and the final thing is ... "Because my parents taught me right from wrong"   That is were the Golden rule comes from ... and we don't do that much anymore sadly

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10 Jun 10 - 05:56 PM (#2924991)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

Among the Plains Indians of the American West it was considered totally wrong to steal from another member of one's own tribe....but exemplary behaviour to steal from various other tribes, particularly when you stole their horses. ;-) People have a way of rationalizing these things.

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10 Jun 10 - 08:02 PM (#2925085)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Joe Offer

Hi, olddude -
I think that the real right and wrong is beyond law. Law can sometimes be an accurate description of what's right, but that depends on whether the lawgiver has a correct sense of right and wrong. Too often, our lawgivers are interested in their own benefit, not in the common good.
It's not what we're taught, either. You've Got To Be Carefully Taught is one of the least-known songs from the musical South Pacific, but Oscar Hammerstein II did a wonderful job of crafting the lyrics - telling how children have to be taught to be bigoted.
But I think we all have an innate sense of what's right or wrong. Some call it conscience, but I think it's mostly common sense. If your vision is broad enough, you can see that what's right is what's best for everyone, not just for yourself.

-Joe-

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10 Jun 10 - 08:03 PM (#2925086)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: kendall

To thine own self be true.

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10 Jun 10 - 08:08 PM (#2925089)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Joe Offer

I don't agree, Kendall - there has to be an element of concern for your fellow man/woman...

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10 Jun 10 - 08:35 PM (#2925108)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Amos

To thine own self be true is deeper than it seems, Joe. One who IS true to his own self, by nature, will be deep in compassion and insight. The madness of greed and crime are born from fear and being cut off from one's own nature by force, essentially, domination, invalidation, and various kinds of suppression.

A

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10 Jun 10 - 09:02 PM (#2925118)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

Well put, Amos. It all depends on how deeply the concept of "self" goes. The superficial self (the personality) may do all kinds of immoral and destructive things, but is the superficial self the real self? Or is it a mere temporary overlay, like a coat of paint on a marble statue?

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10 Jun 10 - 09:16 PM (#2925131)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T

""I don't agree, Kendall - there has to be an element of concern for your fellow man/woman...""

IMHO that doesn't go far enough Joe.

It has to be more than an element. Concern for one's fellows must be paramount.

That in itself removes the question of crime from the equation.

If your concern for your fellows overrides your personal desires, then murder, rape, theft, and all other crimes become impossible for you.

That is why I equated right with the concept of self limitation to avoid harm (physical, material, and psychological).

If one follows that precept, it becomes impossible to do wrong.

I ask this in a spirit of simple genuine enquiry. Can anybody show me anything fallacious in my analysis?

Don T.

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10 Jun 10 - 09:29 PM (#2925137)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

Ultimately, I would tend to agree with you on that, Don. The most highly developed people in either a spiritual or a moral sense do just as you say: they make concern for others paramount. It is their selfless service to others that sets them aside as absolutely remarkable beings in a world that is commonly ruled by self-interest.

If you read Mark Twain's superb biography of Joan of Arc, for instance, that is precisely the point that Twain is making about her life, and it's why he bothered to write the book in the first place. He was mightily impressed with her character. (He spent a decade researching her life before writing the book, and he read all the transcripts from her trials and other records from that time period which were still being kept in the National Archives in France.)

It's also what distinguished Jesus...if we can go by what's in the New Testament. He made concern for others paramount.

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11 Jun 10 - 12:02 AM (#2925185)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

well said Don , very well said. i like that

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11 Jun 10 - 01:08 AM (#2925208)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

How much does one genuinely have concern for others, that's the question. It is the truest measure of character. It's a much truer measure of character than mere courage, tenacity or grit....though all those are very worthy qualities in their own right. But there are some very courageous and tough people in this world who really don't give a damn about anyone but themselves...and they aren't much use to the rest of the community, are they? (Babyface Nelson would be an interesting example of that. He had tons of physical courage, acquired in a very tough growing up experience, but he was a curse on his community, because he was simply out for himself. Another good example: Blackbeard the Pirate. No lack of courage and grit there, but he was a curse on the society of his time.)

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11 Jun 10 - 02:38 AM (#2925232)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: mousethief

Is it enough to just not do harm? We should also do good. If I let a person next to me starve to death by not interacting with him at all, I haven't actively harmed him. But that's not enough. We have to not just not harm, but also do good. "Sins of omission" they used to call them, back when people still believed in "sin".

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11 Jun 10 - 06:44 AM (#2925322)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T

""If I let a person next to me starve to death by not interacting with him at all, I haven't actively harmed him. But that's not enough.""

No No!

That would be entirely inconsistent with my statement. It is implicit in placing the wellfare of others above your personal desires, that you could not stand idly by, and watch harm come to them by any means.

We are talking absolutes here, and my definition is an aspirational one. It cannot ever translate into reality, because we are not dealing in infinitely good human beings.

However, it is a level to which we could, if we so choose, all aspire, and those of us who come closest to success, would be incapable, in practical terms,of doing wrong, or standing by, inactive, when wrong is being done.

Don T.

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11 Jun 10 - 07:57 AM (#2925354)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: olddude

Don
in my faith is a statement
"no great love can one man have, then to lay down his life for his friend"

Complete and total selflessness ...pretty high goal to achieve indeed but a great rule none the less.

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11 Jun 10 - 01:31 PM (#2925526)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: mousethief

The problem, olddude, is that it's not enough of a rule. Very seldom are we called to die for our friends. More often we have to put ourselves at an inconvenience, and not just for our friends but for our enemies and for total strangers.

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11 Jun 10 - 01:34 PM (#2925532)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Little Hawk

Yes, the main thing people try to avoid in this society is inconvenience... ;-)

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11 Jun 10 - 01:40 PM (#2925542)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: mousethief

Inconvenience to themselves, absolutely! Hence convenience stores, convenience foods, convenience this, convenience that. The "me" society, to be sure.

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11 Jun 10 - 02:20 PM (#2925591)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Bill D

It really IS all there in that Kant thing...

but if that's too much for you, here's a synopsis of the basic principle, which has a certain resemblance to The Golden Rule.

the Categorical Imperative

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11 Jun 10 - 02:28 PM (#2925600)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Ebbie

"He (Kant) defined an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary."

Ah, but who gets to decide whether any action or inaction is necessary? :)

Kind of like the concept of 'tough love', the idea being that one must sometimes be cruel in order to be kind.

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11 Jun 10 - 02:37 PM (#2925611)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: mousethief

In the right measure.

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11 Jun 10 - 02:39 PM (#2925614)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: Bill D

If you read Kant thoroughly, and agree with his starting points, he explains that 'necessary' becomes logically obvious.

We humans are cursed/blessed (depending on your attitude) with the *ahem* ability to ignore logic and do as we see our own advantage.

This is SUCH a hard point to make to those whose own argument forms are already outside of logical forms. They write their own rule book, then follow it....ummmm....religiously.

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11 Jun 10 - 07:36 PM (#2925857)
Subject: RE: BS: The difference between right and wrong..
From: kendall

Joe, I see your point. I was quoting the Bard because to me it said get in touch with your better nature. Of course, there are people who have no better nature.

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