Somebody once told me that everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. They asked me if I agree and I said no without thinking, but now I am not so sure. I now want to say people do know right from wrong. But they have different views on whats right and wrong. Person "A" thinks it is right to kill, person "B" thinks it is wrong.... They still know the difference between what is right and what is wrong to them. So it is really just a matter of opinion, it is niether wrong or right to kill for example 100 puppies. It is everyone's individual opinion as to wether it is ok or not. But there can be no fact one way or another.
This is an interesting question. Some say we have some inate capacity to know right and wrong, other say it is down to education, condidtioning etc. Nature or nurture. Since ideas of right and wrong seem to vary from culture to culture, it seems to me that it is probably a mixture of both. Still, I'm sure there are basic values which everyone knows. For instance, harming a child would be seen as wrong in most systems of ethics, and most people would react with disgust if they witnessed such a thing. Thing is though, people will often convince themselves that wrong is right, usually because of petty personal agendas.
if any species, even our own, did not have this, well its an ability to see ourselves in the place of others, is perhapse one part of it, but this awairness of the harmfulness to what we must ourselves experience, not just at any one point in space or time or beyond them, of causing suffering unneccesarily, at least to other members of our own species, family, clan, village, other, 'extended us', it is unlikely that species would long survive. so there is this as a connection between 'right and wrong' with very survival itself. this is one of those things most people don't often intellectualize, many just don't even conscously consider, and yet it is at the very heart of conscience. so there is, indeed in this sense, that everyone does 'know', though perhapse feel or some other concept might better apply, intuit perhapse, "right from wrong". then people as they grow older and develop agendas, even in their enculturation by their parents and peers, this gets burried and sometimes forgotten entirely in again, in any consciounse sense, but the subconscious, however much the more imediate consious objectives might burry it, never entirely forgets this lesson form infancy or even pre-infancy, perhapse even pre-conception. =^^= .../\...
I'm in general agreement with what you say here, but I think there is also this to think about: Sometimes a person has to go against what might look like survival issues in order to do the right thing. Sacrifices are sometimes necessary - to put another person or people before your own needs. In some ways, that is required of every parent, so it seems a natural thing. But it goes beyond 'natural' situations. A tiny example - if I think a person might need a boost, I might deliberately let them beat me at chess. Thus I sacrifice my own ego needs for the ego needs of another. That's a small scale example, but I think it illustrates what I'm trying to get at. I think education/conditioning etc must play a big part in all this though. I don't see any other reason why one person should be caring and magnanamous whilst another always acts like selfish bastard. Probably the generous natured person will find more fulfillment in life.
If you are saying that a species that allows individual members of that same species to harm other members of the species will not survive, I must disagree. Intraspecies killing is found in primates, cats, dogs, whales, rodents, insects and fish, among others. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wild-Animals-705/Animals-kill-young.htm
Right and wrong is in direct proportion to human understanding of "God" Someone who is immersed deeply in their human identity has only the mind with which to guide them. Its an either/or world. A level up with be someone who has a little background noise going on. From unknown origins. For the first time, the mind has company. A new sense has opened up. It can't focus too well just yet, but it will improve with time. At the highest level, a mature soul. One who's spiritual awareness has overtaken their earthly awareness, and gently sat them back within their earthly bodies. A citizen of both worlds, but a preference for neither. Right and wrong do not apply in that place. Beyond mind. Beyond self. x
really there's no direct contradiction between your point and mine. sacraficing one idividual ego for the sake of another is something that happens in all species to enable a kinship, larger group, or even species, to survive. learned behavior is almost everything in terms of what we consciously see and think in terms of, yet there is this burried, 'moral' instinct, that can and does persist inspite of it. and when the two come into being at odds, well that is one of the sources from which mental illness arrises, or what is taken to be mental illness which in some instances may actually not be at all. the surface of how we bahaive, even what motivates us to do so, is often largely if not almost completely learned, but the unease of something isn't quite right, that we sometimes cannot account for from anything we can observe or think we know, even among what we think and feel to be our beliefs, that's like the bios chip at the very root of conscousness. we get persuaded in life sometimes to associate other things with it, and dominant shaired beliefs can really mix that up and mix people up doing so. and THEN they dismiss listining to it as anything useful, some people sometimes, that's where we get people who loose sight of what is beyond themselves and how the effects of what they do and what is important to them actually interacts with what is. people get convinced that something they are told, something that is written that they are told and get convinced has some sort of absolut authority, can, or even has to, take the place of it. =^^= .../\...
I think we are hardwired for a sense of right & wrong, just as we are hardwired for language - with some exception such as psychopaths and, on the language side, for example, autistics. Just like language is culture based, so the actual defintion of right and wrong is culture based. I also think that within cultures there is a sense of absolute, (law abiding moral values types) and the more individual based (eg - wrong to sell crack, not wrong to sell weed). I think that a sense of right and wrong is something that helps social binding
There are different levels of morality according to Kohlberg's Theory. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsymoraldev.html Peace and love
Right and wrong are human perceptions associated with outcome. Many associate pain and pleasure with what is good and bad, and apply that to the larger picture and say that what ever causes the most pleasure is right. But all things are in balance, and for every pleasure there is a pain. This is the duality of reality. Every right is a wrong and every wrong is a right. "Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you." Is it right to kill a person who is trying to kill you? You would not be wrong, but you would not be right. If you allow yourself to be killed you have done multiple things; realization of the equality of energies; sacrifice of your life for anothers; release of your attachment to this world; accepted your fate as a mortal. Right and wrong is something that we attempt to discover, all the while not realizing that it right there in front of us. But this is only human right and wrong. Reality knows no such thing. Everything just is and will be as it should. Such is the balance.
I would also contend that children do not have a sense of right or wrong because they have no sense of their own mortality. They only act upon impulse. I would agree though that age numbs people into certain beliefs.
sense of mortality has nothing to do with right and wrong. what everyone knows subconscously, even infants, even late stage embrio's shortly before being born, even if not everyone ever learns consciously, is that we all have to live in the same world in which we cause or avoid causing suffering. in early childhood we don't always have a strongly developed sense of empathic comprehension of the suffering of others. indeed we may have a total emotional detatchment about death or causing it, yet at the same time, unawaire though we might be of it, we also, become awaire that our surroundings are not 'just there'. we have a sense, though we may not and first have an awairness of having that sense. this may seem a moot point, though it is one cogent to the question in any absolute sense. how much we should hold very young children, and the developmenatally challanged accountable, i cannot say, but i can say, the world they and we have to live in, is no less affected by them. part of the responsibility of parenthood, is bringing this awairness to consciousness. and i DO believe this CAN be done, WITHOUT imposing arbitrary assumptions of any kind. =^^= .../\...
Right, wrong... who's to say Bubba shooting Cornbread because he held his wifes hand was a bad thing? Maybe Cornbread would have raped 50 women after that day... maybe his great great great grandchild would have been a suicide bomber... maybe Bubba will have a revelation the moment he pulls the trigger and his actions after that moment will lead to world peace. By merely existing you have altered the infinity that is our collective awareness... right or wrong has no place here. Nothing stops... I can only imagine what our era will appear as on the timeline of a rock face 10 million years from now... Even by staring at a wall until you die of dehydration, in your life you helped support plant life by breathing, and your body will be used for many purposes after death. Perhaps such a life is more "right" than spending 90 years compounding toxins that will last for ages? To quote Edgar Cayce: * Yes, we have the body here; this we have had before. As we find, there have been physical improvements in the body, yet there is much, much to be desired. As already indicated, this is a karmic condition and there must be measures taken by the entity to change its attitude toward things, conditions, and its fellow man. So long as mechanical things were applied for physical correction, improvements were seen. But when the entity becomes so self-satisfied, so self-centered, as to refuse spiritual things, and does not change its attitude; so long as there is hate, malice, injustice, jealousy; so long as there is anything within at variance with patience, long suffering, brotherly love, kindness, gentleness, there cannot be a healing of the condition of this body. What does the entity want to be healed for? That it may gratify its own physical appetites? That it may add to its own selfishness? Then, if so, it had better remain as it is. If there is a change in mind and purpose, and if the entity expresses the change in speech and action, and if there is the application of those material things suggested, we will see improvement. But first there must be the change of heart, of mind, of purpose, of intent.... all of the mechanical appliance that you can muster will not bring about complete recovery unless your purpose and your soul have been baptized with the holy spirit.... will you accept, will you reject? It is up to you. We are through – unless you make amends. We are through with this reading. [10] * o Cayce gave this reading to a man who had religiously followed the prescription and had immediately seen the improvements. The improvements continued for few months, but after which a relapse seemed to appear. ---- We must first definitively answer the question of why we are here before we can definitively answer the question of right and wrong... until then its safe to assume a peaceful existence is the way to go... well, unless you disagree, I suppose it can't be properly argued either way
it's early and i don't have the time to read all of this, but my comment is that we all are capable of empathy and righteousness is one of many ways of ignoring that innate ability.
