Right and wrong.... what's the difference?

Another eg.. just check the thread "this truely is ridiculous " on random thoughts.. and see how ppl react to the pregnant woman.. Now, Is that right? wrong? is it something else? why do they judge her? why should I judge 'em? Am I judging 'em?!
I'm sure not, I'm just giving an example.

 

The renowned anthropologist Donald E. Brown would disagree with you. In 1989 he began an extensive study of every human civilization on record and came up with a list [which is still being added to] of 200 human universals. Characteristics of human beings that have been seen in every human civilization on record . On that list is the proscription of murder. Is that not constant enough to say that respect for human life is a fact in the human species, that it is somehow naturally ingrained or reasoned by our species?

You seem to be quite hung up on what the religions of the world are dictating. The concepts of right and wrong go much deeper than that. The reasoning behind the concepts of right and wrong is simple. There are necessities that must be met in order that a group of our species may exist. Food, shelter, community, respect for life [of self and others] and the list goes on and on. A right action is something that will help our species exist and a wrong action is one that is contrary to living well. It seems that our species had mastered the basics of survival quite quickly. Once a society has done that it is not unreasonable of them to use their natural ability to reason on what might be done to make it possible to live a good life, and eventually, what might be done to live the best life possible. It's inevitable that those rules are going to get different as they get more and more specific and geographically dictated, but that does not eliminate the concept.

At first glance I would say you are a liar. I don’t think that you would accept death if you had a choice. You and I both know that if there was a gun to your head that you would do pretty much anything to not get killed. But if the charade must continue I will suggest that your view on death is too marginal to be considered. I back up my statement by again referring to Brown’s list. "Fear of death" is on there. It is possible for people to not value life, but that position is such a small fringe that it is difficult to consider it in comparison to the whole.

What argument? When someone utters the words "it was his time" or "that’s how god wanted it" there is no argument being made. You are picking at little sayings that people have to comfort themselves when the innate respect for life and will to live is knocked by the lunatic fringe of murderers and people who don’t value life [or at least pretend not to].

 

Can I get a website perhaps? That's actually quite interesting, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Most of these, while compelling arguments, are still merely matters of opinion. Also, among the group of necessities, I think some are severely lacking overall in everyday life to begin with.

Community? Ha. The vast majority are out for themselves and a select few.Everybody's out to up their own personal status. Nobody gives two fucks about large scale advancement, and they never will. They advance areas of science and life that are meaningless and useless while neglecting if not completely ignoring much more important areas of not only technological sciences but economical sciences as well.


Again, respect for life is merely for those who enjoy life. What about all the homeless, starving, cold, weak, tired, diseased refugees and tribals etc. You think they've got respect for life while fat ass business men over here wear 3 million dollar rings and they can't even catch 30 cents a day off a commercial? I don't know what ideal world you live in sir, but from where I sit respect for the life is mainly, but not completely, for those with a good life. Some of us are just waiting for out number ya know?

Without further explanation I guess I would see myself as a liar. I do not fear death itself. Death to me is the end of all suffering, and I welcome it. Truly. What I am scared of is the thought that there may not be an afterlife, but I do not fear it on an every day basis. Some people, I think many people, do. Everybody's worried about germs, safety belts, lung cancer, and other random 'dangers' in life. I'm not. Don't get me wrong, I think immortality is the coolest fucking idea ever, but I've come to realize that when I die, it wont matter to me any more. Either I wont exist and I wont have to worry, or I'll be in the afterlife, personally, thanking God for my immortality. And for that reason I find nothing to fear about death until I'm very immediately faced w/ it.

Geeze, seems like somebody's getting angry....... I wasn't picking at the saying or referring to it as an argument. I was referring to the quoted/previous post. I have no issue with these sayings, and I do understand the use for them. I do not, however, think that the majority of people truly believe those things when they say them. I think they have become hollow, generic condolances.

 

I like you..........in a very heterosexual way, I assure you.

 

A website? No. But I can give you the title of the book in which it was first printed. "Human Universals" by Donald E. Brown. I was lucky enough to hear his hypotheses first hand at a series of lectures. Also there is a good section on it in Stephen Pinker’s "The Blank Slate, the modern denial of human nature".

Technically they are not matters of opinion. Of course I will explain why in a moment. First, I want to address the idea of facts that you keep bringing up in defense of your position. It seems to me that you rely on the proof of facts for a real knowledge. It seems, to me, that if it were made clear to you that there were moral/ethical [I intend to use these words interchangeably] facts you would have no problem with the concept of a right and wrong and the ethical judgements they bring about. Facts in science seem to be different from facts in ethics. We can prove that the world is round, we can prove that there is no largest prime number, but how can we prove that abortion or the death penalty is right or wrong? How can we prove that there are right and wrong at all?

I certainly see the appeal of the idea that moral judgements can not be proved. Science, after all, seems to have that extra something that makes it so compelling. It seems a great deficiency in ethics that there are no proofs.

Most people are hesitant to believe that moral claims can be proved because when proof is demanded, people often have in mind an inappropriate standard. People think that proof is observation and experimentation in science; and when there are no comparable observations and experiments in ethics, they conclude that there is no proof. But in ethics, rational thinking consists in giving reasons, analyzing arguments, setting out and justifying principles, and the like. The fact that ethical reasoning differs from reasoning in science does not make it deficient.

Next, when people think of ‘proving our ethical opinions to be correct’, they tend to think automatically of the most difficult issues. Eg. abortion or the death penalty or globalization or the environment. The questioning of any one of those is enormously complicated and difficult. If they only think of questions like that than of course people are going to think that proof in ethics are impossible. Look through the archives here and find how many times an ethical debate on some huge topic is concluded, after pages and pages of three sentence posts, in an agreement to disagree because each person is entitled to their own opinion. But the same can be said about science. There are complicated matters that physicists cannot agree on; and if people only focused entirely on them, we might conclude that there are no proofs in physics. But of course, there are many simpler matters about which all competent physicists agree. Similarly, in ethics there are many simpler matters about which all reasonable people agree.

Finally, it is easy to conflate two matters that are really very different: First, proving an opinion to be correct. Second, persuading someone to accept your proof. I may have an impeccable argument that someone refuses to accept. But that does not mean that there must be something wrong with the argument or that ‘proof’ is somehow unattainable. It may only mean that someone is being stubborn.

So now we are left wondering if there are indeed moral facts. You say that the idea of community, need for nourishment, shelter, etc. are merely arbitrary. But they are not absent of reason. They are backed by reason. You need not look further than any psychology or anthropology journal to find that out. Heck your third grade science book will likely do. It is in the absence of reason that ‘facts’ are not ’facts’ but opinion. But not just any fact can count as a reason in support of right or wrong.

Now we only need to look at reason to decide whether or not there may be right or wrong. I fail to think that you will deny reason as a basic human instinct. In this case, the truth of whether or not there is right and wrong is the answer that has reason on its side. Remember that you can not make something this way or that just by willing it so, it must be reasonable. Of course this lets us be wrong about right and wrong because we can be wrong about what reason commends. But when all is said and done reason says what it says. Regardless of our opinions or desires.

Now give me more reasons than the anthropologists and philosophers and scientists of the world why there should not be right and wrong. No opinion. Just reason.

What say you?

 

I say I've been busy and wanted to get back to this discussion much sooner. No opinion, purely reason? OK here it is.

Fail you did. Reason cannot be a basic human instinct, for all. I know plenty of people, as I'm sure you may as well, that could not reason there way out of a brown paper bag. Being reasonable is based on the concept of having common sense, and again, plenty of people are lacking in that area. Many people, like myself, are quite stubborn, almost to the point of hurting the quality of their day-to-day life.

I didn't have much of an argument against this til I saw something on television. A man killed 2 cops in the 50's. He got away with it until 2003. He was over 70 yrs old. He got convicted and sentenced to life. The families of the cops, after 45 yrs, were willing to take away somebody's husband, father, and grandfather because they were wronged half a century ago. These people weren't concerned with the other families at all. They were willing to do to these, innocent people, what'd been done to them so long ago. Essentially, they ENDED the life of a man that was loved by soooo many people in revenge for him ending the life of their loved ones.

Based on fact and the reasoning of social sciences, we see that every civilization has been against the murdering of its own people. This leads us to believe that, possibly, the fact of right and wrong is born in us. I however, find this hard to believe. While all of these people are against "murder" they are not against killing. They kill for punishment, they kill for sacrifice, and they may have killed for other reasons. It is decided among each person, individually, then amongst a group what reasons are valid for killing a person. Modern day United States has decided that there are justifiable reasons to pre-maturely end somebody's life just as other cultures did; they also found death to be a valid punishment, as other cultures have. This tells me that people do not believe it wrong to take a persons life, they simply don't like it under certain circumstances. Reasoning tells us that when a person dies, there are people that love him/her and will miss them, people that do not care, and people that are glad he is gone. I guess, at best, right and wrong are not conceptual but more circumstancial. Proving, reasonably, that it can not be considered a constant/fact of society or humanity.

 

Hasty responses often suck. Always better to take a few days to consider.

What you are arguing is that reason is a product of common sense; that we can only reason if we have common sense. I do see a connection between the two but would not go as far as to say that common sense is a necessary condition for reason. Every person that is born with a fully functioning human brain has the ability to reason. Whether or not they have enough common sense to reason well is another story all together. Because we have the ability to reason does not mean we do it well and does open the door for explanation of disparity between cultures. Those people who could not reason their way out of a paper bag, and I do know them too, don’t lack the faculty of reason but the faculty to use it well. As you have pointed out, common sense is an element of good reason but is not exclusive. Common sense, sensory perception and environmental influence [includes cultural upbringing] are all elements that effect reason. A deficiency in any of them effects the ability to reason but does not eliminate the faculty of reason altogether.

I’ll deal with the first paragraph first. Though I am not entirely sure what the purpose of the story is. I have already admitted a disparity between right and wrong according to different reason. A man kills two cops in the fifties. Fifty years later he is caught, tried, convicted and sentenced for life. As a result a family loses a father and grandfather. At fault are the families of the officers who have been thirsty for revenge since 1950. Up for consideration are two acts. The first is the killing of the police officers and the second is of the ‘justice’ carried out by the families of the officers. It is difficult to tell you what I think about the first act since I know nothing about it. I am supposing that these police officers were not an immediate and deadly threat to the man so their murder was wrong. I don’t know how that can be disputed outside of more revealing facts surrounding what actually happened.

The second case is a difficult one. If you ask me it is a wrong action. There is no justification for penalizing a man of 70 for a crime that he committed 50 years ago if he poses no threat now.

Unfortunately for us we are citizens of a country led by governments. This abstraction of right and wrong ‘seems’ to be a fact of life, so much so that the idea that an action is wrong in every case for every person seems impossible. It is the abstraction of right and wrong that is necessary for a government to make so that it can perpetuate itself. It is the way a government can create a hegemony amoung its constituents so that no one sees a reason to think the concept of an elected group of people imposing it’s will on people is unjust. It is the single greatest injustice in this disgusting world. Every day people are allowed to do something [that reason dictates is wrong] because our justice system gives them the ‘right’ while others have their liberty stolen for committing something contrary to reason. Arbitrary right and wrong imposed by a benevolent government seems the best option when no other option is presented.

As for the second paragraph. Your argument is that since there are differences of opinion as to what is right and wrong that there is no objective right and objective wrong. In light of what I have said here, that individuals may have deficiencies in using common sense to reason, and that the people who rule us need to make right and wrong arbitrary [or circumstantial to use your word] so to create a happy hegemony amoung citizens so that they keep thinking the idea of government is best, I wonder if you still think that?

What say you?

 

I can't help but agree here, but it still gets back to the fact issue. If 2 + 2 = 4 it will always be 4. Even if somebody has a mathematical deficiency and thinks 2 + 2 = 3.2 they are WRONG and the RIGHT answer is 4, no matter what they think they know.

He'd led a good life for atleast the last 30. He'd had no further record of crime, and was a good, loving neighborhood man(he did kill them in cold blood so he wouldn't be arrested at the time). The point of the story was to show, that even though those families knew what it was like to have that kind of figure taken away, they were willing to do it to people that had nothing to do w/ that crime in 1954.

I say that even though these elected officials are pressing this will upon us, it is because they themselves were brought up to believe in these systems of "good and bad/right and wrong". I do agree that there should not be elected groups like that, but their beliefs, the things they fight for, and the laws they attempt to make were all set in motion 25-50 yrs ago by there mothers and fathers who had the beliefs instilled in them.

My hardest issue in accepting the thought of things being right or wrong stems from personal experience:

Ever since I was little I've been violent, and I've been a cleptomaniac. The violence I believe was imposed on me or "taught" by years of watching my parents. The cleptomania, however, came natural, although most people don't buy it(no pun intended). When I was 6, my mother refused to buy me some army men out of a HUGE cardboard bin. I thought, if she wont get them for me, I'll take them. Nobody'll notice them, there's a lot. So I took some. Then more. Eventually I had bulging pockets. My mom spanked me, in the store and told me why it was wrong. I stole when I was 13, and again my mom(w/o security) caught me. She beat the shit out of me, and told me why it was wrong. I'm still a thief to this day. I don't steal often because I'm scared of prison, but I do it as much as possible. My family is a group of honest, hard-working people, yet I have some of the stickiest fingers ever. I can't help it. Society dubs this as "wrong", yet I haven't learned it anywhere, or from any person. It seems to me somebody who does something "wrong" without feeling remorse is a "bad" person. I refuse to believe that I am a bad person for being the person I am. Society is essentially telling me I'm broken, that I have a defect or a problem because they do not agree with or understand my refusal to pay for things. I refuse to accept that I'm "bad" or "broken" just because I don't fit into their beautiful set of rules.

 

i have a thing for psychos ...and your the #1 psycho on my list

 

Getting off topic is wrong. Please refrain.

 

i was on the first page topic...some how the topic has changed...this is not my fault

your face is wrong please refrain from shut the hell up... i have finished acting childish...for now