Quote:
Originally Posted by John Prophet  I think that a lot of people get too hung up on this idea of morality and ethics (keeping in mind that these are ultimately subjective concepts anyway). Individuals, who are too concerned with right and wrong, often fail to see that there is a big difference between immorality and amorality. They seem to think that being “good” is all that matters and that not being good = being bad. In my mind, right and wrong are abstract concepts, created by human idealists and all that really matters is doing what works (keeping in mind that anything which is ultimately self destructive, doesn’t work).
My motto is “practicality over principle”. If you live by this, than you should be OK regardless of what “evil” you might do. Of course, if Steve’s Metaphor about the body and cells is true, that that would mean that my standards of practicality might be flawed. This leads to a whole other set of debatable issues; but it is a debate about what is practical and should not be concerned with what is ethical or moral. |
"Morality" is not merely a word, nor is "evil", ok? Call these concepts "sh*t" if you want, but it looks like you and some others are just trying to convince yourselves there is no such thing as wrong or evil in order to justify what you want and how you want to get it and for some reason you are in denial about how it really is and don't just want to say it like it is, however that may be.
The fact of the matter is, as an example, if you lie to someone who you know loves you and you use and take advantage of their love to tell some lie and play on their compassion in order that they will give you money, or if you continuously make your girlfriend or wife believe that you love her, while all the while you are screwing someone else, or maybe you are doing it with your best friend's wife (the sky is the limit), you can refrain from labeling that act if you want, but figure out that not labeling it doesn't change what you've done to others or make it right.
It is what it is and what determines that it is WRONG is that it HURTS other people--it doesn't hurt
you, but it hurts everyone else!
That is why we got these words "evil" and "right and wrong" and "morality". A rose smells just as sweet by any other name, and immoral behavior still hurts whether you decide to label it or not! You can't take away the word and think that that will take away the nasty reality and consequences of your acts and that you never do anything wrong. Words and labels don't matter! It bloody
hurts someone else and
that is all the matters.
And morality is not subjective either. For example, there are laws in all countries dictating certain moral behaviors and most crimes are similar in all countries. It is universal knowledge among humans that you hurt your spouse and you betray their trust when you sleep with someone else and that is wrong. In fact, most of the morality a person possesses probably comes from them being able to think and feel and put themselves in the position of others and say "God, I would hate if someone did that to me, so I'm not going to do that to anyone else."
The saying used to be "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" but people, thinking they were witty and clever, began to replace it with "Do unto others before they do unto you."