Right and Wrong
I grew up hearing how knowing the difference between right and wrong was a natural part of development. I'm beginning to question that. What DOES define right and wrong? Giving examples of right and wrong doesn't define the process that makes them as such. You have to start out by thinking about what can even be judged as ethical. Can thoughts be considered unethical? Emotions? Or is ethics limited to judging actions? What is the criteria for something being ethically "good"?
Some people argue that actions are ethical if they are beneficial to society. But then you get into the issue of what IS good for society which largely circles back around to ethics, just on a much larger scale. Is it to keep the largest number of people alive? Is it to keep the largest number of people happy?
Some people like to claim that following your conscience is what makes things right or wrong. However, if you go with the intuitive model of ethics, for one, you have to throw out the concept of ethics being universal. This in turn allows for concepts such as suicide bombers, honor killing, vigilantiism, etc to be ethical. As that this would be counterintuitive to most people's sense of ethics, it makes it a little hard to genuinely buy into this model.
While I tend to look down on relgion as escapism, I can see the appeal from an ethical standpoint. I've probably listed a dozen questions so far, none of which have clearly definable answers, regarding ethics. Having a predefined answer IS convenient. But then you get individuals like Fred Phelps (head of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets soldiers funerals claiming that they're being killed due to the U.S.'s acceptance of homosexuality) who more or less follow the text to the letter (or at least his or her interpretation). But again, most people wouldn't genuinely consider his actions to be ethical.
Ayn Rand proposes that being ethical consists of doing what you want and doing it well. I don't have any inherent problem with that, but again, I think it conflicts with the average person's sense of what is ethical, considering it selfish.
Personally, I think ethics is a fictional concept insofar as a universal concept of right and wrong. I think that everybody has a conscience, but that it's not automatically meaningful. When it comes down to it, I think that maybe what everybody is looking for from life is meaning, and that without a sense of right and wrong, it's hard or impossible to have meaning.
Maybe what it comes down to is that we're all just a conglomerate of cells with no meaning. Consciousness is an interesting by-product but not inherently meaningful. In a paradigm like this, all you can really do is build your own sense of meaning. It's very matrix/descarte-esque but I think you have to construct your own world view. It may not mean anything inherently but all you can do is try to achieve a sense of contentment.
I also think this is really pessimistic. Well... not pessimistic exactly. Like I hope I'm incorrect, that there's something more than this. I'm almost afraid that I'll find out that the fundamentalists actually have it right or at least close. I can't explain the sense of discontentment with a world where such a small minded view is the correct one without a personal sense of ethics.
Some people argue that actions are ethical if they are beneficial to society. But then you get into the issue of what IS good for society which largely circles back around to ethics, just on a much larger scale. Is it to keep the largest number of people alive? Is it to keep the largest number of people happy?
Some people like to claim that following your conscience is what makes things right or wrong. However, if you go with the intuitive model of ethics, for one, you have to throw out the concept of ethics being universal. This in turn allows for concepts such as suicide bombers, honor killing, vigilantiism, etc to be ethical. As that this would be counterintuitive to most people's sense of ethics, it makes it a little hard to genuinely buy into this model.
While I tend to look down on relgion as escapism, I can see the appeal from an ethical standpoint. I've probably listed a dozen questions so far, none of which have clearly definable answers, regarding ethics. Having a predefined answer IS convenient. But then you get individuals like Fred Phelps (head of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets soldiers funerals claiming that they're being killed due to the U.S.'s acceptance of homosexuality) who more or less follow the text to the letter (or at least his or her interpretation). But again, most people wouldn't genuinely consider his actions to be ethical.
Ayn Rand proposes that being ethical consists of doing what you want and doing it well. I don't have any inherent problem with that, but again, I think it conflicts with the average person's sense of what is ethical, considering it selfish.
Personally, I think ethics is a fictional concept insofar as a universal concept of right and wrong. I think that everybody has a conscience, but that it's not automatically meaningful. When it comes down to it, I think that maybe what everybody is looking for from life is meaning, and that without a sense of right and wrong, it's hard or impossible to have meaning.
Maybe what it comes down to is that we're all just a conglomerate of cells with no meaning. Consciousness is an interesting by-product but not inherently meaningful. In a paradigm like this, all you can really do is build your own sense of meaning. It's very matrix/descarte-esque but I think you have to construct your own world view. It may not mean anything inherently but all you can do is try to achieve a sense of contentment.
I also think this is really pessimistic. Well... not pessimistic exactly. Like I hope I'm incorrect, that there's something more than this. I'm almost afraid that I'll find out that the fundamentalists actually have it right or at least close. I can't explain the sense of discontentment with a world where such a small minded view is the correct one without a personal sense of ethics.