What are your feelings about right and wrong?

[prplchknz]

Is everything concrete? or is it fluid? can something be right in one situation, but that same thing wrong in another?

 

[Qlip]

Yup pretty fluid. What did you do?

 

[prplchknz]

nothing, honest.

 

[Oaky]

Well it goes back to personal opinion or concrete fact. You may find something right in personal bias whereas someone else finds it wrong in their own bias. It is opinions where things are fluid in the right and wrong. But 5 multiplied by 5 will always remain 25.

 

[prplchknz]

ok, let me put it this way is it always wrong to steal?

 

[Oaky]

That is also personal bias however people go with the universally thought opinion (that it is wrong) on stealing because almost no one likes to be robbed of themselves.

 

[prplchknz]

from your point of view, not what the world tells us.

 

[rav3n]

Everything is fluid and subjective, at least as it relates to individual opinion and perspective. Where it becomes relatively concrete, is when you bring in social contracts like law. But even then, there's wiggle room in interpretation of the written word of law.

 

[Oaky]

Well, I don't think it is right unless my freedom is encompassed. Stealing a key to allow me to be free. Stealing a gun from an oppressor in a hostage situation. Perhaps even stealing food if there is strictly no other way to get it and I'm starved. That sort of stuff.

 

[lunalum]

Right and wrong can both be concrete and fluid. It's like, if you try to make generalizing rules about it like 'stealing is wrong,' or 'lying is wrong,' of course that's going to fail some of the time, but most of the time it works.

Things become more clear when looking at a very specific instance, evaluating it very carefully, and coming to a conclusion about whether it was overall wrong or not. But of course there are some situations when this is very difficult to do because of some issues getting all murky and subjective. It isn't impossible though.

 

[Lark]

I'm righteous law giver, you're all going to have a bad day when God gets here.

 

[Qlip]

I have faith that God will treat me humanely.

 

[prplchknz]

pfff god, besides i go by if it prevents a larger population being harmed than it's ok.

 

[Metamorphosis]

"Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level." - Robert Heinlein

 

[chachamaru]

Using binary anything is only good for computers.

But there is a Right and a less right, and a Wrong and a less wrong.

 

[Not_Me]

No action is inherently right or wrong. It depends on the situation.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Is everything concrete? or is it fluid? can something be right in one situation, but that same thing wrong in another?

Some things are concrete. Some things are fluid.

 

[xisnotx]

I wrote this a couple days ago but I never bothered to post it because I didn't think it was complete. Also, these are my thoughts on the subject. My conclusions give me feelings of sadness, anger and apathy.

Rightness or wrongness aren't concepts that humans are able to understand...but we are still driven to try to. We inevitably fail. I would argue what most people think of as "right" is really just "consistent" within a model that they have chosen to be the standard. There is very little conflict when the standard system is based off of universal perceptions (hence science) but when a model is based off of personal experience or opinion then a lot of conflict tends to occur.

I think that there are 3 types of rightness/wrongness.

a) Rightness/Wrongness that is in fact right/wrong. This level is not accessible to humans. We try (through science, religion etc) to achieve this level..but to my knowledge not one person has ever succeeded. ( I would argue that achieving this level is synonymous with things like finding god or your purpose in life..)

b) Rightness/Wrongness that is based on universal perception or universally agreed upon truths. This level is what most people think is the first level of rightness and recently it has become the standard level of judging rightness or wrongness (think why the sky is blue, or why 1+1=2) these truths are simply defined truths that we have all agreed upon. We can then work from this framework to and find out more truths within the system.

c) Rightness/Wrongness that is based upon personal experience (perceptions). This level is right/wrong for the individual. Conflict tends to arise when a significant amount of people have the same experience. This level tries to force itself to go up one level where it doesn't belong. Think (democracy, religion, etc).