-It is my primary aim, within the confines of this paper, to fully list the ideals that I hold to be true concerning what is good and what is evil. From a young age, I have always been concerned about fairness; I felt very strongly, and naturally, about the actions of others and injustices that occurred, even during the start of pre kindergarten. Such an attitude has hardly changed during my years into early adulthood. Thus ethical principles, are very important to me, as they are essentially a natural part of life.
-An act of altruism, I pondered the nature of such when I was out for a walk. Should we be altruistic for the good intention behind it? Should we be altruistic for the good consequences it brings? But if we were to be altruistic for those reasons alone, would we not simply be acting altruistic for ulterior motives? Perhaps then, in order for altruism to have value, it should be done for its own sake, not for the justification of anything else. For if altruism is done as a means for something else, then it losses all moral authenticity and becomes worthless. And when others ask 'Oh what logical reasoning is there in altruism then?', I shall reply 'None, I need no logical justification for altruism, I simply am altruistic for it' own sake. Logic be damned.'.
-People can give objective reasons for moral this and moral that, but from what I learned in my life, is that to truly know something well, you need to experience it in the real world. Good actions, evil actions, the degrees of them, the intentions and consequences, all these have played out in different ways through the first hand experiences of my life. Therefore, clarity of morality, well of mine anyway, is deeply rooted in my own experiences with actions and people.
-Because life is so complicated, and matters so delicate, it is imperative to assess moral problems based on the particular circumstances of specific situations that they occur in; immediate context should be considered before making a morally based decision.
-Typically, the nature of a moral action should be based upon two factors; intention and consequence. Intention is the feeling, reasoning, and motivation behind the action, while consequence is what becomes of it. Neither is exclusive, rather, sometimes both need to be evil in order for an action to be really unjust. Consider this theoretical proposition: a person driving accidentally hits and kills a pedestrian. The consequence of this event is the loss of a human life, but since the driver had no intent to kill, then any moral retaliation would probably be wrong. Although whether negligence plays a part as well as internal guilt over the death, but such circumstances are too be taken into account anyway.
-Mistakes are expected to be made throughout life, in all areas of life. Therefore one should expect to make mistakes in the process of learning morals as well.
-If an act has little, or nothing, in the way of harmful consequence, then such an act is probably not immoral or wrong, depending on additional circumstances. Thus, all acts of this sort should probably be treated as acceptable and allowed by members of society.
-I highly doubt that the whole of morality can be quantified into a set of absolute laws that will one day be fully known to everyone. Morality in my experience is far too complex and profound to be perfectly mapped out, rather the process of learning more about it is like that of a journey, we learn a little more each step of the way.
-Too often it seems that people rely on a rule, norm, law, or some external command not for guidance, but for thought control; they fear disorder or making mistakes thus they close their eyes and listen to what an external authority demands them to do. In this act, blunt and nonsensical errors are brought about, possibly wreaking havoc on those who do not deserve it. Therefore, people should strive to be more proactive in how they deal with specific matters, relying more on independent thought and not blind adherence.