living ethically
Agreeing with a statement this… well, big, would be very difficult for me. I think it was just meant to clarify my own remarks. It came out of a philosophical discussion where I said that I would much rather someone really, truly, and deeply understand the full implications and repercussions of their actions, both on themselves and with other people, than to see any sort of ‘karmic retribution’. I admitted that of course if someone could do that, they wouldn’t make those bad choices in the first place. That doesn’t change the feeling, though.
You are an enforcer of ethics.
You would rather allow the slights than to give up on a person discovering the real meaning of living ethically.
It’s given me a great deal to think about.
It is possible that if someone knew the full implications and repercussions of their actions, they would never make any choices at all.
Well, I suppose if we are enabling the mighty powers of omniscience, that may be true. Depends on the bravery of the person. I was speaking about those implications and repercussions that are actually directly discernable.
It is also very possible if one did not have that ability and then gained it – that would be all the retribution necessary.
Certainly.
This is very true. Just TRULY coming to terms with the consequences of one’s actions might be punishment enough.
I know with the recent goings-on in my life, I believe a certain person simply lacks the ability to empathize or place himself in anyone else’s shoes unless he is subjected to the exact same conditions that he puts others through, himself. So if he were to gain that capability, I think that alone would be retribution as he realized completely how much he has hurt others and had to deal with the resulting guilt – AND then used those feelings to mold his ethics from there forward.
There are times I wish people would see just the obvious ones.
Just the simple plain hit you in the face with a large stick repeatedly ones.
Like getting an underage girl drunk when you are an educator…. um… fired if caught?
It’s a start. That just reinforces my point, no self-awareness or sense of responsibility to one’s self.
I thin kit is impossible to see the full implications of all actions, as one is not able to see into the future, and that would be neccessary to gain an utter and complete understanding. Something might seem like the most morally reprehensible thing at the time, yet have long range benefits. For instance, originally with the mindset of the time period – America breaking away from England was wrong. It was treason, betrayal, disloyalty, and would get many people killed and ruin the financial lives of many, and break apart families. Long range, it was the right thing to do.
Wherein something that seemed morally right and upstanding at the time can have dire and despicable consequences. I don’t feel I need to give an example, as history is paved it’s way to hell on good intentions and “wise: decissions.
The problem is that each and every moral situation can have two sides full of equally convincing implications- and the only true way to know what they all are and to know which is stronger is in retrospect. A full list of factors and consequences can never truely been known ahead of time.
While it is impossible, as I mentioned in another comment, to fully understand in an omniscient manner all possible future repercussons of a particular action, most people live a knee-jerk life where they consider only their immediate situation, immediate needs, and immediate desires.
I say this knowing I’ve done just that, for the majority of my young life. It wasn’t until I turned 20 that I stopped hopping onto whatever road appeared my way, and started picking them for myself.
The problem, on a truly pragmatic level, is that such decisions are detrimental to generally deeper goals and desires. In the circumstances of America vs England, the deepest desire of the leaders of America were to see the place that they lived form a more just society (arguing about whether they did so should probably be left to another day). By doing so, they made personal sacrifices, but they were accomplishing deeper personal goals, on an individual level. In other words, their actions were firmly in line with their personal morals.
Now, of course it should be noted that, speaking nationally or perhaps globally, few people (in my opinion) have even figured out what they do believe is right and wrong. Thus the convenience of religion, which can lay those things out for you, clean and simple. For that sort of person, knowing the implications regarding what their actions say about them as a person, and what they say about their own code of ethics is only the first step. It merely reflects either their sub-conscious reflexes or their rote adherence to someone else’s mores, not a conscious decision to be what they believe.
Saying that a person can not know every single factor and consequence of their actions is a sort of cop-out, because there are many clear factors that are not circumstantial and have nothing to do with “if I happen to be hear at this time someone I’ve never met will be there and they will be my dreamboat lovepartner” kind of thing.
If I lie to someone, for example, I am a liar, and nothing I say about who I am will change that. The only thing that will change that is a change in actions. Understanding that by lying to someone, I am changing who I am in a way that I do not want keeps me from doing it, not simply because I may respect the individual, but out of a pragmatic desire to be what I have chosen to be.
I’m just arguing now for the fun of it. For the most part I agree with your statement.
However- there is a gulf between what you yourself decide and act and how others precieve it. For instance- what if you (deciding you are going to be totally honest) tell another what you believe to be the truth. Truely believe. And the person you are addressing knows you to be wrong. They assume you are a liar.
And you have effectively, been false. Though to your immediate knowledge you are true.
Again, we are taking an issue regarding personal ethics and this supposition transports it into the realm of perceived societal belief. If you want to extend the idea, it would make more sense to discuss a person’s conception of “self” and whether there is a disconnect, generally speaking, beteen a person’s actual self as referenced by their words, deeds, and even thoughts, vs the perceived self, where the meaning of those same things can be justified and rationalized away.
The idea that I started the post with has everything to do with perception of self, and nothing to do with the perception of one’s self by others. This is more or less out of my control, unless, in my ethical self-plan, I put my ‘perception by others’ above honesty and forthcoming-ness (if I may). Which is certainly done often enough for pragmatically sound reasons, such as a desire for a political life.
The point is that people do not accurately perceive themselves. People take action and see the part they want to see, and rarely, if ever, are truly called to the carpet in such a way as to actually understand the larger significance of their actions in their own life, let alone how it affects others. A drug addict steals from his family, and only sees the benefit he will receive, and doesn’t notice the loss of trust, the pain he will cause, and even perhaps his impending homelessness.
Yes- but at the same token, being called on the carpet by things tends to be a reference to someone outside of onesself doing the calling. Which inevitably leads to the issue of perception by others. If you are arguing that a person’s self perception is tainted as a method for conception of self as it is subject to rationalization and you are thus leaving actions, deeds, and words as the only things that create who one actually is – then is that not dependant on what others see in the actions and how these actions are judged?
And this also touches on the very old and oft debated question of what is self? Is self, indeed, a collection of deeds and words? Or is it the thoughts and perceptions of what those mean to the individual inside their own brain? (I’m choosing to put one’s thoughts in with self-perception on purpose, because it can be argued that perception and thought are one.)
I dislike the assertation that a person is solely a collection of behavior. I think intention, goals, drive, and thought play a deeper role into who one really is as a person, and actions/deeds are more of a symptom of how good a person is at achieving that.
For instance, the gentleman friend of ours who works at the gas station. He has done some horrid, awful, terrible things. But that does not mean he is a horrible, awful, terrible person. I see in him someone very wounded who *wants* to be a better human being, but has a hard time fighting that battle to get there, and fucks up a lot. If he is dismissed as being a horrid human being, however- and if he sinks into believing then that he is a horrid person- than will he not cease trying to be better?
Is the attempt worth nothing? Is the intent to improve not at all redeeming? Is there not an internal battle that must first be conquered before actions manifest? This postulate put forth seems to rely entirely on societal impressions of what is right and wrong, without regard to the inner self.
In the end does it not take both actions and intent to find whether not a person is good?
I should note that in that last sentence, I was particularly thinking of what that means to that person. AS a drug user, he may not give a crap about any sort of personal ethics beyond his next fix, but if somewhere inside him he desires to be a certain sort of person, or to behave in a certain sort of way, and he behaves contrary to that, while making a justification for his personal satisfaction, he is betraying himself. If, somewhere deep down, that drug addict specifically wants to be respected and trusted by his family, but allows the short-term goal of a fix to deprive him of his long-term goal of being a certain sort of human being, he is ultimately doing far greater harm to himself than he can wrap his mind around.
Obviously, I am not making a judgment on addiction and the sort of things it makes people do, it’s just an example.
Should have read this prior to replying to the last comment.
I think this model applies very well in extreme cases, but in more mild cases it is harder to seperate out and to be actively applied. In a milder case to decide whether or not something is truly serving one’s greater goals and desires and what is harmful to the objective can become easily clouded by an outside social perception.
Ex: A student wants to become a doctor. He wants to become a doctor in order to help people. This is the prime goal. This student has an oppotunity to leave his studies for a year to volunteer in a disease ridden disaster area in which he stands a very substantial risk of catching a disease that would render him useless and unable to preform as a doctor. Serving as a volunteer in this area will in the short term further his goals of helping people, who happen to be in desperate need. However, if he catches this disease he will not be able to serve in the same capactity helping people long term.
Which then would be the moral choice: to serve a small amount of people who really need it in the short term, or finish his studies now and serve a larger amount of people in the long run who might need it a little less?
How then does this model apply?
In these circumstances you begin to have more nebulous ethical dilemas. Is it better to bring a child into the world at the expense of a mother? Is it more moral to look after one’s self or the welfare of another? Is it better to put effort into hope or practicality?
to step in the middle here, I think that’s exactly it. One has to know one’s own morals and ethics to truly make those choices but many people don’t, hence atdt’s comment on religion as a voice for people who have no idea.
All of those choices depend on the person making those choices, preferably within thier own moral strictures. I think we can all agree that people have different morals and ethics, and what comes next is the question of whether there is a standard, a true right and wrong that people are acting out.
Should there be a true Right and a true Wrong then people are just shooting to hit those marks, or avoid them, whatever the case may be. However if there is not, or they are more nebulous things in themselves, then perhaps only a persons individual choices of morals and ethics are relevant and they are in theory a “good person” for living by thier own standards.
Here’s what I think:
First, most people don’t stop in thier lives long enough to decide what they do believe – what thier own ethics and morals and to examine whether they live by them. Not that doing so is easy – for me it was a rough and tumble kind of time because I reliazed what I value as ethical and virtuous is not always what society deems such.
At which point I had a choice – live by my values or by its. Well, obvoiously I chose my own. Not everyone does. It’s a struggle and harder for me to live by my own values then the other way because sometimes I have to buck convention and examine each action and word and when I mess up I feel I have personally failed – because I know where the line is and crossed it anyway.
However, I believe intention is the most important part of deciding whether an action was good or bad, not the outcome. Certainly we must accept and deal with the outcome as responsible human beings, but when someone it attempting to help another and hurts them, it is not an attack, it is a mistake. Too often people don’t see that.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents