I hold strong to what I believe in. I believe my ideas are my own, even if influenced by others. If someone inspires my painting, could I say that the painting is not my own? Maybe what we say or do around others does not accurately express our true thoughts and ideas, but the original ideas are ours. And because I am still developing my ideas on ethics, I cannot concretely say what I morally believe yet. (I hope this is making sense).
And so I am having difficulty writing up my ethics, for as I said, it is situational. I was going to say that murder is wrong. Then I thought, well what about Bin Laden or others of the like. I believe that was the right thing to do. Then I was going to say, it has to do with the amount of happiness versus grief. If the majority is happy or feels right about it, it must be right. I say this in the case of Bin Laden. Sure his family and followers will be grief-stricken, but the majority of humanity will benefit. But even then I thought, what about african-american slavery. Can I say, sure they had grief, but the majority of America was happy with it, so its right? No. And so I go back to my point. Ethics are hard to describe. Give me a situation and I will firmly give you my stance on whether it is ethical or not. But to write it out as though it is black and white? That is something I cannot do. Because in my opinion, it is not.
I am so with you on the first paragraph. I struggle similarly when thinking about raising a child, because I know whatever religion, etc. I raise them in is essentially brainwashing- they can't think for themselves at a young age. Knowing that you formulate your own ideas based on what others believe, can anything truly be your own, be a novel idea?
ReplyDeleteI guess that amalgamation is considered your own.
On your last paragraph, you discuss historical situations on which to base ethics. Americans love yo say democracy is the way to go. I agree that it seems most fair. But what about the people who do not see it this way? Cuba is communist, and from what I hear from teachers, they are pretty happy with it. So even if we think democracy is most fair, it would bring grief unto the people, tipping the scale yet again.
For fun, and to connect this to our discussion on culture: If, theoretically, all other countries became democratic (non-violently), wouldn't we be crushing their cultures? People come to America so they are free with their own cultures and their diversity. We are the melting pot. But the problem with a melting pot is that everyone becomes the same. Maybe that is why we cannot have peace in the world, so that precious diversity/culture can remain.
I feel that you put how ethics are judged into a good phrasing. I couldn't find the right words but you found them right off the bat. Situational. Nice. I also can sympathize with you about not knowing what exactly your ethical views are. They (who "they" are i don't know) say that our (teens) brains aren't fully developed yet and thus we have a harder time distinguishing between right and wrong. I feel that this can be true. Sometimes something will look like a good idea at first, but later you will see that it wasn't. I also agree that it is hard to write about ethics in just black and white statements. There is no plain black and white, there are all sorts of shades of gray in between.
ReplyDeleteYou say situational, I say yes. I don’t think anyone can nessisarily place their ethics in terms of black and white. There are too many acceptions for us to view ethical matters in such a way. Unfortunately, our upbringing tries to force matters into black and white whenever possible. Who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys”? Was that a “bad” thing to do, or was it “good”? It hard to say without context—a foundation of understanding. Religion is something that also makes things seem back and white. “Thou shalt not kill”, but what if the person is a mass murderer like Hitler or a terrorist like bin Laden?
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