Musings-Schmusings on Ethics-Schmethics

Ethics is something almost innate, something about us being human, the sociable creatures that we are, that set us up to have some sort of code. Of course, that is it, the bare skeleton of a code, which we come equipped with. The rest comes from life, from outside influences. Our ethics is something that we, as humans, are finding out all the time. Whenever we have to make a decision about some moral dilemma, the choice we choose tells ourselves our ethics. One’s ethics are their personal line between altruism and selfishness. We’ve all been taught, by our culture, or beliefs, what our ethics should be, and we consider it our mission to live up to them. But I think that what our true ethics, are what we decide to do when we must make split second decisions, following our most primal code. Of course, this reaction does change, especially with practice.

One’s ethics are constantly changing. The esteemed psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg came up with a series of moral stages, stages of morality one goes through as they grow up, mentally. Kohlberg’s theory states that to achieve higher morality one needs first to achieve higher cognitive ability. A child thinks selfishly, because he has not yet gained the capacity for empathy. I think this is true, to an extent. In the book Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, a mentally retarded man is given a medicine that makes him highly intelligent, for a time. When he returns to his original intelligence, the one thing he gains from his experience as a genius is a high morality. This story proves Kohlberg’s hypothesis.

My ethics are based on how, where, and when I was brought up. My parents taught me right from wrong, good from bad, before I could remember. They guided me in making right decisions. Their actions were based on their own parents’ morals, as well as those that they picked up from the culture around them.

I believe in forgiveness. When I first heard that Osama Bin Laden was dead, my immediate reaction was one of sombreness. My sister on the other hand, was full of revengeful jubilance. I think that everyone, at the end of the line, or rather, at the beginning of it, are equal, and thus all deserve equal amount of love. It’s what happens in between that botches it all up for them.

I believe in selflessness. I think that when given a choice of sacrificing you or someone else, the right thing to do is always to give of yourself. This doesn’t matter who the other person is, whether a best friend or a worst enemy. I don’t believe that being good is easy. Rather, it is very hard. This is the reason why.

Being good is very hard to define. This is because we, as humans, have a very difficult time with being good. We’re quite blind about it, always arguing about what is good and what is bad. I believe that the answer is right above us, if we all just stop for a moment and look up.