Ethics: What is something that is always "bad"

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

In my Ethics class the Prof suggested, before we began delving into any Ethical systems, designing a situation for ourselves (either hypothetical or from experience) in which we would always determine as being bad, immoral, unethical etc.

For him it was the death of an innocent baby. Any ethical system that could, when followed as it advises, result in the death of an innocent baby, is wrong.

For Example, it is possible that Kant’s Deontological Ethics when followed through might result in the death/torture of an innocent child. Say that I have universalized the maxim that it is wrong to lie, and one day I find a baby on my doorstep, I take it into my house and a little while later (so this is clear) a knife toting maniac who is drenched in blood knocks on my door and describes the baby I just found and asks if I have seen it… I cannot lie, as in my system Lying would be morally wrong, so I tell the knife toting maniac the truth… and we can figure what happens from there.

Personally, I adopted the innocent baby standard as my own as well. Any Ethical system if followed through might result in the death of an innocent child, then that system is flawed to me.

Just thought I would throw this out here and ask everyone what sort of situation would they think is bad no matter what authority, argument, holy text might say.

Granted a Ethical Relativist might say that nothing is truly bad, if so, I wouldn’t mind seeing that point of view defended as well.

thanks in advance.

After I finished typing all of this up I realized that my Ethics class was the most morbid experience of my life. Heh. If nothing else I learned to appreciate the sometimes razor’s edge thin distinction between right and wrong.

2

Good and evil, right and wrong, are things that only exist inside our minds.
The question is, is there any preprogrammed ‘morality’ hard wired into us that is universally shared. Most people (and almost all animals) do not kill unless attacked or for food. This is evidenced by extreme rarity of murder among people everywhere. So does that make murder universally ‘wrong’?
I don’t think so, I think it means things are how they should be.
Because it is how things are. Water seeks it’s own level.
Morality is an illusion.

3

Murder is not uncommon. Look at Iraq. Look at North Korea, look at our country with the highest murder rate. Murder is practically second nature to humanity. It happens all the time, it’s just labeled as war, and justified other ways some times. I agree that right and wrong are just human thoughts though. What is right to one is wrong to another. It’s simply a matter of opinion. If everyone in the world all agreed that killing babies was best thing to ever happen to humanity, killing babies would be right.

4

To further the discussion then… would either of you advocate a system of Ethics, or lack thereof, which might result in your murder being viewed with indifference, or… celebration? Rationally speaking, if there is nothing innately wrong about murder, isn’t that ultimately arguing that there is nothing innately wrong with someone murdering you?

And if there is nothing innately wrong with a single murder… how about Genocide?

Not trying to start a screaming match, I am interested in the arguments that seek to validate the Relativistic position.

5

I am not saying that it is right to murder people, I was only saying that it is in fact a matter of opinion whether or not it is right or wrong. We as humans have to choose the morals that are most feasible for continuing our existance unprovoked in happiness and prosperity. Murder is not conducive to such an environment for obvious reasons.

6

Common is something that happens in general interaction. Sure, the USA has The highest murder rate in the world, but even there encountering murder in ones own life is a statistical rarity for most americans.

Yes, and I do.
To accomplish ones goals, it is very hard to not step on anyones toes, figuratively speaking. If someone were to kill me as a result of something I did or said, if someone categorized me as ‘evil’ in their reality-box, there is little I could do to change it. The only alternative is to live acording to others whims to avoid crossing any wires. That seems to me no kind of life.

7

Well lets take Judaism’s system of ethics. In your baby scenario according to the way the system is set up you would be obligated to lie. Why? Because some commandments take precedence over others. More important than lying you must preserve your life which is threatened with the man and knife scenario and the life of the baby. Moral right and wrong is always subjective to the circumstances.

Is it wrong to murder, according to Torah yes. Is it wrong to kill when ones life is being threatened, no. And the difference is recognized. What is right to do in one situation is wrong to do in another situation.

We should measure which wrongs and which rights take precedence. Absolute right and wrong ethics is simply foolish.

8

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The only alternative is to live according to others whims to avoid crossing any wires. That seems to me no kind of life.
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do you live your life with no regard for the whims of other people and the “rules”?
invariably i find that people that are the staunchest advocates for anarchy still live meekly in our society just the same as every one else. even the sex pistols never murdered anyone

also,
[/quote]
Any ethical system that could, when followed as it advises, result in the death of an innocent baby, is wrong.
[/quote]

why do you draw the line at a baby? what makes the life of a baby so much more important or valuable than the life of a fully grown adult? the baby is innocent but only is a short sighted way. it is hard to imagine that it will be anydifferent from any other adult when it grows up, certainly no more innocent.

9

The difference between the baby and the adult is that the adult can be considered guilty while the child blameless. The adult who understands good and evil, right from wrong is fallen and so we may even say to hell with him, he’s part of the blame but the child is always innocent.

10

but the man was innocent once, and the child will soon lose its innocence just as the man did. as we are all inevitably doomed to fall, how can we place value on one who has yet to over one that has already?

11

We only have the present to judge by. You cannot be judged now for a future offense.

As an easy example from a theological perspective it would make repentance and forgivness arbitrary if you were. Today you repent something sincerly that god (being outside time) knows your going to do again a couple weeks from now. So is god judging your future self now or the current you repenting? Morality can only be judged in the present. Hes judging the current you.

Your only a sinner when you’ve commited a sin. If your a murder you were not always so. Until you’ve commited the act you were not a murderer.

If you’ve seen the movie Minority Report in which men were imprisoned before they commited the crime, such a system is unjust. The person before the crime is not the same person after the crime. The act changes the person.

The child is not the same as the adult, in this instance the knowlege which entails responsiblity is the essential change and diffference between the two.

12

it is wrong to take away someone’s (chances for a good) life, murder is a most wrong because it takes away life, and with that all chances for a good life,
to destroy the basic positive contribute to this world, the most valuable thing (life) in the universe is wrong
of course there might be good things in any action, as well as bad things, but to take away life at itself is pure evil… and the worst evil there is, so there is basicly no excuse for it, except if it’s saving another life, giving life, in some cases, …

so:
positive; chances to a good (happy? honest? honourable? loving?) life
negative; taking away those chances…

wheter an act should be considered good or evil and in what ammount is something that is hard to define, that’s why there are such things as courts, judges, jurys…

willem

13

No, thats not what I said whatsoever.
“The rules” are generally in place for a reason and breaking them has a price in concequence. Regardless, peoples desires and motives often come into conflict, and if you avoid doing things simply because it crosses wires with someone elses agenda, you severely limit yourself. Every action has concequences, and avoiding action whatsoever seems not much of a life, from my perspective.

Yes, that was kinda my point…

14

god only judges you on judgement day, which is at the end of everyones life. he doesnt judge the current you, he judges you for the final total of all your actions, so this is not really a fair comparison. besides which, an actual sin is not an inevitability. you cannot be judged for somehting you havent done yet, because you might not end up doing it. losing your innocence however is inevitable, and so someone who is yet too can effectively be treated the same as someone who already has

15

There is something fishy about this method of going about ethics.

For example if we say that the death of an innocent baby is wrong, without any argument or support, and then use this claim agianst other ethical systems, we never give something like Utilitarianism a fair shake.

Consider this problem. Lets say your faced with a homocideal maniac, who has before him three babies. He asks you, should I kill this one, or these two. (Incidently your in a cage or something where your only chance is to answer this bastard one way or the other. And you trust he will follow your recommendation, bla bla bla…)

This is sort of analogous to being a one issue voter. It’s much better to evaluate a system on how it follows you etical intuitions in many cases. And I still don’t think this is the best way. Your prof seems to be agianst consequentalism in general.

16

I believe the main point behind ethics is to reach some goal, some objective we set precedently.

For example, if the principal tenet of one’s ethic was the survival of babies, it would be correct, and encouraged, for him to lie if he was caught in the example shown in the first post.

However, if another lived in a world that encouraged truth, and the real fulfillment of one’s impulses, he would not only have to lie to the killer, but let him satisfy his homicidal needs.

Maybe a true, real moral exists (that would be set by a superior being, or anything else), but I believe they are principally humans’ inventions. Discussing what is moral, or not, depends of the setting, and the state of mind of the involved person.

For example, someone mentionned genocide. If it was proven that humans will lack food in 10 years, and that the generalized famine will cause people to fight each other for survival, I believe a pre-emptive strike against massive numbers would be seen as moral for some.

Abortion is moral for some, while immoral for others.

The fact is that all morality (as well as life) is stripped of sense, and reason to be, if there is no goal ahead. Discussing specific points of moral in general, without having a good consensus on the reason a group adopted that moral, is like discussing specific point of religion in general.

Example : Can you have more than one religion?

Japanese buddhists said yes, Christians said no. Who’s right, who’s wrong? Ultimately, it depends on the legitimity behind the goal both want to reach.

17

The_pacient wrote:

On the contrary according to Judaism you are judged in the now, not at judgement day.

Secondly, if we are to pressume there is a god, no matter your choice to do the action or not, god would know about it before hand. Yes you could choose to or not but the point is god knows now what choice you shall make. It cannot be any other way for an infinite being outside space and time.

Lostguy wrote:

You know I really thought about this and decided if I were placed in such a situation that the only reasonable choice to make would be to lose ones own mind.

Interestingly enough I think I now understand insanity with a much greater sense of clarity thank to you.

What do you guys think, can insanity be a good moral choice to make? Does it not seem like the most sincere response for certain occasions?

18

Dr Satanical,

How does morality qualify as an illusion? Morality may be a construct, created by human beings, but how does make it an illusion?

An Absolute and Universal Morality may qualify as an illusion, but just plain morality doesn’t qualify as an illusion.

19

Morality tends to operate through a hierarchy of values. Whatever you qualify as the highest value takes precedence over other values. Scenarios, real of hypothetical, often put values in conflict. Then we have an opportunity to decide which value we rate as higher than another.

Now morality has tended to be the creation of a particular culture. Now in an effort to avoid ethnocentrism we attempt to see morality as more relative than absolute. The claim of any one system of morality being universally superior to any other system of morality has little weight in a large enough population. Only in smaller groups does the claim of moral superiority get espoused.

As far as a particular action that might always qualify as bad, I would put forward, betrayal. When engage in the act of betray, that qualifies as the most immoral thing that you can do.

A utilitarian argument can point to big numbers and ask, “Would you betray a friend to save, (lets go crazy here) one hundred million from death?” Such a question, to me only stacks one kind of betrayal vs. another. Is it better to betray one whom you care very much to avoid betraying a hundred million who you don’t know?

I had high hope after the end of the second Matrix movie. I thought they were going to address this very question. The movie suggested that the Keanu version of Neo was the first to choose individual love, over a more general love for all of mankind. I was dying to see what the consequences of such a choice could have been. I was totally disappointed when they failed to address this issue in any significant way in the last move.

20

The mention of Utilitarianism reminds me of the classic version of that, which held that happiness should be the desired end for any act.
In other words, do that which might produce the most happiness overall.

Thus, if the baby you had found was to grow up to be another Hitler and introduce untold sorrow and pain into the world, the morally correct thing to do would be to kill the baby, don’t wait for a guy with a knife to show up.

Also I had no idea, before asking, that so many people thought of morality as being relative to the individual, or the situation, or the society.

If ultimately there is nothing intrinsically wrong or bad in any act, can there be anything that is truly “good”? By truly I mean to imply in and of itself… with no notice to how it relates to the situation, or individual or society etc.
Interesting discussion so far, thank you for all the replies.