What is right?
What makes something right?
What is right for one, is not right for the other.
I’d wondered if “right” – was based on the effect of the action upon the system. For this reason, “good” and “bad” are a game – with their own sets of rules.
It’s just so easy to say “I don’t like that” – but the actual reason that we say this, is most often because of want, not need.
I think that there is a lot of excess baggage that most personalities carry with them, as some sort of defence for a game that they should have outgrown and got beyond, a long time ago.
Does our little rights and wrongs matter to its magesty, the universe? In some way it does, but the Process goes on anyway. So, its up to a person to decide what’s right and what’s wrong. And the decision will be affected by the person’s level of intelligence.
Right (in relation to Morals) is responsibility transcending practical understanding. Its benefits and consequences are reaped by the subjective assurance that right actually is ‘right’, which must mean wrong actually is ‘wrong’.
Kant’s Categorical Imperative provides one of the most rational basis formed under this vortex of a question.
This is also how i interpret morality. Something is “good” because it helps further some aim or goal and something is “bad” because it hinders it. There is no Form of Goodness (plat) which we aspire to be like, nor any rules of action where certain actions are always bad (deontological approaches).
What is that goal?
The ultimate survival of humankind.
All moral theories seem to implicitly aspire to this goal. By making rules of behaviour which intend to govern our behaviour into a non-selfdestructive manner (e.g. Kant’s imperative), by defining what type of short-term end can result in this long term goal (e.g. “greatest happiness” as with utilitarianism) or by describing virtues of the individuals best suited to continue our existence indefinately (virtue ethics).
One of the primary reasons i say that it is down to the results of the action, and not what the action is, is due to the fact that if we make a constant claim about a particular action (e.g. Killing is wrong) then it is simultaneously possible to perform the best action (the action that perpetuates our existence the most) and to perform a wrong action (one that goes against our rule system). People always talk about “the best of bad options” or “the lesser of two evils” which are things that i feel should not be possible. Hence the teleological approach to this goal.
At this point people may accuse me of being a utilitarian. I disagree with the approach of “greatest happiness for the greatest number” principly because happiness does not confer success on it’s own. I feel utilitarians have got it the wrong way around. Happiness and success are often linked. However, i feel they then make the leap that by causeing happiness we cause success. It is actually the other way around, and is perfectly possible to cause happiness with no actual practical value added.
I am aware this theory presents problems when we assume that human’s are not alone in the universe (e.g. there are aliens at least as intelligent and valuable as ourselves). I would state, instead, the end result to be the ultimate survival of intelligent life, but this presents problems as well (if we went to war with aliens and both sides are evenly matched, it could arguably be the moral thing to lay down our arms as the survival of both races is threatened by the conflict. I am yet unsure if i would like to make that claim, because of my initial human-central approach.) Also it presents problems with definitions of “life” and “Intelligence”. (do Artificial Intelligences count as life?) A second problem with using Humanity’s existence for our end goal is that when does it stop counting as a human? This might imply that we would desire to stop evolution, which is not a route i want to go down either as i think it is important in order to continue the existence of… whatever it is we become.
Dan, right and wrong, in the moral sense, are traditional ideas - literally, I mean - passed down by tradition, mostly in the childrearing process. It is not a game, however. When mommy teaches you it’s not “right” to pull your sister’s hair, or torture the cat, or set fire to your brother, it is for good reason. Morality begins with the life-and-limb saving admonitions of our parents, and then gets totally out of control when priestly castes, tribal leaders, and the generally powerful exploit the responses we are taught as children.
Good philosophers overcome morality, but never abandon it. They get past mommy and daddy, and the village priest, and find their own “good life” through the creative (read: destructive) act of moralizing beyond mere “right and wrong”. I could have said “good and evil”. Read all of Nietzsche and report back to us. You will be able to answer your own questions satisfactorily, I am sure.