So, I’ve been chatting with my buddies lately, and it’s turned into a bunch of debates about right and wrong. I think I have a pretty solid moral compass, I’m not bragging haha, but most people I know can’t really explain why something’s right or wrong without getting all circular or contradicting themselves.
So, how do you figure out what to do? No judgment, just curious. I’ll share my thoughts below.
Thanks!
Edit: Oh, all you lil’ philosophers have brought me a cornicopia of thoughts and ideas. I’m going to take my time responding, I’m like Treebeard, never wanna be hasty.
Wrong, IMO, is defined by the violation of the will of another.
That’s the common element to all things that are broadly considered wrong.
For instance, if somebody chooses to give you something, that’s a gift and it’s fine. But if you take that same something from them against their will, that’s stealing, and wrong. In both cases, the exact same thing happened - a thing went from being their possession to being yours. The difference - the thing that separates the right act from the wrong one - is that one was done according to the will of the other person, while the other was done contrary to their will.
And the same holds true consistently - assault, kidnapping, rape, even murder - none of them are characterized by what happens, but by the fact that it happens contrary to the will of the “victim.” And in fact, that’s what defines a “victim” - whatever has been done to them was done against their will.
And it should be noted that there’s an odd sort of relative aspect to this, since the exception to the rule is the violation of the rule.
What I mean by that is that if one decides to violate the will of another, one is instantly wrong, which essentially negates the requirement that ones will not be violated. Your will to violate the will of another not only can be but should be itself violated.
I also have an idea for reconciling the need for an effectively absolute set of moral standards with the fact that morality is necessarily subjective and relative, but that’d require another, and likely even longer, essay.
So let’s start with a hypothetical scenario. (I know strawman, but we’re talking about meta levels of philosophy here and experiments like these usually serve very well to prove a point or contradiction in someone’s logic)
If there is a serial killer who can never be satisfied and can escape any sort of containment given enough time. Is it wrong to execute them?
That actially gets into the second thing I mentioned.
My view is that morality is best seen to function in a sort of math-like way - individual acts have a fixed moral value, and the moral value of an entire course of action is the “sum” of all of the relevant “integers” that make it up.
So, for instance taking the life of another contrary to their will has a negative moral value always. There are no exceptions - the value of that individual act is always negative.
However, protecting people from a known predator has a positive moral value, and similarly always has that value.
And depending on the severity of the threat and the severity of the response, it’s possible for the “sum” of those two acts to be positive, which is to say right, and even as the value of the individual act “taking the life of another contrary to their will” remains negative.
That’s not to say or imply that I believe that acts can be assigned actual numerical values - rather it’s just a way to conceptualize the matter - to hopefully provide the absolutism that morality needs to be even-handed while still allowing for the flexibility it needs to be useful.
So to your question - in and of itself, taking the life of another contrary to their will - even if that other is a serial killer - is wrong. However, protecting people from a known predator is in and of itself right. So the two need to be weighed against each other, and I would say that if the risk the killer poses is sufficiently great (certain or near enough to it to make no meaningful difference) and if there are no other at least equally certain methods to prevent future killing, then execution would be justifiable. Which is to say, executing him would have a positive moral vaue, in spite of the fact that taking the life of another contrary to their will always has a negative valie in and of itself.
There’s much more nuance to all of this - issues with the necessary unreliability and potential deliberate misrepresentation inherent in predicting the future, differences of opinion regarding the relative values of various acts and thus potentially the final value of the course of action as a whole, different methods for resolving disagreements on those things, and so on and on. But that’s grist for other mills.
I really like this response. This is how I approach it as well on a higher level.
However here we seemed to have glossed over “what is right and wrong” which is a very complex issue and might be biased by the observer.
Hobbes has touched on this subject and the whole construct of society as we know it in his book “The Leviathan”
What we might see as wrong in the case of the killer and their victims, on his end is just an expression of his free will. In his mind he might not be doing anything wrong, given different guidelines for moral or empathy. In fact he may not even consider his victims alive.
So we judge them based on our morals and views of good and evil. Are we correct or are they correct? Hobbes states that the morals of the majority are what we follow in a society. But it’s just something that we’ve constructed.
Edit: once again I’m using a case in where the situation is very obvious and clear cut. But think about when there is more nuance. A society views a certain race or species as a food source or livestock (think us and cows, or us and farmed fish) Are we correct or are we wrong to do what we do?
I think that the focus on the violation of the will of one by another defeats relativism.
The killer’s expression of his will is not simply something he is doing, but something he is doing to another, and the will of that other must have priority.
If the will of the person upon whom the act is committed isn’t held to be paramount, then the entire concept of interpersonal morality collapses. So an act that brings harm to another contrary to the will of that other must be seen to be wrong entirely regardless of one’s personal views on the matter
Note though that that’s subject to the essentially “mathematical” concept of morality I addressed elsewhere. That an act that brings harrm to another contrary to the will of that other is necessarily and without exception wrong does not preclude the possibility that it might be justified, if it serves to prevent a greater wrong or bring about a greater right - if it’s such that the negative value of the act in question is offset by a greater positive value, such that the “sum” of the specific “integers” that make up the entire course of action is positive.
There’s a lot of nuance not mentioned. Coercion, duress, extortion. Nevertheless, as I read your reply, I’m reminded of Kiterunner, in which the anti hero’s dad explains that sin boils down to stealing: murder steals a life, adultery a spouse, etc.