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.
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.