Would you keep your morals if noone else did? If most would kill you for thier amusement, or profit, would you respect thier life? If most would lie to you like a polititian, would you stop believing everything people say? Would we be animals without morals? Are we animals anyway? Now what if there were a sizable portion of people with good morals, and also a good portion without, would you knowing you'd not be on equal footing, keep your morals, or join the other group and enjoy the benefits? These are some decisions people make in the real world. Some never have morals to begin with(unbringing or genetics?), and some are flexible enough to ditch them, and some choose to keep them or get them, and some are inseperable from them. Which is better is all perspective, and they all exist. I have strong morals, but sometimes I don't think it's worth it. So many lost oppertunities if only I would put greed or anger, or whatever motivation above benevolence. And not being religious makes morals even less worthwhile, as I will get no "ticket to heaven" for being good. But always it's too difficult to stop being such a nice guy. I'm no doormat or anything, too much pride for that, but I do miss out on oppertunities. If I knew for certain if my morality was taught and not native to me then I'd for sure change, but if it's written in my DNA, then I'd want to follow who I am. I'd sure like a morality study on pre-cultural humans, but time machines don't exist so no dice. So should I be a greedy criminal, or a benevolent pacifist? Is the bad PR of evil created so that the evil may have power over the fools, or are the evil unatural perversions? What is the pervailling opinion?
Good questions. I do “good” (or not “bad”) not because I was taught that, but because I enjoy being that way. I think the “bad” people do not truly enjoy inflicting sorrow on others; they delude themselves. Regarding your doormat comment, I’m careful where I draw the line. For example, if I buy something online without paying sales tax, I’m legally obligated to fill out a Washington state form to report my purchase and pay state sales taxes on it. But I don’t feel morally obligated to follow that law, because almost nobody else will pay taxes on similar purchases and so it is an unfair tax/time burden on me. Using similar logic I’m able to “morally” do many things that a goody two-shoe would believe to be immoral. Regarding whether you should be a greedy criminal or a benevolent pacifist, you already know of course. I think the bad PR of evil is largely created so that the evil may have power over the fools. That is, a lot of un-evil stuff gets lumped into the evil category, for the benefit of the evil. For example, you should be patriotic and fight & kill for your country. Well bullshit if the war’s to steal another country’s oil so that a few can enrich themselves. It’s important for the fools to wake up and think for themselves so that evil loses power. I think evil is natural but naturally evolves into good.
i think you have to reach a compromise between idealism and realism. i mean to an extent i can ignore my morals, but beyond that, no. i guess it's all down to discipline.
It is a good point, but I think it is obvious. We are raised with morals, but if we were raised without them, we wouldn't have them. Humans aren't naturally "good" people (Whatever "good" means). We are animals that over thousands of years have developed moral conduct and a social system. I think what your trying to say is.. do we really need to have our friends and family be "good" to be "good" ourselves? And the answer to that is yes. If we were all raised to lie, cheat, and steal because the people we look up to did the same, we would be no different then them.
