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Are ethics real or are there just winners and losers?
- Thread starter TimeTraveler
- Start date
sniffy said:That's probably because humans ARE animals. There goes your argument about logic.
I'll use your tactic of just repeating things in the hope that it'll sink in. Logic and ethics are two different things.
I love your paragraph about not wanting or being able to raise a child alone and pay for a house alone. quite a few people seem to be doing just that.
Raising a child alone is illogical, it's harmful for the child, it's harmful for the parents, its illogical, but some people arent rational or logical, and arent ethical.
I'm not convinced that there is a difference between ethics and logic, show me a difference. I think in order to have accuracy in ethics you MUST rely on logic not emotions. All of us will face situations which will feel wrong but we have to do it because it's the right decision, this is logic, and perhaps you should do some research on the stoic tradition. You are trying to blend emotion into ethics, and honestly, emotions are the main cause of unethical behavior. People if they all did what was in their best interest, would be ethical out of selfishness because it's in their best interest. It's in your best interest to take care of your kids. It's in your best interest to take care of your planet, and of your neighbor, because these entities also take care of you because it's in their best interest. Do you understand that the foundation of ethics are logic? Emotional decisions are usually wrong.
It might feel good to harm your neighbor and destroy the environment, but it's not logical, or ethical to do so, because it harms your future, it harms your childrens future, it harms your species, and doing harm to yourself is always irrational. To be simple it's illogical to harm people who could help you. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
I think I already have.
If logic is the be all and end all why have ethics at all? What need we of ethics? Logics may be about accuracy but ethics is not. Ethics is about making decisions based on a set of rules which are either societal or personal or both. If you are going to base your decision on pure logic (and humans find this difficult because of their emotions) then when faced with any decision you may as well just throw a dice.
A parent faced with bringing up a child alone may not have made the decision to parent alone the other parent may have left. In a different situation a parent may decide the safest option is to parent alone (if for instance there is abuse within the family). Making sweeping generalisations about single parenting is neither logical nor ethical. Several animals parent alone with no detrimental effect on their young.
Imagine if you are old enough a world full of Mr Spocks thinking logically?
If logic is the be all and end all why have ethics at all? What need we of ethics? Logics may be about accuracy but ethics is not. Ethics is about making decisions based on a set of rules which are either societal or personal or both. If you are going to base your decision on pure logic (and humans find this difficult because of their emotions) then when faced with any decision you may as well just throw a dice.
A parent faced with bringing up a child alone may not have made the decision to parent alone the other parent may have left. In a different situation a parent may decide the safest option is to parent alone (if for instance there is abuse within the family). Making sweeping generalisations about single parenting is neither logical nor ethical. Several animals parent alone with no detrimental effect on their young.
Imagine if you are old enough a world full of Mr Spocks thinking logically?
I go away for two days... (one actually)
*ahem* I see we have not made any actual progress, though..
Do you have an extra button that writes "logic" on your keyboard or what?
ALL THINGS think logically. I mean, murderers, rapers, everyone. The problem is when they start making assumptions. If you assume everyone are evil aliens, the most logical thing to do is to kill them. The problem isn't that there isn't enough logic in the world, the problem is people do not think outside logic. Or what is required for logical assumptions.
In order to solve a problem, you must have formula. Like a+b=c. Then you must have definitions, like a=2 and b=5. The rest is logic. It will always produce the same answer. But to get here you must make assumptions. Like a=2. Or b=5. Or even that if a is summed with b, you get a third number. Formulas are assumed to be correct because they have not been known to fail. But they are still complitely assumed. As Hume says, we do not see cause and effect, we only see two occurences and assume there is a connection.
If you give the correct formula and the correct assumptions to all, they will all behave the same way. But to have these formulas is always a game of assumptions. And unless these theories are tested, there is no way of really knowing anything. That's why some might seem to act illogically; They are testing new formulas, or testing the validity of known formulas. It's called creativity, but madness is a fitting name. New formulas are created often at random, or using patterns from our surroundings. You simply assume something and test it's validity.
The reason why there is no singular form of ethics is because no form of ethics has stood the test of time and reality, or they have at least failed to explain why this or that occured.
And who would you choose to form The New Assumptions That Are Always Correct? If such a man existed, would he not have made such assumptions by now, and by god, have made a new religion already?!
*ahem* I see we have not made any actual progress, though..
Now THAT sounds ridiculous. I'll ask again: Why?TimeTraveller said:humans harm everyone and everything including themselves.
Raising a child alone is illogical, it's harmful for the child, it's harmful for the parents, its illogical, but some people arent rational or logical,
Do you have an extra button that writes "logic" on your keyboard or what?
ALL THINGS think logically. I mean, murderers, rapers, everyone. The problem is when they start making assumptions. If you assume everyone are evil aliens, the most logical thing to do is to kill them. The problem isn't that there isn't enough logic in the world, the problem is people do not think outside logic. Or what is required for logical assumptions.
In order to solve a problem, you must have formula. Like a+b=c. Then you must have definitions, like a=2 and b=5. The rest is logic. It will always produce the same answer. But to get here you must make assumptions. Like a=2. Or b=5. Or even that if a is summed with b, you get a third number. Formulas are assumed to be correct because they have not been known to fail. But they are still complitely assumed. As Hume says, we do not see cause and effect, we only see two occurences and assume there is a connection.
If you give the correct formula and the correct assumptions to all, they will all behave the same way. But to have these formulas is always a game of assumptions. And unless these theories are tested, there is no way of really knowing anything. That's why some might seem to act illogically; They are testing new formulas, or testing the validity of known formulas. It's called creativity, but madness is a fitting name. New formulas are created often at random, or using patterns from our surroundings. You simply assume something and test it's validity.
The reason why there is no singular form of ethics is because no form of ethics has stood the test of time and reality, or they have at least failed to explain why this or that occured.
And who would you choose to form The New Assumptions That Are Always Correct? If such a man existed, would he not have made such assumptions by now, and by god, have made a new religion already?!
Ogmios said:I go away for two days... (one actually)
*ahem* I see we have not made any actual progress, though..
Now THAT sounds ridiculous. I'll ask again: Why?
Do you have an extra button that writes "logic" on your keyboard or what?
ALL THINGS think logically. I mean, murderers, rapers, everyone. The problem is when they start making assumptions. If you assume everyone are evil aliens, the most logical thing to do is to kill them. The problem isn't that there isn't enough logic in the world, the problem is people do not think outside logic. Or what is required for logical assumptions.
Rape is illogical because what you do to women, eventually passes through a vicious circle and ends up coming back to you in the future. It's like if you pollute everything, eventually it harms you as much as it harms the so called victim. If you assume everyone are evil aliens, yet you have no scientific proof, thats not logic, thats religion. If you kill for any reason other than survival and self defense, thats not logic, it's aggression and hate is an emotion. If there are no emotions then none of these aggressive actions would make sense unless you are under proven threat and these actions are the best or only solution to remove the threat. I don't think women are a threat, or evil aliens to be murdered and raped.
In order to solve a problem, you must have formula. Like a+b=c. Then you must have definitions, like a=2 and b=5. The rest is logic. It will always produce the same answer. But to get here you must make assumptions. Like a=2. Or b=5. Or even that if a is summed with b, you get a third number. Formulas are assumed to be correct because they have not been known to fail. But they are still complitely assumed. As Hume says, we do not see cause and effect, we only see two occurences and assume there is a connection.
You have a point on the assumptions, but we have science so they we do not have to rely on inaccurate assumptions when making logical decisions. Finally the case I'm making is the removal of emotion from the decision making process, as science attempts to do. If you can advocate science and not say science is based on assumptions (and it is), why is it so difficult to take this to the extreme and call logic a science and base decision making on science instead of emotion or religion?
If you give the correct formula and the correct assumptions to all, they will all behave the same way. But to have these formulas is always a game of assumptions. And unless these theories are tested, there is no way of really knowing anything. That's why some might seem to act illogically; They are testing new formulas, or testing the validity of known formulas. It's called creativity, but madness is a fitting name. New formulas are created often at random, or using patterns from our surroundings. You simply assume something and test it's validity.
Maybe they are just less logical. If look behind most aggressive behavior, like murder or rape, you find an emotion, like hatred, or anger, or jealousy, or some type of "feeling". It's rare for a person to come to the rational conclusion that someone must be killed, this usually only happens in self defense, and rape is never rational, as it's about as rational as torture and neither accomplish any goal other than to harm the victim.
The reason why there is no singular form of ethics is because no form of ethics has stood the test of time and reality, or they have at least failed to explain why this or that occured.
One form of ethics have stood the test of time, the ethics of survival of a species. If you choose the wrong ethics, you and your species eventually goes extinct. So it's very important that we perfect our ethics, or our ethics won't be there to protect us from ourselves.
And who would you choose to form The New Assumptions That Are Always Correct? If such a man existed, would he not have made such assumptions by now, and by god, have made a new religion already?!
Science is a religion for some people. A religion based on fact is better than a religion based on myth. If you can prove with math and science that a certain ethics improves the chance of the species or individual surviving, that should be good enough. Most religions have the basic formula already in the harm principle, if every human followed it, we'd have guarenteed survival, because it's the most rational form of ethics. Game theory is another proven form of ethics that if everyone followed, we'd all be winners. There are many forms of rational ethics, and many forms of irrational emotion based styles of decision making. The key is you cannot do everything you feel, and sometimes to win, you have to sacrifice for the good of the group, the country, the species, or your future self as is the case with college.
You can debate ethics and sure people can try to experiment, but you also have to admit that some forms of ethics are more logical/rational than others. As a form of ethics you can decide that it's best to just attack random people who look at you the wrong way, but this in the long term is irrational even if you gain a lot of short term victories. If everyone lived like an outlaw, and carried a gun and would shoot anyone who looked at them wrong, would the world be more sane or less sane?
sniffy said:I think I already have.
If logic is the be all and end all why have ethics at all? What need we of ethics? Logics may be about accuracy but ethics is not. Ethics is about making decisions based on a set of rules which are either societal or personal or both. And that is why humans are unethical and why we need laws.
If you are going to base your decision on pure logic (and humans find this difficult because of their emotions) then when faced with any decision you may as well just throw a dice.Logic is never random. The natural law is about the rules of survival which have nothing to do with emotion. Self defense is logic, not emotion. Emotional decisions are usually wrong, I'm sure you've made these mistakes, we all have, and we all know that we make our best decisions when we have a clear head, not when we are drunk, or upset.It's definately not random because the goal is self defense, simply do what protects your future self. This may mean sacrificing in the present, by going to college, or it may mean dropping a bad friendship or a person of negative influence on your future self.
A parent faced with bringing up a child alone may not have made the decision to parent alone the other parent may have left.The other parent was unethical and irrational, which created a situation such as this. It's the irrational decision by the parent who left which can cause many other triggers for the future. If you make irrational decisions, they influence your future, and the future of everyone else.
In a different situation a parent may decide the safest option is to parent alone (if for instance there is abuse within the family). Making sweeping generalisations about single parenting is neither logical nor ethical. Several animals parent alone with no detrimental effect on their young.
Abuse is not rational, it's emotional. It's not rational to beat yourself up, so it's not rational to beat your wife up, or your child up.
Imagine if you are old enough a world full of Mr Spocks thinking logically?
We'd likely have a better world if there were more rational minds and less emotional minds. Less drunk drivers, less bar fights, less abusive relationships, less suicides, less of a lot of harmful destructive behavior which usually comes from feelings and not rational decision making. It's rational to compete over money, if people focused on making money and not on all these other activities, the economy would be better, and so would they.
sniffy said:I think I already have.
If logic is the be all and end all why have ethics at all? What need we of ethics? Logics may be about accuracy but ethics is not. Ethics is about making decisions based on a set of rules which are either societal or personal or both. If you are going to base your decision on pure logic (and humans find this difficult because of their emotions) then when faced with any decision you may as well just throw a dice.
A parent faced with bringing up a child alone may not have made the decision to parent alone the other parent may have left. In a different situation a parent may decide the safest option is to parent alone (if for instance there is abuse within the family). Making sweeping generalisations about single parenting is neither logical nor ethical. Several animals parent alone with no detrimental effect on their young.
Imagine if you are old enough a world full of Mr Spocks thinking logically?
The rational way to look at abusing your wife is, is it rational to beat yourself up? The rational way to look at a situation of single parenting, is making your future better if kids grow up without fathers/mothers? You have to look at it from a point of view that a community raises a child and not just two parents.
The parent who leaves is irrational and unethical at the same time. It's irrational because that child likely will be the only one who cares about them when they get old, and they blew it by leaving. It's irrational because children grow up to become adults, sometimes great adults, and they often give back whatever they recieved. If they recieved a lot of unethical behavior from their parents they might give it back and make the situation worse for all.
Suicide is irrational, at least in most cases. I never made a sweeping generalization, I'm saying look at these situations in an emotionless way. The situation of parents not parenting, or of abuse, are caused by emotionalism, not rational decision making. If you don't raise your kids, society will, but your kids will not be there to protect you when you get old if you arent there to protect them when they are young. This is ethical logic.
sniffy said:This is sweeping generalisation based on your own illogical way of thinking and your own rather narrow minded ethics are beginning to peep through...
Ultimately, right and wrong are based on the results. If you harms lots and lots of people, thats wrong. If you harm very few people, thats right, and the less you harm the more ethical you are.
How difficult is that to understand?
TimeTraveler said:Ultimately, right and wrong are based on the results. If you harms lots and lots of people, thats wrong.
Hmm, it's not wrong according to Al Queda. So now what? Your statement false on it's ass in the very first round. Now what are you going to say?
TimeTraveler said:If you harm very few people, thats right, and the less you harm the more ethical you are.
If you don't harm enough people, groups like Al Queda would think that they didn't do enough killing! Ooh, now what?
TimeTraveler said:How difficult is that to understand?
It can be very difficult depending on the perspective that one uses. Wanna' try again?
Baron Max
TimeTraveler said:Ultimately, right and wrong are based on the results. If you harms lots and lots of people, thats wrong. If you harm very few people, thats right, and the less you harm the more ethical you are.
How difficult is that to understand?
Sounds like your own set of ethics at work. How do you measure the 'harm' caused? Is lots of nasty harm to just a few people better than a certain amount of harm to lots of people? Certain ethics might dictate that harming anyone is wrong logic might not.
Logic in rape?
Assumptions:
1. Women are whores (that one is anyway)
2. You are allmighty (d'uh)
3. Whores should be shown what happens to whores.
Hence it is logical to rape. But all this is based on assumptions. You might say the assumptions are illogical, but this is so only according to your experience. Experience leads to assumptions. There is nothing ILLOGICAL about it. It is just stupid stupid assumptions, already based on ethics.
You don't need more pure logic, but pure experience, or ability to see clearly what experience taughts you. Logic comes after experience.
All things act according to logic; it cannot be flawed or broken. It is the assumptions we make that get us in trouble.
Assumptions:
1. Women are whores (that one is anyway)
2. You are allmighty (d'uh)
3. Whores should be shown what happens to whores.
Hence it is logical to rape. But all this is based on assumptions. You might say the assumptions are illogical, but this is so only according to your experience. Experience leads to assumptions. There is nothing ILLOGICAL about it. It is just stupid stupid assumptions, already based on ethics.
You don't need more pure logic, but pure experience, or ability to see clearly what experience taughts you. Logic comes after experience.
All things act according to logic; it cannot be flawed or broken. It is the assumptions we make that get us in trouble.
1 What is ethical or logical about believing women are whores?
2 Duh
3 Whores already know what happens to whores
Rape is about the power of one human being used over another not about being a prostitute. Men and children are raped too.
It is only logical to rape if you lack the conscience or ethics that would to tell you otherwise and therefore can't help yourself.
2 Duh
3 Whores already know what happens to whores
Rape is about the power of one human being used over another not about being a prostitute. Men and children are raped too.
It is only logical to rape if you lack the conscience or ethics that would to tell you otherwise and therefore can't help yourself.
sniffy said:Sounds like your own set of ethics at work. How do you measure the 'harm' caused? Is lots of nasty harm to just a few people better than a certain amount of harm to lots of people? Certain ethics might dictate that harming anyone is wrong logic might not.
You know when you are harming people when you see the damages, the same way you know when you are harming stone statues, when they start to chip, break and decay you know you are doing damage to it.
Look, all of us know that we indrectly harm people just through pollution, this is a fact, but does this mean that because we don't know the effects that we should not at least try to minimize the harm we do?
It's impossible to never harm anyone, what I'm saying is ethics and morality is based on the minimization of harm, and this is rational because if everyone were to do this we'd all be safer.
Oniw17 said:That's YOUR ethics, not wthics in general.
It's ethics in general. You cannot have a community or a civilization if you do not follow the harm principle. Everyone will essentially be killing everyone else until no ones left. Therefore is it common knowledge, a natural fact, that harm should be minimized for the greater good of society.
This is why we have health care, and while it does not always work, at least we attempt it. We do not have it to protect individuals, we have it to protect national security, and in order to protect national security you have to protect individuals. Who do you want to trust more, the nameless faceless Chinese, or your neighbors? You know your neighbor, you know everything about him, you have his/her records in ever database, life story and all, and you'd rather provide healthcare and security to people in China?
The China policy, could be considered unethical, because it's irrational, and it's not in the best interest of the country, so ethics, reason, and nationalism often combine. To take it to the step above nationalism you have collectivism, which is the next step above nationalism, and on this stage the human condition becomes the measure for rational decision making.
Does decision X improve the human condition, or ruin it? So from the collectivist perspective suddenly globalization begins to make sense, it begins to become actually more rational to give jobs to the best humans globally, with no concept of borders and nation. Globalization improves the human condition, but in it's current form we can say it's harming our condition, it's irrational for America, but it's rational for the species. My definition of ethics require that a person also be rational, so this means we should attempt to improve the human condition, in the most selfish way we can. We should improve the human conditon in a way which has the least cost and is the most efficient. So as an individual if you want to improve the human conditon, you have to do so in a way which is of the least cost and least risk to yourself.
If the world were both rational and ethical, we'd all be focused on how we can improve each others lives, and improve our collective quality of life, and create the quality of life engine instead of the misery engine we currently choose to power. That's our choice, and reason and ethics are at the center of understanding the difference between these two options. Otherwise something which might be rational to you, in the "NOW", for the moment, might actually cost you the future itself, and this is what I'm saying. Ethics without reason, cease being ethical. Ethics without reason are just types of gambling, playing the lottery hoping you win some quick/easy money, instead of going for the guarenteed profit of the longview of reality.
If we look at every decision in a 10,20-50 year context, and if we look at every decision we make to see what impact it has on the survivability of the species as well as the individuals in the now, suddenly all the equations change a bit. Yes you sometimes have to win the now, but if you win the now and lose the future whats the point? You want to ideally win the future, by controlling the now, or at least making the right decisions in the now so that you win a better future.
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But why would I care? Logic alone does not give an answer. You might think about "what a waste" or "Someone will kick me for this", but if you assume no one won't or cant do anything to you, logic tells you to DO IT. It's only logical; they can't harm you; You stand to gain.TimeTraveller said:You know when you are harming people when you see the damages, the same way you know when you are harming stone statues, when they start to chip, break and decay you know you are doing damage to it.
This here explains what I mean. Change set assumptions and logic handles the rest. Everyone has logic, their view of world or assumptions simply make their computations reach weird results. Most people just cling to set rules of ethics, which tells them what to DO, so they don't have to change their view of world or think about it. But anything the ethic rule does not entail becomes total garbage as the people are STILL AS STUPID AS THEY WERE. Their "good habits" make them seem better, but behind the scenes they're beating their wives and abusing each others children. Not because they lack logic, but because it tells them to do this, based on their mistaken assumptions. Ethic laws only work as far as they can be enforced. And remembered.So from the collectivist perspective suddenly globalization begins to make sense
(and by ethics I mean given, set laws of ethics, not some type of "natural goodwill".
Natural tendencies are learned when you are 1-4 years old, so it does not come "naturally", but is a set law of ethics like any religion, tradition or law)
Imposing laws and "promoting logic" gets you nothing but a pretense of idyl, broken everytime no one is looking. Ethics give people just a good reason to be stupid. Make people smart by teaching them, don't hire some scientist to tell them what to do. Everyone takes responsibility of themselves.
Ogmios said:But why would I care? Logic alone does not give an answer. You might think about "what a waste" or "Someone will kick me for this", but if you assume no one won't or cant do anything to you, logic tells you to DO IT. It's only logical; they can't harm you; You stand to gain.Logic is more complicated than this. The only way this sort of logic can work is if you are prepared to kill everyone on earth, then yeah you don't have to fear anyone, or the future. Does this mean you are being logical because you don't fear anyone? No, it does not, because it costs energy, more energy than it's worth, and it's not just other people who are a threat. If you are the only person in your universe, who will protect you from viruses, or help you when you get sick? Everyone needs someone, and therefore all people are linked indirectly.
Most of the time, when you do something thinking you are getting over, thinking you have achieved victory, it's not the kinda victory that lasts forever, or even very long, because in order to be successful at anything, you need social capital, you need other people, and you cannot do anything you want and still maintain your social capital even if you can get away with anything. Someone always finds out what you did, and eventually it gets into the hands of the wrong person. Just look in the history books and you'll see how life is for people who do whatever they want from beginning to end, their life is so harsh that their quality of life goes down, it becomes difficult to trust anyone or have real friendships, and no one trusts you. Trust is based on logic, and trust is the glue that maintains social capital. It's friendship glue.
This here explains what I mean. Change set assumptions and logic handles the rest. Everyone has logic, their view of world or assumptions simply make their computations reach weird results. Most people just cling to set rules of ethics, which tells them what to DO, so they don't have to change their view of world or think about it. But anything the ethic rule does not entail becomes total garbage as the people are STILL AS STUPID AS THEY WERE. Their "good habits" make them seem better, but behind the scenes they're beating their wives and abusing each others children. Not because they lack logic, but because it tells them to do this, based on their mistaken assumptions.
SO what you are saying is these people do not lack logic, they just have faulty logic, they do not have good logic, or accuracy in decision making. It's impossible that anyone can actually believe that beating their wife is rational, why would anyone have to ever beat their wife, and how exactly it this ever ration is beyond me. I don't think it's accurate logic, it never leads to positive outcomes.
Ethic laws only work as far as they can be enforced. And remembered.
(and by ethics I mean given, set laws of ethics, not some type of "natural goodwill".
Natural tendencies are learned when you are 1-4 years old, so it does not come "naturally", but is a set law of ethics like any religion, tradition or law)
Imposing laws and "promoting logic" gets you nothing but a pretense of idyl, broken everytime no one is looking. Ethics give people just a good reason to be stupid. Make people smart by teaching them, don't hire some scientist to tell them what to do. Everyone takes responsibility of themselves.
But you cannot teach ethics, some people are born with greater ethical ability than others. You can teach logic, which is the basis for them to develop their own ethics, but you cannot teach ethics. So we have options, we either use religion or we use science, the human species, at least a lot of us, just arent designed to be good at ethics. The few of us who seem to be wired ethicists, or who just seem ot have a natural talent for it, yes we should teach it, but you cannot teach it through emotion unless you want it to become religion. If you teach it without emotion it becomes science and the basis of the science of ethics is logic and reason.
So how would you teach it? I'd just teach math, and logic. You cannot teach a person right from wrong, but you can teach them the proper way to calculate right from wrong, and that's more valueable. The proper way to calculate it is not based on if you'll get caught or not, if someone is only ethical because they'll get caught, only emotion works on them, fear essentially that they'll get caught. A naturally ethical person will live according to certain principles, calculated to improve quality of life, for themselves and the greater good of society.
It is their personal responsbility, but unless people learn proper skills in doing calculations, people often make ridiculous decisions, like robbing a bank because they can get money quicker that way, even though they'll go to prison for a long time when they get caught. Even if they don't get caught, robbing a bank always comes back to them, the banks will eventually get tougher on bank robbers, and hire police, maybe police of their own, investigators and detectives, so no it's not wise to piss off banks by robbing them because banks are filled with powerful people who have lots of money. The bank robber only thinks they win because they win in the NOW, they lose in the future, all the trends show this.
In general, you can do whatever you want in this world, but ultimately how you treat others, is how others eventually will start to treat you, so it's all about how you treat yourself. If you treat yourself good, you'll have a better life than if you treat yourself bad, and being ethical is a way to treat yourself better, for your own sake. If everyone were ethical we'd have a better world for everyone, but because most people aren't, most people suffer. Perhaps the misery and suffering can be shifted, perhaps blame can be shifted, but this does not matter because it's still in the world, and it puts a cap on human happinesss.
Oh timetravellar you give me a headache!
Surely ethics is not something a person is good or bad at? Individuals who may or may not live by a certain set of 'life rules' would not even recognise these or define them as ethics. Ethical rules are different from one person to the next; from family to family and society to society. Lots of external things - families, peer groups, systems (such as capitalism), legislation, religions and life experiences may influence the development of such rules in any one individual. Also brain damage, mental illness, child abuse and substance abuse may impair (or enhance?) an individual's ability to develop such rules.
Life itself may lead individuals to change their particular ethics over time and obviously what may be 'ethical' to you may not be 'ethical' to others as people have different viewpoints and prejudices. Therefore it is quite possible to instruct people in ethics or particular sets of rules regarding right and wrong. What is far more challenging is to get people to AGREE to one set of rules (universal rights and wrongs, morals, ethics). You can also teach logic but what you cannot do is make people ACCEPT it.
If, for instance, you were to initiate a discussion around the moral issue; to kill people is wrong (which is often said to be a universal rule of ethics) before long you may discover that some people hold the view that it is wrong to kill regardless of the cirumstance; others may think it's OK to kill in self defence or to protect loved ones form harm; others may say it's ok to kill someone if they are near death and suffering; or to kill armed soldiers and so it goes on.
In the end whether or not it is right or wrong to kill another person depends on the beliefs of the individual and the particular circumstances facing them. Sometimes it will not even be a conscious decision to kill but more of a reflex action; an instinct (perhaps the human survival instinct 'kicking in' as mentioned in an earlier post).
Surely ethics is not something a person is good or bad at? Individuals who may or may not live by a certain set of 'life rules' would not even recognise these or define them as ethics. Ethical rules are different from one person to the next; from family to family and society to society. Lots of external things - families, peer groups, systems (such as capitalism), legislation, religions and life experiences may influence the development of such rules in any one individual. Also brain damage, mental illness, child abuse and substance abuse may impair (or enhance?) an individual's ability to develop such rules.
Life itself may lead individuals to change their particular ethics over time and obviously what may be 'ethical' to you may not be 'ethical' to others as people have different viewpoints and prejudices. Therefore it is quite possible to instruct people in ethics or particular sets of rules regarding right and wrong. What is far more challenging is to get people to AGREE to one set of rules (universal rights and wrongs, morals, ethics). You can also teach logic but what you cannot do is make people ACCEPT it.
If, for instance, you were to initiate a discussion around the moral issue; to kill people is wrong (which is often said to be a universal rule of ethics) before long you may discover that some people hold the view that it is wrong to kill regardless of the cirumstance; others may think it's OK to kill in self defence or to protect loved ones form harm; others may say it's ok to kill someone if they are near death and suffering; or to kill armed soldiers and so it goes on.
In the end whether or not it is right or wrong to kill another person depends on the beliefs of the individual and the particular circumstances facing them. Sometimes it will not even be a conscious decision to kill but more of a reflex action; an instinct (perhaps the human survival instinct 'kicking in' as mentioned in an earlier post).