The Standard of Morality

This is a topic I hope everyone can relate. If you are reading this message then you are a conscious human being with the ability to make value judgments.

I was hoping to just get into the minds of all you thinkers out there and how you have come to determine what is good or bad. Basically, everyone has a philosophy - If you decide to rape women and rob banks you still have a philosophy. Obviously this code of ethics is irrational and ultimately leads to some form of suicide; mentally or physically.

How have you come to conclude right from wrong? Jesus, God, Law, TV, yourself?

I could go on for days with this but lets start here...

I try to keep mine very simple. I try to never intentionally hurt anyone. Sometimes you do it unintentionally.

I try to keep mine very complicated. The notion of a standard for objective definitions of "good and bad" implies that there must be some force to define them, a force that is wholly separate from one's self. It would seem that the only obvious form that this insidious force takes shape is in the geographical waves of structure of thought among human beings on earth.

That is, people, as they live their lives, form distinct aesthetic reactions and emotional behaviors associated with their conscious learnings and experiences, and those thoughts form their personal definitions for the polar concepts of right and wrong. Often the events that form these definitions are major points in people's lives, and the schemata they form from them can be intense.

Incidentally, humans live in close quarters, and have a clan structure that beautifully transmits individual communication, thus gifting each person great potential to influence the lives of those around them in weird, abstract ways. After a little time together, groups of people learn to agree with the each others moral aesthetics, on the major points at least. After a while, people don't even notice their agreement, or notice the moral dilemmas inherent to practically every facet of being alive. Some people never notice, from birth to death.

So my definitions of "right" and "wrong" are such.

Right: It is right to act as I feel is right, but only if I have examined it against the climate of moral thought and made a judgment as to it's accuracy upon my even baser aesthetic response to it.

Wrong: It is right to judge wrong as what I feel to conflict (not refute, only conflict) my definition of what is right.

I take a relative standpoint for what is right and wrong. In life, the only truth is the truth you accept to be true, so therefore what is morally right and wrong, or good and evil, can only be what an individual accepts as his personal morals.

When dealing with this issue, I like to think of a little thing Ernest Hemingway used to say, If you feel bad after you do it, its wrong. If you feel good, its not.

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Originally Posted by 40oz

so therefore what is morally right and wrong, or good and evil, can only be what an individual accepts as his personal morals.

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Well, you're on the right track. To understand what is moral you must first ask and understand why man needs a code of values - or morals to begin with.

That is, people, as they live their lives, form distinct aesthetic reactions and emotional behaviors associated with their conscious learnings and experiences, and those thoughts form their personal definitions for the polar concepts of right and wrong. Often the events that form these definitions are major points in people's lives, and the schemata they form from them can be intense.

Sounds like you are describing perception. We see reality, process it, then the produce judgments from those experiences; emotions.

I'll give you all example of what I mean. My standard of morality is life. My life more particular. From when we are born we learn very basic values that we soon realize keep us alive such as water, air, shelter and food. As we grow and our minds become more sophisticated and our values evolve and become more complex: politics, religion, philosophy, language and so on. Again, along with the Objectivist thought, the standard of morality is one's own life: What makes ME happy? What are the values that will shape the course of my life to ensure that I will be productive and successful?

In essence, the code of values, or morality, that you adopt should be the one that is going to most benefit you -- rationally. I use that word because you can go out and con people but that is obviously uncool.

Does anyone disagree with the notion that man should live his life for his own sake and discredit the old religious injunction 'you are your brother's keeper'?

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Originally Posted by colour

Does anyone disagree with the notion that man should live his life for his own sake and discredit the old religious injunction 'you are your brother's keeper'?

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No I do not disagree, I do however feel that our survival depends on our ability to help eachother out, so I think it is important to be aware of the needs of others and help them as best you can...while still keeping your own needs and desires in mind, because those are really the only things that matter.

I stick by the quote in my sig

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Does anyone disagree with the notion that man should live his life for his own sake and discredit the old religious injunction 'you are your brother's keeper'?

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I disagree, though it might seem like I'm contradicting what I said before. I think that although we have no choice but to weigh all our experiences and the moral compass we gain from those experience against our own perception, there is a state of being towards which our cognition is working, one where the ego is founded not in consciousness, but in a far baser and more distributed version of existence.

I think the closest one can get to this existence while still alive is in the form of love, real love, where the "you" in you becomes nothing more than a extension of someone or something else, and conscious thought only retains it's existence to better appreciate the being of the object of your love.

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion."

So the majority will always prevail against the individual? How can you morally justify?

I think the closest one can get to this existence while still alive is in the form of love, real love, where the "you" in you becomes nothing more than a extension of someone or something else, and conscious thought only retains it's existence to better appreciate the being of the object of your love.

Closest to existence...that fact that are reading these words proves your existence. Please explain that one.

I meant the altered existence of ego-death. My current existence is of course, a given.