Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Where does morality come from?
In both readings we are given to very similar situations both involving a trolley and a bridge both readings both go and discuss options we have on how many people will die and they explain that our morals come into play and it makes it difficult on what we should do because it's an "if-then" situation, if we push this person then more people will live if we flip the lever then more people will live both giving us difficult options. both reading explain many reasons where our morality come from and yet i don't fully agree with them, morality comes from our experiences just like everything in our life does we are shaped by what we are taught or have seen it isn't an instinct or a gene its just our experiences and our definition of right or wrong and how far we are willing to go till we find what we did isn't right. we have been fooled into thinking that everything is a universal thought of whats moral and what isn't but we are in charge of it not everyone sees eye to eye or is the same we believe different things and think certain ways that are not always normal and sometime people are criticized for having different morals. the scenarios leave each person in a predicament that no person can make because we as a society have made ourselves think that killing someone is wrong and since its wrong we should be punished if the killing was not for self defense. if thats the mindset that we all think, then how can anyone make that decision where no matter what its not moral. it isn't in self defense so in our eyes its bad either way and thats is good but bad because we let our morals get in the way of making a decision for someones life and that in some cases can make people question themselves as humans because if someone dies we will carry that on our shoulders but you can never forgive yourselves because of societies set definitions of morality. now a days morals come from a generic definition that is passed on through time and that how it should not be we should be making our own definitions of whats moral ourselves based on what we feel, see, and hear and what we believe not what others believe.
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I agree with you on what you’re saying about our morality of judgment of it comes from our experiences in life. I understand that in both readings we are proposed with the question of whether or not we should pull a lever to save the five people and kill someone else or to push someone in front of the trolley that will kill them but save those five people. The problem with this scenario to me is that we aren't taught that killing is wrong, but rather killing an innocent person is wrong. But that's just it, we are TAUGHT that. So does our morality comes from what people have told us to believe in, and not from our experiences? The answer to me is that our morality comes from the things we are taught that have a connection with experiences we have had in our lives. If someone tells a 10 year old boy that life isn't fair, but that kid has both parents, who happen to be filthy rich and give him whatever he wants, so he is never sad, then the likelihood is that he will not believe you when you tell him life isn't fair; until he experiences something in life that shows him this is a true statement. My final thing is not a statement, but more of a proposed question, instead of having you push someone in front of the trolley, or even as Robert Wright says “Give him a nudge”, which would lead to that persons death but save those five people, would you instead just jump in front of it, ultimately killing you but saving all six of those people now?
ReplyDeleteI agree that some parts of our morality comes from experiences, but nature and the human mind also plays a huge part. If you push one person in front of a train to save five people it is not considered bad because you did it for the greater good. You talk about killing as if its not big deal and how society is the only reason killing is wrong. The reason killing is wrong is because it is against nature and taking away life is humanly wrong. How society views killing is not the reason it is wrong. The way you express the limitations of killing is extremely wrong because you probably have never talked to anyone that has done the deed. One of my friends is in the army and he explains how you are never the same after. Killing is easy but living with your crime against humanity is the hardest thing you can experience, and society plays no role in that.
ReplyDeleteMorals are learned. After we learn it we internalize it and then "We seek it in our friends and mates, nurture it in our children, advance in our politics and justify it with our religions." Morals come from our super igo that is always telling us there right thing to do. But it can steer us wrong as you said "if when" moment and sometimes it stops us from making what others would consider a right. I can't see myself killing that man because i would probably feel the weight of his death on my hands and if that guy had a lover how could i face them i mean really they might say "why him and not you or the other guy." I also think it has something to do with the current time. It would have been different a long time ago because people when they went to war they killed people up close and saw the life leave their eyes but now we are used to be detached from it and not feel completely responsible for it. Killing has been justified in religions such as the Crusades and i am sure there are other examples. Going back to the trolly thing i might pull the lever because its a lot like our society now it would be like pulling the trigger. Now for the other questions i don't think that our intentions affect good or bad actions because there is good in evil and evil in good. So our good intentions won't be good for someone else so it isn't good for all. Hitler was considered evil but the projects they did at the camps helped science in the end. so no i don't think our intension of good and evil are all good or bad. I'm not sure we could decrease the evil. There isn't really a middle ground that would satisfy everyone. There will always be people against it and unhappy about it. Or it might affect another group in an "evil" way. I don't think either are achievable but we can always try to balance.
ReplyDeleteThe quote is from "The Moral Instinct"
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