InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Haro! Haro!"

Ruby | Supernatural (mostloyalruby) wrote in compass_network,
@ 2013-05-12 18:01:00

Entry tags:

!open, steve rogers, ~greg house

What is morality, anyway? How do we decide what is right and what is wrong? Isn't everything relative, really?

You say you do the 'right thing', or that you try to, but how do you judge that? Life is a zero sum game, so everything you do, every step ahead you take hurts somebody. There are winners and losers in everything you do, so who is to say that helping one person is RIGHT if it hurts another?

I say we should all just cast aside the idea of right and wrong. They're stupid ideas.

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	captain_srogers 2013-05-12 11:59 pm UTC (link)
	But right and wrong still exist, and should exist. And there are some absolutes that still rely on context, killing is not always wrong but killing an innocent is. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 12:00 am UTC (link)
	Who decides who is innocent? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 12:16 am UTC (link)
	The rules of society. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

mostloyalruby
2013-05-13 12:20 am UTC (link)

Ah.

The rules of society once said that slavery was acceptable. It also said that beating your wife was okay, and that it was impossible to rape a woman inside of marriage. Society once said that it was perfectly fine to stone someone to death for cheating. Society also said that interracial marriage shouldn't be condoned and that women shouldn't vote because they weren't smart enough.

Not sure I'd trust society, Boy Scout.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 12:28 am UTC (link)
	Once said. Things change as we grow and evolve as a culture and our definitions of right and wrong change with them. Nothing starts out perfect, society included, but we get better and our ideas get better with us. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 12:31 am UTC (link)
	Right, that's exactly my point. How do you know that in ten years what society says now isn't going to be terrible? So if morality changes with society and there are no societal absolutes (meaning that what society says one day it may change its mind on the next) then morality is also fluctuating and variable and is therefore useless. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 12:38 am UTC (link)
	But it doesn't matter what the future says, we're living now and right now morality matters. I'm not arguing that it fluctuates, things always change and that's what's good about society, that we can realize when we, as a whole, are wrong and work to fix those wrongs. But a morality that shifts along with it's culture doesn't make it useless. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 12:42 am UTC (link)
	So basically what you're saying is that the man who raped his wife a hundred years ago was doing the right thing because that was acceptable to the morals of society at the time. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 12:49 am UTC (link)
	Not to us, but to people of that time it would have been. I'm not saying we're perfect as a species in this thinking but it's the way things are. Right and wrong are dependent of circumstance and the rules of the world you live in. But even so, by saying that you're negating your own argument, that would be a case of moral absolute. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 12:58 am UTC (link)
	Ah, but I'm not. And you're saying I'm not. I didn't say he was right or wrong - I'm saying that by your standards he's wrong, and by the standards of his time he was right. Therefore if the same action could be considered both right and wrong then there are no absolutes. Everything fluctuates on a whim of this thing you call "society." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 01:04 am UTC (link)
	I don't disagree there, it does fluctuate, but where we disagree is that I don't think that fluctuation means it's a useless idea. It's still a necessary part of the world. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 01:05 am UTC (link)
	Why? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 01:11 am UTC (link)
	Because without them the worst kinds in the world will take advantage and hurt those who try and be good people. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 01:16 am UTC (link)
	Again. "Worst" and "good" are relative. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 02:27 am UTC (link)
	But I think on the extreme sides of either it' pretty easy to know where someone stands. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 02:32 am UTC (link)
	Hmm, not necessarily. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 02:34 am UTC (link)
	Then we're bound to disagree (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mostloyalruby 2013-05-13 02:38 am UTC (link)
	Why does that not surprise me, Boy Scout. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captain_srogers 2013-05-13 02:41 am UTC (link)
	Probably the same reason it doesn't surprise me. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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