Comments on: Is There Really No Such Thing?

By: CyberCelt

CyberCelt — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:26:15 +0000

“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.” Terry Hands

Situational ethics/morality has allowed many

Germans to live with killing off an entire race;

Christians to justify slavery;

USA to send US citizens of certain ethnicities to internment camps during WWII;

Jihadist Muslims to kill men, women and children to get a “go directly to paradise” pass.

By: valmg

valmg — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:03:12 +0000

Part of the problem is what people consider to be morals.

By: pussreboots

pussreboots — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 04:20:44 +0000

Morality and law are gray areas as they should be. It’s frightening when anyone tries to paint either in black and white.

By: Joana

Joana — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:45:04 +0000

Julie,

But is the rapist immoral because he/she rapes women? Now I’m not advocating rape or knocking victims here, but just because they rape women, does that necessarily mean that they lack moral values?

If the rapist sees these women as inferior or lesser than themselves than they are not necessarily violating their own morals by committing this horrendous crime.

Do you see what I am getting at with this? By trying to determine what is and is not moral behavior we put other’s acts under a microscope and judge them based on our own moral beliefs. This person who rapes women might see the women he rapes as vile and evil, but he/she is a loving father/mother and spouse. They don’t believe in hunting, vote regularly, donate time and money to causes (despite not having much of either) and never try to skip out on jury duty.

They are living by their own morals, which may not necessarily coincide with society’s, but they have their morals that they live by which makes them moral.

By: Joana

Joana — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:38:23 +0000

Valyna,

That actually sounds like an interesting movie. I may have to rent it just to see it, even if you say it’s not that good. The premise behind it has great appeal.

By: Joana

Joana — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:35:18 +0000

Charity,

You bring up an excellent point. There are quite a few criminals who have better “morals” so to speak than those who do not commit crimes. I can think of one person I know who does not always walk the straight and narrow and in fact earns her income through illegitimate means. But she’s a wonderful parent, her kids are well behaved and well-mannered, and they never want for anything.

By: valyna

valyna — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:43:36 +0000

This reminds me of the movie, The Vanishing, with Keifer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. Bridges character was a good father, loving husband, etc… and wanted to see if he was capable of doing something evil. Which he did. The movie wasn’t that great – kinda meh – but the thought of someone flipping the switch like that, just to experience the loss of morality, then going back to normal life after the fact was unsettling. Anyhoo.. for some reason reading your post made me think of that movie

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:55:01 +0000

Haha nope there are no moral people in this world cause we’ve all done wrong sometime. I think most people’s morals have similar themes, and society seems to have a collective moral compass. I suppose it depends on the crime and what led up to it whether or not the crime is immoral. I’m sure few will disagree that a rapist who stalks random women just to rape them is immoral. But a husband who murders his wife’s lover when he catches them together, well is that really going against morals or is that more of a snap in judgment?

By: Charity

Charity — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:34:15 +0000

I believe you can be a moral person and still commit a crime. Some people commit crimes for reasons that are valiant and/or moral. It’s not right to say that all criminals are immoral. There are a lot of criminals who have better morals than most “good” people.