morality

[Slarti]

if we are 'free' as you all say- how do we define our morality? from off the top of our head?

say you hated someone, but he didn't really do anything bad, you just really hated him. if you were in some situation where you could kill him and it was impossible for the blame to be traced to you. impossible.

would you kill him?

christian/islamic/judaic morality wouldn't let us... but personal morality...
is there a way to justify killing like that? or would you just say that it's plain wrong to kill someone. because right and wrong are relative terms, wouldn't you say?

[StarFish]

Yes, there are too many people in this world so I wouldn't feel bad at all for getting rid of a few. I'd really have to hate them to go threw the trouble of killing them though and I don't think I've ever hated someone that much.

[Bella]

Yup...everything is relative and our ideas of right and wrong are very subjective.

But anyway......I did hate somebody badly enough to kill them when I was 15 years old.  Hated them so much that it didn't matter if I would have been caught or not, although I tend to think not, and I didn't care whether or not it could be justified. But at the last minute, I didn't go through with it.....so maybe I only thought I hated them enough to kill them? Or maybe some idea of morality kicked in? Don't know.

I just know it's scary how fine the line many of us walk is, and how much we have in common with those who choose to cross it. And I often wonder what life would be like now if I had crossed that line back then.

PS: We are free....it's just a matter of deciding whether or not the price assigned to whatever we want is worth paying.

[SMFabal]

I can think of at least one person (no one famous) who I would kill without a second thought or the slightest pang of concience, should she diecide she wants to force her way into my life again.

[EvilPoet]

"Morality is the theory that every human act must
be either right or wrong, and that 99 per cent of
them are wrong." -H. L. Mencken

"There are no moral phenomena at all, only
a moral interpretation of phenomena. . ."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

[Horab Fibslager]

tom waits will speak for me on this occasion.

Misery Is The River Of The World
Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World

The higher that the monkey can climb
the more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'til he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'round the thrunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World

For want of a bird
The sky was last
For want of a nail
A shoe was last
For want of a life
The knife was last
For want of a toy
A child was last

Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!
Misery's the River of the World
Misery's the River of the World
Everybody Row! Everybody Row!

[Iron Sulfide]

in case someone here hasn't heard the idiom yet:

if electricity is made by electrons, then is morality made by morons?

i don't think i've ever had indiscriminate hate before.

and rarely have i hated someone enough to kill them. oit really takes a
lot to piss me off. let alone to piss me off that much.

i've almost killed my sister before. i definitely could have gotten away
with it. i would have obviously been suspect, but i could have covered my
tracks too well, and misdirected too well, as well, to have been caught.

i don't think that morality was what made me *not* kill her, though. no,
it definitely wasn't a moral. nor was it an ethic.

i think it was (queue cheesy cliche music) hope. i was hoping that if my
sister were spared from my ability and desire to wipe her slate, so to
speak, that she would wipe her slate and turn around. no such luck though.

she's 16 andpregnant right now. she's spent the last year and a half in and
out of juvenile hall and on ankle monitors. her criminal record includes
petty theft/shoplifting, assault and battery (multiple counts), grand theft,
forgery, grand theft auto and violation of parole (many counts, including
drug abuse- yes she's stupid enough to do drugs while on parole with
random and scheduled drug testing- and running away after cutting the
ankle monitor device off her leg...what a great child)

from the vantage of a zero sum game, i should have gacked her. i can't
honestly account for one thing positive that she's done in the past 5 years.
from the vantage of old testiment justice and morality, she'd already have
been long dead. islamic tradition (mid eastern-eastern) as well.

anyways, the particular incident in which i could have killed her and wanted
to kill her, etc..she was flipping out, trying to kill me at the time...so it
would have been justifiable. so i don't think it counts...

would i though? no chance of being caught, i hate this person more than
anything, in fact as much as i could possibly hate something, but incidently
i hate this persopn foir no reason whatsoever. i just hate them.

yeah, i prolly would kill em. i could never see myself feeling that way,
especially for no reason, but i likely would kill him/her if those circumstances
applied.

[Guido Finucci]

I think that 'ethics' and 'morality' are very misunderstood terms by the average punter.

Most of the things people say when they claim to be talking about ethics tend to be political, religious, emotional, intuitive &c. and not anything even remotely like 'hardcore' ethical philosophy.

So many people use moral-loaded words in so many different ways that it is no wonder there is so much misunderstanding and bullshit surrounding the whole topic in general discussion.

[Horab Fibslager]

ethics are a sort of rule book you follow. lok at prince arutha in the serpent war saga. he doesn't like torure much, but if that's what it takes to get answers from the filthy bastards, that's what he'll do.

[Guido Finucci]

ethics are a sort of rule book you follow.

That is a moral code. Formal ethics is the study of how an individual comes to have a moral code. It also includes a moral theory (the reasons that your rule book is the way it is e.g. don't kill 'cause God says so) and a meta-ethical theory that provides the definitions for moral words such as 'good' and 'bad'. People tend to think that ethics is just the rules that you follow but it is much more about the reasons why you have those reasons (and that people don't generally see hat distinction is, IMO, why so much of the talk about morality is so fucked up).

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

as long as you don't kill kittens, the gods can masturbate.

[Horab Fibslager]

what about ninjas?

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

what about ninjas?

ninjas shouldn't kill kittens while masturbating

[Guido Finucci]

What about domokun ninja?

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

What about domokun ninja?

domokun shouldn't masturbate while killing kittens, but you already knew that right?