Re: Personal Reflections and Rules to Live By
Morality is one of those things that gets tied up in right and wrong. Something that is right must be moral. Something wrong must be immoral. Not always the case.
Most people say stealing is wrong. If I'm starving and I steal food to survive, or to feed someone else who is also starving, to me that's a case of ends justifying means. My theft in that instance is not wrong, or at least, is a tolerable wrong. Given that you, the person I'm stealing from, are very likely not starving, then my taking from you is less wrong than my having to die because I had no means to obtain your spare food. It's a big-picture thing. This is why, even in the laws we live by, there are degrees of certain crimes. Not every murder is premeditated and serves no purpose. Some killings are truly accidental. Some are spurred by circumstance, and had the killer possessed time and/or different resources, they may have reconsidered.
Where things get dicey is when it starts to interfere with someone's rights.
Most of us would probably agree that punching a dark-skinned person just because they have dark skin is a pretty stupid, ugly thing to do. But hey, maybe the person doing the punching thinks they have a reason. "because I felt like it" is not a good reason. Stealing food has a purpose. Punching someone because they're black simply does not.
I think that, past a certain point, this gets into navel-gazing, because most people who aren't sociopathic can generally agree on a few very simplified rules to live by:
1. Be kind to one another, and respect the rights of individuals and of people in general
2. If you can't be kind, at least don't be unkind
3. If you must be unkind, limit the harm you feel you must do to a minimum
So from these tenets, most worthwhile morality springs.
If I do have to steal some food from you, and you have plenty, I'm not going to spoil the rest of your food, and I'm not going to kill you in your sleep just because I can. I'm going to take what I need and then get the hell away. Of course, ideally I'm going to try and make a bargain with you first. You give me food, I'll mow your lawn or something.
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