Ethical and Social Rules
Friday, September 19, 2008
How do we become conscious of the ethical and social rules in our societies?
Are humans born inherently good or evil? If we are born good, then straight from the beginning, we would always do what is right. We would not defy the ethical and social rules; we would act according to them. I would like to believe that humans are born good. I don't think, however, that I have really given this idea enough thought and decided on an answer to be able to write about it, so I will approach this question another way.
One could say that we are born neither good or evil. It is later in life that we make these decisions, decisions that will change the way we go about the rest of our lives. When we are born, we do not have a sense of right and wrong. We do not know what defines right, or what defines wrong, or why there is even such a thing as right and wrong in the first place. I think we become conscious of the ethical and social rules in our societies by external factors, such as through experiences and what we are taught.
When we are young, we are taught what is right and wrong because we are unable to see the difference between them. We generally accept what we are taught, once again, because we are too young to question authority. However, as we grow older, we may begin to question what the adults have taught us; we may decide that we want to make these decisions for ourselves (generally when people are in their teenage years). This means, we try things. We try things that we have been taught as "wrong", just to see what would happen, what it would feel like and what the consequences will be. Through experiences such as these, we would then know that we can do things that are wrong, but we would probably feel an overwhelming sense of guilt and would have to face the consequences of our actions. However, once again, the idea of "Are humans born inherently good or evil?" is brought up here. If a person is born inherently evil, they may not feel guilt for doing something "wrong" and continue doing it.
Through experience, we become conscious the ethical and social rules the hard way, but it is this way that is probably the most effective. As we grow up, we also become exposed to the harsh reality of the world. We become more experienced to a point where we can develop a common sense; and do what is right to lead a good life.
However, I have often pondered why there is a good and bad in the first place. What defines good and bad? Why is killing a bad thing? Most of us despise killing, and this sentiment in some ways, prevents most of us from committing this crime. Is there some sort of proof that killing is bad? How do we characterize the actions that are bad from those that are good? Is there proof that killing is a bad thing? Maybe we don't become conscious of ethical and social rules afterall. Maybe having ethical and moral knowledge is impossible...
Labels: global ethics
