Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are certain things that are bad and there's no other way to spin them. They aren't less bad because there are worse things/people out there. "Oh, this murderer isn't bad because he killed a full grown man whereas this other one is really bad because he killed a child." Please.
If bad or good character is decided mostly according to laws or rules, then it could change dramatically from country to country thanks to the drug war. Naturally, most people here (being from the U.S.) believe drug use when not legal is a crime, and thus makes the user a criminal. However, unlike every other crime, drug use doesn't inherently involve violence, a threat of violence, theft, fraud, or any number of other violations that impede on another.
While I have been convicted of a drug misdemeanor, I do not consider myself any 'worse' of a person than one who hasn't been caught possessing illegal drugs. Of course, I would never use drugs again in a country that outlaws their non-prescribed use.
Unfortunately, many otherwise 'good' people have justified their breaking the law in order to experiment with drugs, since, to them, the law itself is unjust.
People have free will. With that free will, they can choose to be good or choose to be bad.
Yes, people know when they are being bad. "Bad" isn't as subjective as we think. Society generally has agreement that certain things are "bad" or "negative."
Not at all. The majority of Westerners think eating whale meat is disgusting and immoral, yet it's accepted practice in much of Japan and some populations of Scandinavia. While homosexuality is now fully accepted by a solid majority in the U.S., it wasn't that long ago that most considered it verboten.
Morality seems largely culturally and individually relative.
I believe that it comes down to choice. We all have made bad decision's it's a part of life sometimes it's a good decision some time's it's a bad one. Same with bad people they make a conscious choice to steal ,kill, etc. I can't say that peoples environment I grew up in bad neighborhoods as a kid & while I did get in some trouble here & there I didn't do anything where I could of been locked away from the rest of my life. So for me it's choice.
Personally, growing up, in fact, til just recently, I believed that there was some good in all of us. In fact, that it was simply circumstance that made people bad.
Then I got smart. Some people simply do NOT care about others. And in my mind, this is the ultimate, clear dividing line between good and bad. Its empathy. Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes people go to war and kill the enemy. Is that bad, because murder is bad? No, its all about context. You can get real muddy trying to parse it all out and so now, for me, its "do they actually care how other people feel"? And if they don't no amount of therapy is gonna change them.
I used to believe that some people just DIDN'T understand that they had hurt me, and that if i could simply make them SEE that they had, they would understand. Thing is, I didn't give enough thought to the fact that if they have no empathy in the first place, telling them EXPLICITLY how they hurt you is actually giving them even more ammo with which to do it next time.
So yeah, sometimes, people are born bad. They just are. Can they be friendly? Good parents? Sure. But the empathy is missing. Israel Keyes, a serial killer, was a father and loved his daughter. Even sociopaths can love people. But that doesn't make them GOOD.
I believe in Jesus but I do not consider myself a Christian. But Genesis has a number of things to say on good and evil, and I think that simply put, human beings are born with the potential to be good or evil, and I believe that our whole purpose is to choose the GOOD. No matter what your religion, and I deeply feel that it really does NOT matter what your religion is, its about empathy, and being able to be kind and imagine yourself in the others' shoes. We were all born with potential to experience the whole spectrum, but its about CHOOSING consciously to be good, no matter what your inward impulses are. But again, if you have no empathy, you aren't even gonna think that way. Its as foreign as color to a blind person. Its just not something they will understand.
But why bad? Because why good? Why anything? You have to have a counterpart in this world. And we are supposed to choose one, or the other. We are not supposed to give in to our lesser impulses, and hatred and lack of empathy are among those. There would be no choice, we would simply be automatons, without good and evil. From those we choose.
Augustine has an interesting story in his Confessions. As a teenager he snuck over to his neighbor's pear tree and stole the fruit off it not because he wanted to eat it or even because it was particularly good fruit (there were better pears in his parents' own orchard). He just took them and threw them to the pigs for the thrill of doing something bad. As he puts it, "I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself." He knew it was wrong and decided to do it anyway.
There does seem to be something wrong with us at a fundamental level...we know how we should act, yet over and over we find ourselves doing the opposite.
I think a world where everyone always does the right thing is definitely conceivable...but given free will such a world may not be feasible.
What is interesting about that is that he was a teenager. I think our teenage years are decisive, the people we hang out with during that time. Many people are ashamed of things they did as teenagers. I also remember that I was almost a different person back then, not a pleasant one. And I think what saved me was that my neighbor moved away. Looking back I think he had some mental issues and he was not good company to hang out with.
I read some time ago that at the end of adolescence the human brain is subject to a thorough cleanup process, where lots of content gets deleted and connection between brain cells get cut and everything is rearranged. Not unlike with the defragmentation of a hard drive, actually.
I also heard that some key regions of the brain, regions that make us human such as those involved in decision making, are not completed before the early twenties, especially in men. With women those regions are fully developed earlier.
I wonder if that is the reason why criminals are overwhelmingly men.
Not at all. The majority of Westerners think eating whale meat is disgusting and immoral, yet it's accepted practice in much of Japan and some populations of Scandinavia. While homosexuality is now fully accepted by a solid majority in the U.S., it wasn't that long ago that most considered it verboten.
Morality seems largely culturally and individually relative.
Not largely, slightly in my view. I think all humans share similar views on most moral issues, but differ slightly regarding details.
Things like murder, rape, theft, adultery, lying, etc. are considered bad around the world. All things that are considered a threat to society as a whole. Eating whales has no impact on society, so people in those places don't care. They just carry on rituals and traditions without challenging them. In the West we are more advanced in that sense, we have come to the point where we challenge everything and everyone.
No bad person actually thinks that they're bad. Whether its through denial, rationalization, or the point of view that they have created in their mind because of their circumstances and the way they were raised.
I think my neighbor is a bad person bc he violates the city water restrictions and cheated on his wife. He probably thinks the watering rules are stupid (rationalization) and his status makes it so he should have whatever chick he wants whenever (POV).
I guarantee you that he does not think he is a bad person.
This is a good explanation right here. With bad people, nothing is ever their fault, it's always the fault of everyone else and everything around them. They have no feeling of personal accountability number one, and no empathy for others number two. I was married to one of these people. There is no reasoning with them, and there is no changing them, or "rehabilitating" them to be good people. It's a character flaw that can't be changed.
This is a good explanation right here. With bad people, nothing is ever their fault, it's always the fault of everyone else and everything around them. They have no feeling of personal accountability number one, and no empathy for others number two. I was married to one of these people. There is no reasoning with them, and there is no changing them, or "rehabilitating" them to be good people. It's a character flaw that can't be changed.
I too have known people like this. C.S. Lewis wrote that we never know how bad we are until we really try to be good.
Not largely, slightly in my view. I think all humans share similar views on most moral issues, but differ slightly regarding details.
Things like murder, rape, theft, adultery, lying, etc. are considered bad around the world. All things that are considered a threat to society as a whole. Eating whales has no impact on society, so people in those places don't care. They just carry on rituals and traditions without challenging them. In the West we are more advanced in that sense, we have come to the point where we challenge everything and everyone.
West is more advanced?
It's murder when a teenager kills a teenager but when a policeman kills a teenager and a Mayor spends a year covering it up? Where is the accessory to murder charge?
Or when Western military jets bomb and kill thousands of innocent people in the Middle East? Is that murder? And the millions of refugees that are thrown out of their country? Is that bad?
Or when Western powers provide tens of thousands of machetes to thugs for the purpose of genocide, where are the accessory to murder charges? Where are the convictions of all those Western powers who planned and enabled the genocide of 5 million people in the Congo region?
Or when Western companies employ slave labor in Asia where is the moral outrage and empathy.
It appears that the Western superiority only exists in the Western mind.
But then, when anyone judges good and bad, they are always good and the other is bad. Just observe the thread. Such is the nature of good and bad.
It's murder when a teenager kills a teenager but when a policeman kills a teenager and a Mayor spends a year covering it up? Where is the accessory to murder charge?
Or when Western military jets bomb and kill thousands of innocent people in the Middle East? Is that murder? And the millions of refugees that are thrown out of their country? Is that bad?
Or when Western powers provide tens of thousands of machetes to thugs for the purpose of genocide, where are the accessory to murder charges? Where are the convictions of all those Western powers who planned and enabled the genocide of 5 million people in the Congo region?
Or when Western companies employ slave labor in Asia where is the moral outrage and empathy.
It appears that the Western superiority only exists in the Western mind.
But then, when anyone judges good and bad, they are always good and the other is bad. Just observe the thread. Such is the nature of good and bad.
Yes or no question: Do you think moral improvement (not just change) occurred when South Africa did away with Apartheid?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
