ethics discussion break off

[MrLeN]

Ethics is not an ideology. Completely devoid of ethics, humanity would still be drinking from creeks and chasing goats and cows for lunch. Ethics is an integral and important part of a functional and advacing civilization. It is an absolute fact that could not be disputed by any level headed person, that ethics is a fundamental foundation for the success and survival of humanity.

MrLeN

[Chris]

Completely devoid of ethics, humanity would still be drinking from creeks and chasing goats and cows for lunch.

i think you are confusing ethics for being civilized. or are you saying that back in the hunter and gather stages of development, early man had no ethics?

[Chris]

ethics is a sense of right and wrong. there are pleny of civilized evil people. jeffrey dahmer comes to mind.

[jmiller]

i thought opposable thumbs, big brains, and being able to talk was the "fundamental foundation for the success and survival of humanity"--oh the ability to reproduce--forgot one of my Darwinian concepts there--cockroaches remember that part, why can't I?

ethics are evolved and relative ideals subject to the society that developed them and different from other societies--this is why one society cuts off hands as a punishment for stealing and another locks people up. Ethical differences

--maybe he's thinking of ethics as the "herd mentality" or the "innate conscience" which is different altogether (See C.S. Lewis for more info)

[MrLeN]

ethics is a sense of right and wrong. there are pleny of civilized evil people. jeffrey dahmer comes to mind.

A simplified definition, but in short: exactly. You hit the nail right on the head. If man was devoid of the concept of right and wrong since day one, we would never have progressed. We'd be sitting up in the banana trees with chimps, because every time someone tried to build something, some nut case anarchist with no comprehension of right and wrong would come and smash it all down and spend the rest of the afternoon laughing his guts out, while his brother is up in a tree courting his sister.

MrLeN

[MrLeN]

i thought opposable thumbs, big brains, and being able to talk was the "fundamental foundation for the success and survival of humanity"--oh the ability to reproduce--forgot one of my Darwinian concepts there--cockroaches remember that part, why can't I?

ethics are evolved and relative ideals subject to the society that developed them and different from other societies--this is why one society cuts off hands as a punishment for stealing and another locks people up. Ethical differences

--maybe he's thinking of ethics as the "herd mentality" or the "innate conscience" which is different altogether (See C.S. Lewis for more info)

I said ethics was {{{"A"}}} fundemental foundation, Not "the" fundemental foundation.

..ethics is a fundamental foundation for the success and survival of humanity.

MrLeN

P.S. You sound like you've spent too much time in a classroom, being told lies and disproven theories by so called scholars who argue amongst each other and discredit each others theories every second year. You can take all that "opposable thumbs, big brains, and being able to talk" and feed it to the crows for all I care. Scientists suck. There's one thing we don't need for the success and survival of humanity. More often than not, they cause the opposite.

[jmiller]

"some nut case anarchist with no comprehension of right and wrong would come and smash it all down and spend the rest of the afternoon laughing his guts out, while his brother is up in a tree courting his sister."

This operates under the assumptions that animals are anarchists by nature (which they're not) but also that humans' first instinct is to destroy (which it's not)and the second instinct may be to enjoy the pain of others, which goes against the aforementioned herd mentality or innate conscience--

the sister thing, though, well that probably happened in the beginning a bit (assuming that the first two or four humans were closely related) and it's difficult to argue why close "relations" were frowned upon between "close relations" without some sort of innate conscience, or at least a suddenly imposed societal sanction

all in all, i'd say anarchy, destruction, and incest (or avoidance of) are learnedbehaviors, much like ethics, which relies on a system of learned rights and wrongs

Even if humans are innately evil (which they're not) it's difficult to predict the society that evolves out of it, but I'd place a bet that it would be different than the apes (who also have a sense of right and wrong when it comes to their families), if for nothing else, the egotism that humans often suffer

PS. And as for the spending time in the class room...yes that's true. I'm one of those whackos who thinks education is a good thing

[mike]

Even if humans are innately evil (which they're not)

Speak for yourself writer-boy.

[MrLeN]

You forgot to include the post that I was referring to, which renders this whole break off thing a waste of my time.

ie: It was detached from the wrong point of conversation.

Also, the thread has been weaved into a separate topic to what I was referring to when I first presented my intelligent, factual and logical observations.

MrLeN

P.S. What is this? Mod's on MrLeN day? -- Hot pies! Hot pasties! Hot Saaaausage ROLLS! Drinks 'a dollar. Donuts 'a Dollar. Everything's 'a dollar. Step right up..

Chris had it right above. Ethics is at its base, a moral question of right and wrong. The basic ethical question is: "Does the end justify the means." It's pure and simple.

Is stealing that candy bar worth the consequences of what happens if I get caught?

Is paying someone $10 worth the pain and suffering they might receive in the science experiment you're conducting?

OR better yet is shooting 20 people worth it to save 1000?

There are lot of people who question Harry Truman's decision to drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is it right? Would you have done it, know thousands people would be disintegrated in a flash of light knowing it's probably saving millions on both sides in the process? Or would it save that many people? All ethical questions. All simple at their base but then again not so simple. It depends on your own moral code to decide these.