[E. Albright]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
E_A: If I inderstand your comment correctly...

If you are doing something becasue it is morally/ ethically right, then it makes no difference whether someone has asked you to do it or not, and a different set of rules apply.

Problem: morality doesn't evolve in a void. Most (though admittedly not all) people recieve their concept of what is "right" directly from others, and thus to do what is "right" can generally be viewed as doing what you're told, though by whom changes from one instance to another.

Originally posted by tbontob:
The quote was not mine but Grandpa Kim's although he got it from somewhere else.
[...]

The hard-liners of duty would have us believe we should do our duty without question.

But duty changes with the times. And to demand we be hard-wired to it, is IMHO neither healthy or advantages to the person or to the nation.

Yes, I was aware it wasn't your statement. See thread subject and the phrase "GK's quote" in my prior reply.

And yes, blind obedience is IMO a "bad" thing. "Bad" rather than bad because...

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
I refuse to give anyone or any group the right to force their concept of ethics on me. Most likely they won't come up to my standards anyway.

I too reject the concept of objective ethical standards, albeit for longwinded metaethical reasons. My view of right and wrong is purely my own, and admittedly purely arbitrary. As is, IMO, everyone else's (excepting perhaps the admittedly part).

So I don't expect people to agree with me about what is right, and full well expect that people can, will and must radically disagree with my personal standards of ethics. So what's the rub of this? Well, I can't really judge other people in any kind of compelling way. When I say "I think that what you're doing is bad", it's like I've said "'Boo!' for what you're doing", and if I say it's good, I'm saying "'Rah!' for what you're doing" (this outlook is called emotivism, BTW).

IMO, the rejection of objective ethics reduces my ability to judge the actions of others to a capacity to state purely personal opinions as to the value of their acts, comparable to statements regarding my preference for vanilla ice cream over chocolate, or vice versa. I can't in good faith say "You ought to do that"; I must instead say "I think you ought to do that", or better still, "I would like you to do that", whether "that" is not punching people like me in the face, avoiding cheating on your spelling test or restraining from deep-fat-frying your neighbor. Anything else smacks to me of hardcore hypocrisy...

E. Albright

[ January 15, 2003, 10:39: Message edited by: E. Albright ]