Right and wrong!

Slavery is a good thing!

Shocked? When you first read the statement, your first reaction would have been a resounding no. Slavery was a historical evil for which we are still atoning today. When we look back on history, we are astounded at how harsh and backward people could be. We're relieved that the world has evolved to the point where such a heinous practice can no longer exist.

Consider the following statement.

It is completely acceptable to consume meat.

The majority of you agree. And, while you may not be proud of your abilities, you have no reservations about consuming animals. This is simply the way things work. Humans are the natural predators, and eating flesh is our right!

Hello everybody, and welcome back to Indiasm!

I was suddenly struck by a concept after roughly a few months of "considering retirement." We've all heard of the concept, but we've never given it any thought. The concept of right and wrong is one I was struggling with.

From the beginning of our lives to the present, we have all been continually choosing one of two life pathways, the wrong and the right, and doing our best to choose the one that appears to be right; after all, no one wants to be "a bad guy"!

But, if that's the case, why is the world so violent and chaotic?

Is it true that various people define "right" and "wrong" differently? Isn't this something that applies to everyone?

Yes, but only in the context of your current position! The relativity of what is right and wrong is always established with the group in question, and then with the individual. But everything, including animals, has a worth.

Let's look at the statements we made at the start for a better understanding. These two sentences demonstrate our morality or our innate belief that certain activities are correct and others are incorrect. But where does our moral sense come from? Why is it acceptable to eat meat when slavery is not? Isn't it true that they both exploit other living beings?

Slavery is unethical. It abuses human people, whereas eating meat is acceptable because it only affects animals. But who made that division in the first place? Why do we regard humans as if they are unique, even though many of the animals we eat are incredibly intelligent?

"It just is," some of you may believe. Slavery of other humans is obvious because it feels terrible, whereas eating animals is acceptable since it does not elicit the same moral distaste.

Keep in mind, however, that slavery was formerly widespread over the world. Our pyramids were constructed by slaves, who also produced our food and fed our livestock. Slaves were kept by the great kings and rulers who are regarded as kind, who declared the inalienable rights of man. The tragic truth is that millions of slaves constructed the civilization we know today. It is only recently that we have come to regard slavery as horrible. You wouldn't have given the morality of slavery a second consideration if you were transported back two hundred years and were fortunate enough to be a land-owning male. 

So, unless we honestly believe that the millions of people who have ever held slaves lacked morality, we must concede that what is considered ethically acceptable has evolved.

Even today, we don't all agree on what it means to be "correct." Parts of the world still think that women belong in the home, that stealing is punishable by hand-chopping, and that 8-year-olds must work in a factory to support their families. I'm sure many of you, like me, consider these behaviors to be barbaric. Who are we, after all, to impose our morality on the rest of the world?

We take our ability to discriminate between "right" and "wrong" for granted, even though "right" and "wrong" have evolved dramatically over time and between cultures. Morality, or the ability to choose between right and bad, may not even exist in reality!

Is it true that there is such a thing as right and wrong?

The existence of anything can be defined logically by its presence without human interaction.

Because we all decided to believe it is, a piece of paper becomes a 2000 Rs note.

Marriage only exists because the world as a whole agrees that both people are in a relationship, and divorce is just a legal means for all parties to leave that view at the same time.

Morality, beauty, humor, and justice, for example, are irrational concepts that only live in our heads. No well-defined logical principles are controlling these notions, as there are in natural sciences like chemistry and physics. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated how, depending on the surroundings, who we are with, and how hungry we are, humans defy logical laws in their decision-making. Although we all have common beliefs that influence our actions (for example, murdering is wrong), these beliefs are more like guidelines than rules.

We make decisions about what is "good" and "wrong" based on continuously shifting emotions and unconscious considerations (e.g. what people around us think). We don't make moral decisions based on a set of unchanging truths like nature does. This is why our moral positions might be contradictory and vary daily. This is also why, hundreds of years ago, slavery was ethically acceptable but is no more.

WHAT ARE THE RESULTS?

"Well, that's unhelpful," you might say. "I've read this far just to understand that morality doesn't exist, but I still have to act as if it does?"

However, properly grasping the essence of morality has an impact on how we view and regulate our lives. There is no omnipotent criterion by which we can judge the morality of our activities.

Yes, our activities have external effects, but the only person who determines the moral "rightness" of our conduct is the person we see every day in the mirror.

There is no universal formula for determining what is right and wrong, but there are certain suggestions that can be useful when in doubt.

Most people try to forecast the consequences of their acts before looking at moral principles from sources they think are true and important, whether tradition, religion, culture, law or anything else they find significant and relevant.