Fireduck

2004.05.10.05.43.19

Reexamine your concept of right and wrong, especially of sin. Consider instead the human as a complex machine made of cells, atoms and neurons with no free will (for sake of argument). Consider the machine does something that is deemed counter-productive to society (murder for instance). The machine has no free will - it could have done nothing other than what it did, so is not morally culpable in any spiritual or religious sense - and yet in the interests of society at large the machine must be adjusted to make the action it took less likely to occur again. Sin and wrong and justice are just concepts we apply to allow our inherently empathic self's to override that empathy and perform or condone the sometimes distasteful adjustments (imprisonment, capital punishment). I'm not saying we should abandon morality or justice; they serve a very important role weather to believe they come from divine will, moral absolutes, or a form of organic enlightened self-interest.

I am however arguing that we should examine the roots of these things in terms of what changing role they play in society. I think that sometimes a society will redefine right and wrong, sin and morality based on the situations of the times. This has been done before, an example being slavery. At one point the practice was widely considered normal and acceptable. Now it is considered abhorrent and inhuman. This change in thought occurred with the decline of the concept of birth defining station which lead to nobility, commoners and slaves in Europe. Instead the new concept is everyone being fundamentally equal at birth, which precludes slavery. This is just a very obvious example, I'm sure there are many more lurking in history. What will we see in the future? Will overpopulation lead to murder being allowable if certain forms (like a duel with established rules) are followed? I think we need to recognize that these changes in the definition of morality occur and are most likely occuring now. Where are they going? Is that a place we as a society want to be? What can we do to change the direction if we wanted to? I think no matter your leanings on the origin or morallity, these questions must be answered.

first prev next last

single page RSS Feed