Morals & Ethics

"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. " ~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

Our ability to live with one another in harmony was historically thought of as why we need morals and a code of ethics to live by. However, to identify what those morals should be and how ethical we really are is hard to determine. We make decisions emotionally, and try to confirm / validate / motivate them with logic. That is why we sometimes use illogical reasoning, just to fit into our appropriate need at the time. We can convince ourselves of anything, really.

Any situation can be forced to have some moral motivation. Let's take the old story of a woman who's husband is in prison. The prison ward tells the woman that he will release her husband if she sleeps with him (and stay awake). If she does it, does that make her immoral, because she would do it only to save her husband. Would it be immoral for her husband to be released if he is a criminal, or moral if he did not receive a fair trail? Does it make the prison ward unethical to blackmail the woman, or is he merely taking advantage of an opportunity?

If you would pass a railroad, and there is a running away train approaching, heading straight for a crowed of 100 people, and there is a siding railroad where one person is standing, and you were standing at the railway switch, would you let the train continue on its way, killing the 100 people, or would you let it change to the siding to kill one person in order to save the 100? And what if that one person is the one you love?

In these situations there is no right or wrong, there is not just one option, and there is no holy pathway. The dilemma is that we have free choice, we can choose to interfere with life, even if it will hurt someone. But it feels better to say that we've saved someone in the process.

All we can really do, is to be true to ourselves. But that implies that we know who we are.

- "Do you think anyone really knows who they are? "

It's like looking through a kaleidoscope, and you have to pick the colors you like best, and therein lies your soul.