Right or wrong....

I know that I haven't posted here in a while, but I've got a question for all of you.

Do you think there's any such thing as right and wrong?

I believe that something can be right in one perspective and wrong in another. So there's no definite right, and no definite wrong. It's all according to perspective. Same with the questions of sanity or insanity. For example, I don't believe Hitler was insane or sane. I think it's a matter of perspective. To the majority, he may appear insane, but to a minority, he may appear sane. I'm sure this is all common sense to you, but I would like to hear your thoughts on it. So.. reply away

"Right" and "wrong" are really just what we as society agree to hold either benefits the most people or hurts the fewest people. It's wrong to kill. It's right to protect a person's right to privacy. The questionability, I think, comes in when one seems to outweigh the other. Does the wrong-ness of killing outweigh a woman's right to privacy in what she does with her own body, which we deem as right? Some say yes, some say no. Shades of gray...

As for sane or insane, it's pretty much the same. Of course, this is all just my opinion.

I believe that there are laws to the universe, and with them, right and wrong.

Being right and wrong in different perspectives is a truely a mistake, where both sides are right.
But the true wrong comes from knowing that you are doing something you should not be doing, but doing it anyway because you don't care.

Somethings are wrong by society, like swearing. Who made up that you should not say Hell?
Other wrongs, like stealing, murdering (not the kind in war or self defence), and betraying people. Things like that are wrong.

Elemental - What if we murder/steal for the poor or someother 'good' thing?

You mean like Robin Hood & his band of Merry Men?

murder/steal or other good deed? Surely you jest.

so what if someone says, if you don't go kill an innocent person a thousand innocent people are going to die? what do you do(and lets dispel any possibility of a third option here).
saying that something(like murder outside of war and self defense) is something that should never, never, never be done no matter what is pretty limiting. there are thousands of possible scenarios that would have a person questioning this constricting ethic.
also, i would like to point out that i see no difference in acting in an "immoral" way and not acting, to produce immoral results. for example, there was this real life case in which two siamese twins were born and one was depending on the other's heart to live. if they disconnected them the weaker one would die, and the stronger one would "probably" live. if left together, they would both eventually die. so the parents, rather than choosing to save at least one of them by killing the other, elected to not act at all and let them both die. i see this as the same thing as killing them both. just because they didn't take direct action to kill the one, that doesn't mean that they didn't do the wrong thing. so anyway, both of them died.

This goes back to what I was saying before -- which outweighs the other? It's "wrong" to kill, but it's "right" to serve and protect your country. (I hope it's good, anyway, as I do it every day.) So killing to serve your country, such as my fellow servicemembers are doing in Iraq. Does the "right" of serving your country outweigh the "wrong" of killing? Like abortion, some say yes, some say no, making the overall opinion seem relative. Because peoples opinions of weightings are subjective. Eating meat is another one.

--kevin

Ya, so killing is ok if your country is at war? Or killing for your country is ok if they tell you too?
Then the German soldiers were right to to kill other people when they invaded other countries?
Of course it is alright for you to kill Iraqi Terrorist as it is alright for iraqi terrorist to kill (Americans, English, Spainish, etc.) armed forces that have invaded their country destroying its government & supplanting it with their own?
Ya, Right I can see that truth.

You make a valid point. But what makes yours more valid than mine?

--kevin

murder is always "wrong," those other things that are being spoken about are simply justifications for doing the "wrong" thing.

you cant say "murder is right" under any circumstance. the actual act of murder is always wrong, anything that is tacked on to the sentence "murder is right" is simply a justification for murder, it doesnt somehow make murder "right."

how about torture?

you can say "torture is right...IF....." but never just "torture is right" because torture in itself is always wrong.

i may be wrong. if i am, please explain

yeah, that's a pretty good way of putting it, wyote.

Very nice.

DT, what I meant was when those things are not used for certain purposes, like say one guy steals a loaf of bread from another guy that stole it so the second theif could feed his family. That might be ok, but when one person breaks into RadioShack to steal a TV, that is wrong.

How can something always be wrong, if you can justify it to make it right?

--kevin

the way i see it, pretty much anything that does or could do harm(to things capable of feeling or in the institutions, values and mental and emotional ties of these organisms) in some way is wrong, because this kind of harm is always wrong--because the one thing that defines something as being wrong across all cultures is pain of some sort.
however, if more good or prevention of harm goes along with the harm that is inflicted, there is a sort of cancelling out, and the good that is left over is what we have--i suppose this is the best way to judge whether or not something is wrong, or more wrong than something else.
as wyote said, anything that inflicts pain or harm is wrong, no matter how much good outweighs it, so it is a real shame when harmful acts must be taken to ensure a less harmful outcome. but it must be done sometimes--the best we can hope for is to avoid such scenarios as much as possible.
still, universal harm doesn't come in convenient little countable units, so it's pretty much impossible to tell sometimes.
anything that is considered wrong that does not involve harm or pain in some form is more than likely just a cultural norm that could very likely be eliminated several generations down the line, when the strength of its value weakens (i.e. cussing--what's the real difference between the words "shit" and "crap" besides our culturally taught emotional responses to them?)