Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Everyone acts per their interest. Right and wrong is subjective.


sort by: page size:

Right and wrong are subjective to humans.

Of course, yes, everyone is always in complete agreement about what is right and wrong, because humans are always absolutely objective when it comes to moral decisions.

Ethics are not subjective. People merely disagree on what the right ones are.

There is some optimal set of ethics which, if consistently followed, will lead to an optimal set of outcomes. We're not clever enough to figure them out, though, and so people will quite happily come up with their own, inevitably self-serving ethical systems in which "the things I want to do are right, the things you want to do are wrong".

Getting everyone to behave perfectly ethically is impossible, but telling everyone that their own self-serving ethical systems are perfectly valid is one of the worst things you can do.


Ethics are subjective

If everything is subjective, we lose all sense of right and wrong.

I think you are confusing whether people agree on right and wrong with whether their is an objective right and wrong. It's entirely possible that there is an objective right and wrong but that some people are mistaken as to what it is.

Are you objectively sure it’s subjective?

Ethics must be objective/universal, although cheating it is common and alluring.

Because ethics are universal the rules make sense even for children. It is wrong to lie, steal, rape, and kill, while it is right to honestly tell stories, receive gifts, have sex, and give life. In these words definition lies whether the receiving party partakes voluntary or is forced to.

Legality on the other hand is defined by who controls most guns. If might is right, why should not the strong group genocide the weak?


I agree, I have come to realize most of what we call values and the right thing to do is completely subjective.

"everyone is right, and everyone is wrong" -- I know you didn't mean it literally as contradiction but probably expressing moral relativism - which could be a very difficult claim to support.

There certainly are objective 'right way' and grand plans of actions. As for the plans of action, they are almost never economical thus ignored.


Yeah, ethics is subjective and it's fascinating that many smart people don't realize this. Ultimately it always boils down to "I feel this is right".

Of course, you can have objective claims such as "if all people followed this principle, it would have this outcome".


Hah, this made me laugh and think for a moment. Personally, I'm not sure that right and wrong are subjective, but I'm also quite careful about saying there's an objective right and wrong. Objective right and wrong can certainly lead away from "live and let live", and who arbitrates this objective morality when people disagree?

So, funny phrasing and thought provoking way of putting it. After some reflection, I think I'd press you to define right and wrong before answering if you hit me up with that.


The whole point of morality is that it is subjective. You can not determine what is right as a rule.

This is simple moral relativism. Of course we can judge what we, as a community, believe is good and bad behavior.

There is nothing objective about right and wrong.

Except not all viewpoints are valid or true. If (as a vast majority of philosophers think) morality is objective, then those people are simply wrong about what is ethical/unethical.

>But right and wrong are very subjective things

is "the earth is flat" a subjective wrong ? is "climate changes unless you change" a subjective wrong ? is "poverty" a subjective wrong ? is "education is important" a subjective right ? is "rules of law" a subjective wrong ? is "same gender, same pay" a subjective right ?


But subjectiveness applies to everything. For instance, whether or not something is moral is subjective, and yet there is a collective notion of morality.

Right and wrong is, roughly speaking, defined based on what is good for society as a whole, balanced against the needs of the individual. It has nothing to do with some higher or cosmic absolute truth.

I think we probably agree more than disagree, but I do disagree with your last sentence. This right and wrong is above the 'moral constraint of a society'. A whole society can believe something is right, and another thing is wrong, but that does not make them right and wrong. For example, a majority of a society may believe that honour killings are right. But they are not.

It's not some moral relativism that depends on the context. Right and wrong are absolutes, and can be objectively appraised. And here's the metric: Suffering. Right actions are those actions that lead to a reduction in the suffering of living things. Both in others and in ourselves. Wrong actions are those actions that lead to an increase in suffering in ourselves or others.

This is how we can appraise our actions. This is totally off topic, and I'm definitely showing my Buddhist beliefs, but I think the attitude shown by your last sentence is held by a lot of people in society. And I think it is also muddled thinking. This kind of 'moral relativity' is actually a slippery slope and has been used to justify all manner of human atrocities through history.

next

Legal | privacy