Favorite Films [

• view all

]

Want to flag your favorite films? After you watch a film, click “Add to Favorites” to save it to your profile.

Favorite Blog Posts [

• view all

]

Want to flag your favorite blogs? Save them by clicking “Save to Favorites” at the bottom of the post.

Submitted Story

Share your own personal story of responsibility and inspire others. Submit it here to get started.

Comments [

• view all

]

1. What is truth? What is wrong?

   There is a classic moral dilemma posed in many college philosophy classes: All philosophical systems state that lying is wrong. Imagine yourself in Munich in 1942. What if you were hiding a Jewish family in your home when an SS officer knocked at your door and asked if there were any Jewish people inside?

   2 weeks ago In response to Morality Bites

2. Deriving our morals

   Annmarie and Ben, you are both in your own ways addressing the existentialist/essentialist question. That is, are we born with a sense of right/wrong or do we choose throughout our lives what we believe and how we live? Both of these positions miss a central point, which is that much of what we internalize as "our own" values are in fact derived from the world in which we live. There is a fascinating article in last week's "New Yorker" by Jared Diamond that tells how one culture deals with moral issues that result in life or death. It is totally different than what we consider "right" but is totally internalized by the subject of the article. There seems to be little doubt that we derive much of what we call our own values. There is nothing wrong or necessarily bad with this. However, it has profound implications. Just as we speak the language of those around us, so too we have a language of morality/God/personal-responsibility that is passed on to us. In effect, this gives us a prism that shows our absolutes as not single truths but composites with many different spectrums contributing to their creation.

   2 weeks, 5 days ago In response to Morality Bites

3. Relative Morality

   Many cultural critics decry moral relativism. However, the reality is that we live in a world with relative morality. Things that are generally accepted include: killing in self-defense; just war theory; cultural morality of food (in the U.S. eating dogs is suspect, in other cultures it is acceptable). My point is that there are few clear cut issues of right and wrong. I know folks are thinking "cheating is different." I would argue not so much. The post does not mention how many people felt cheating was moral. If it is around 5% then it would signify people on the "bad" end of a bell curve distribution of the population. And thus indicate that bad folks rationalize their actions. However, if the percentage is 20%, then it is much more likely that our societal mores encourage an end-justifies-the-means mentality. Philip Zimbardo has argued that there are three levels of causation for immoral actions: Dispositional (individual) Situational and Systemic. However, the common response to immorality is to blame the individual and ignore the situation and system in which the individual acted. Perhaps people see themselves as moral even if they acknowledge a willingness to cheat because the current systems (corporate, political, academic) allow/encourage ends and not means.

   3 weeks, 1 day ago In response to Morality Bites

Being a responsible consumer means consuming what we need and as little as possible of what we want (desire based consumption causes damage to the environement and our own health).