Ethics Simplified

[The Tortured one]

Originally Posted by icythaco

My code of Ethics is as follows: "don't be a stupid asshole". Obviously this has some bugs to work out, especially if one takes it literarally, but I think it pretty much sums up all of basic ethics into a colliqueal and kinda' catchy phrase. Maybe this should be my epitaph...

sage wisdom there, Icythaco, I wish more people lived like that.

[Devon Lake]

Also, Devon, the Fifth Commandment (thou shall not kill) also means that you shouldn't cause injury to others (well, according to the Catholic faith anyway, which I beleive to be a pretty damn good ethical system). The Eighth Commandment (thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor) is also one that could be applied to everyone.

As is my understanding, the original Hebrew states something more like “Thou shall not murder,” While certainly more focused than a prohibition against “killing” (Thou shall not kill? But my immune system is killing off the cold germs in my system as we speak! Oh the humanity! How could my white blood cells do such a thing!) There’s nothing to my knowledge in the Hebrew that would hold the connotation of injury/assault, whatsoever. Though of course, cannot imagine that not being elsewhere in the Bible. You’re right about the 8th though; I was just looking at my notes from history class before and had simplified it to “Thou shall not lie,”

…Another odd point is that the order of the commandment keeps changing on me >___< In history class, “Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" was 10th, Wikipedia has it listed as 9th in the Jewish section, and the Catholics have it as the 8th… *Shakes fist* Argh…

My code of Ethics is as follows: "don't be a stupid asshole". Obviously this has some bugs to work out, especially if one takes it literarally, but I think it pretty much sums up all of basic ethics into a colliqueal and kinda' catchy phrase. Maybe this should be my epitaph...

It’s hard to argue with that. I don’t know any stupid assholes I can hold up as sages of ethics. I know a handful of smart assholes who could qualify as such though (Oh Socrates! Ugly and smelly as you undoubtedly were I cannot help but love you!)

Actually, come to think of it, seeing stupidity as an obstacle to ethical living is pretty much the pillar of moral cognitivism. Would you agree with the statement that, “Those who know the right will always do the right and that those who do wrong thus cannot know the right?” I like the basic idea of that line of reasoning, but rather than seeing the right as universal in this context as the original proponents of that philosophy would have it, I prefer to see the right as relative to the individuals; the basic concept is that you cannot be right if you act upon incomplete knowledge… Gee, I’m feeling quite the opposite of colloquial today…