"People do things even if they think they are wrong if their desire to do so is greater then there desire to avoid doing wrong."
I disagree. People invent what is right and what is wrong. This is the essence of freedom. They always desire to do right. But what is "right" for an individual may bear only the most remote resemblance to anything civilized or human.
Certainly, we consciously do wrong every day as we compare our actions to the opinions and points of view of society, religions, groups, individuals, and so forth. Who is to define values? Bosnian society, American society, Cuban society? This religion or that one? Your best friend? What is right and wrong changes daily even in any one particular society. New laws are enacted; others are repealed; precepts are voiced; "moral" initiatives are taken; a new Minister joins the church, a new teacher graduates...
Morality is experienced in interaction. The act is the invention of the individual, and it is taken alone and apart...but our actions matter to others and thus are assessed by them. People may do things they know to be prohibited or risky or punishable, but they do these things to justify a value which they have determined justifies the risk of censor from others. The value might be survival, it might be power, it might be "love"-it might be anything. Their act of freedom is right even if it is considered "wrong" by a million others. Right and wrong are invented by individuals creating the relationships they will foster with others of their own kind.
Individuals are given accidental existence; they are not given accidental values. These are unique to the growth of the individual, his self interests, and his self determination or will. If he accepts the definition of any other...then he renounces his freedom.
When people choose an act they have justified it as being "right" for them against other alternatives. There is no one external arbiter of the rightness of an act. There are simply consequences to be differently assessed from the subjective points of view of all others.
Only I can say (for me) what is right or what is wrong. Although I may very likely do things that I know YOU think are wrong. I will not do things that I have not justified for myself as the right actions to take under the circumstances of the moment. |
