j -- You said something earlier that I really liked, and now I can't find it - I'll try to find it later, but it had to do with a personal rationale for morality.
I kinda think that we develop a personal "code" long before we're old enough to realize it; in most folks it probably exists in at least rudimentary form by the age of three or so. I see it in my kids and their friends - there are the kind, the good, the abrasive and the cruel. And although they all do mean, cruel or selfish things at times, some of them feel bad about it later, others don't, regardless of punishments or other external stimuli.
Everything beyond that is just fitting newly-gathered knowledge into that personal, long-standing internal frame of reference.
Of course, I could be totally, completely wrong, but that RARELY occurs<G> |
