Ain't No Right

Topic: Right or wrong


"Ain't no wrong now, ain't no right.
Only pleasure and pain."

Jane's Addiction "Ain't No Right"


Classic Western thought is a funny realm indeed. What seems like a great need to categorize intent, action, and existence into nice, clearly defined packages to offer society an explanation of the nature of things has been a grand undertaking full of inconsistencies, paradoxes, and contoversies. For the average person, such as myself, we worry more about day to day issues, for example: Are the bills paid? Did I set the alarm for AM or PM? Should I do the laundry tonight or tomorrow? It seems to me the task of pondering cosmic quandaries such as moral absolutism vs moral relativism has been approached incorrectly. If they are to be viewed diametrically, that's where you wind up with the philosophical pitfalls, for example, who determines what is morally absolute? Or how do you decide between two absolute truths in a situation where you must pick one moral action? As I understand it, any sort of non corruptable standard is simply an ideal, one that cannot be obtained by human beings but is one hell of an admirable concept just the same. Thus, if I were to choose between moral absolutism and moral relativism, I would have to pick moral relativism, because circumstances should determine action but tempered with responsibility.

Personally, I see moral absolutism as a "standards" list: Don't lie, Don't cheat, Don't kill, etc. Moral relativism, in my opinion, is my response, the exercise of my free will. In fact, the beauty of relativism is that it validates free will as a great responsibility. It gives mankind the opportunity to evaluate a situation and make decisions that have real consequences, not idealized ones. I've never seen heaven or hell, but I do know if I rob a bank, I might get caught and go to jail, therefore I don't steal because that is not a consequence I'm willing to face. At the same time, if my family is starving in the wake of a natural disaster, say of Katrina proportions, I would steal food in order to feed them if I can't find employment, a shelter, or a lawful means of feeding them even if it means taking the risk of incarceration or getting killed.

A behaviorist would possibly view that an organism's natural inclination is to derive some sort of reward from its actions and tries to avoid a negative stimuli while doing so, ie punishment. If an amoeba moves towards a source of nutrition in order to sustain itself, the question arises, then what would the amoeba do if it's food supply is separated by some sort of hazardous medium? More than likely, the amoeba would not survive. It would starve because it can't make the cognitive decison to pass through that media. It might attempt to skirt the boundaries of such a hazard to get to it, but more than likely it would never reach it's food supply. Human beings are different in that regard. We have free will, we have cognizant qualities in which we can determine if the reward outweighs the risk. What makes it more interesting is what is determined to be the reward. This is also a choice. If we go by the bank robbing example, I could say that the reward of going through with robbing a bank could be the thrill of pulling it off, the money I could steal, or thumbing my nose at society and its laws. If I set my rewards even higher or by different standards, I would not go through with the plan: living a life of freedom and safety, pleasing a Higher Power,or being viewed positively by society.

In conclusion, moral absolutism has its merits because it brings to light what actions are ideally favorable and which ones aren't. However, human beings aren't faced with ideal conditions in order to make those choices. Moral relativism takes into account those situations in which one must choose between absolutes and between pleasure and pain. Moral relativism elevates free will from "doing what you want" to a process of assessing risk, reward/punishment, and responsibility to one's self, one's family, one's society, and one's diety (if he/she chooses to believe in one).