We often speak in terms of 'right and wrong'
I believe most of us accept that though, to each of us, these things are absolute, when we generalize about them they become 'subjective'


so people say things like "Its not right FOR ME, but I cant say for others..."
But, I wonder how many people consider the levels of right and wrong?

Let me give an example from my perspective(the only one I truly have)

I have always believed in right and wrong as absolutes, that is to say right is right on merits of the 'what' and not the 'who'

So, if when I do it, it is 'wrong', than it is wrong regardless who does it. The same is true about what is 'right'

however, I tend to see 'levels' that are in the details. Which means some 'wrong' things are understandable because of the details, but others are just 'plain wrong'

if a woman, for instance, is bitterly cruel to men in general, even though men have always tried to please and support her, because she feels gratification in seeing them suffer .. that is, imho 'Wrong'

however, if that woman is instead someone who grew up in a place where men including family, constantly abused her ... it would be 'wrong but understandable'


I feel when people do those 'wrong but understandable' things, it is easier(for me) to trust and relate to them.



so my questions are

1. do you think 'wrong is wrong' without any levels or distinctions

2. Do you assess the character of a person by these wrongs?

3. Do you assess the trustworthiness of a person by these wrongs?

4. Do you assess the likability of a person by these wrongs?




for me, wrong is wrong, however, details always make the difference between how I assess the person doing 'wrong'

Wow, you're on a roll today, msharmony.

All wrong and right is determined by society and self.
What is wrong in one society may not be wrong in another.
This changes the value of right and wrong in the person exposed to any given society.
I grew up where its wrong to eat dogs and cats. In some countries it is not wrong. Those people may see my aversion to it as being wrong.

Assessing someone's character based on personal beliefs is normal but not necessarily just. The bottom line is that we have the right to control who we associate with for, any reason we choose, because it is our life.

Trust is usually established from a foundation of honesty with the person in question. If we ascertain that their behavior is not conducive to our belief system we may judge them to be untrustworthy when the are actually trustworthy. But since it is our own life and we have control over who is trusted we do or don't according to our own value system.

Likeability has to do with how well we accept a person based on many different criteria. It is a personal decision as well. Based on our own value system established by our own unique experiences.

We are us 24/7. There are no breaks from us being us. Everything in our lives is life according to us. Others also have a life according to them. When we meet people that conform to our expectations of what we value we tend to like them, if they don't conform to our value system we tend to not like them. It depends a lot on how dependent we are on our egos.

Oh, I just want to add that in nature there is no wrong or right.

The concept of wrong and right is purely a human concept to establish social rules.

I believe that most social animals may have different versions of wrong and right but since we can't communicate on that level with them we can't know for sure.

Based on behaviors in the wild, any similarities are purely coincidental.

We don't know if a troop of chimpanzees go to war with another troop because of wrongs nor do we know why they don't go to war with another troop because its right. We can only speculate based on our own reasons for war or not.

wrong is wrong no matter the circumstances or the distinctions you apply,altho you might be more understanding I think one would still remain leary no matter what especially if a trust had been broken.

We can all dig up excuses for our actions seems to be the one thing most of us have in common,but it doesn't make it..right.ergo..

Care to give an example where wrong is always wrong no matter the circumstances?

It's all relative to the circumstance.

If you kill someone... out of greed for instance. Wrong, in our society.

If you kill someone, defending your country. Not wrong, in our society.

I agree

There are plenty of examples in history where even killing children gets justified as 'collateral damage'.

One might argue that stealing is always wrong. Thing is there is what is called 'imminent domain' that allows governments to seize your land.

Right and wrong are a perspective established by a society to control its population. If you realize that a society is a group of two or more people in agreement, right and wrong has very lax boundaries. Religion is a form of society as well. If you look at different religions over history, each has violations of its own mandates of right and wrong. Work places are also societies. Different work places have different establishments of right and wrong.

The CIA has been known to kill. The KGB and other government programs all over the world have violations of their own society's rights and wrongs.

There is never an absolute right or wrong, there's always some circumstance or reason that makes it invalid.

My personal values have been established by participating in my society. They are 'in alignment' with most of society's values.
There are exceptions but most of the time they align. It keeps me functional.

In my society, having different values and different alignments to society's right and wrong can get you marked as mentally ill, a terrorist or antisocial.

The Conscience is the universal arbitar that determines wrong and right. Because the world is getting increasingly perversive good conscience remains the only barometer to measure right or wrong,geography notwithstanding . Moral standards are alarmingly on the downward spiral.
The biblical gospels golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated is key to determining right or wrong behaviours. It is regulated by conscience.
Sadly, the consciences of so many in our world today are seared by(dead) by satan- thats why there is so much wickedness in our today.
Bottomline, a healthy conscience will place the wrong in the wrong and the right in the right .

If a man 'puts his hands' on a woman
If an American does not follow American customs and traditions on 'respecting the flag'

... as examples ,, for many people anyhow(I dont subscribe to those opinions myself)

no, we all have our ideas of whats wrong

yes, what they decide that is right or wrong defines their character

2, 3 & 4 same answer

only if you're told to by the government..

In the past, even in the US, a man was expected to keep his woman in check. Women, in general, have only had protection for a relatively short time.

In the past, the flag was honored. Still is by many but recently, flag burning and disrespect have become an issue of rights that get thrown in everyone's face by the media.

What gets me is that many people determine what is right or wrong from what they see in the media. If the news says its okay, many will assume its right. When the news says its bad, many will assume that it is bad.
The manipulation of the masses is subtle. Its like a commercial that uses subliminal ques to sell its product. The messages are constantly reinforced and people react.
In the past, many of the things we are forced to witness would never have been broadcast. Its all about making money by selling page space, air time or page views. People gobble up bad news like its a drug.


Agree, but I also understand that consciousness is fallible. There are many different social methods that convince people of many different values that changes the distinction between right and wrong.

As mightymoe was saying, we all have our own ideas of what is right and what is wrong.

Those ideas are manipulated from as soon as a person is able to reason. Parents/families, school/friends, TV/media. work places/social functions/religion all add to our understanding of right and wrong. On top of all that, our own reasoning ability dictates what we adopt or reject.

I grew up in a home where the TV was on a kart and only plugged in and turned on at certain times. My children were limited to TV exposure and we determined what the watched.
There are people that have TVs in their bedrooms, in the living rooms in the kitchens and some even have a room dedicated to the television. We are living in a society that used television as a babysitter and most of that generation were reared on what was broadcast. Then we sit and wonder why things are like they are?


Wow, I thought it was to Praise God and Seek Redemption.

The GOLDEN Rule of life is: Survive


Satan is God's creation. Man is the only one given Free Will. Therefore, Satan is acting on God's Will.
Wickedness is subject to interpretation. It is determined by relevance, depending upon how it is referenced and what doctrines of belief it is referenced from.
Where some may see the world as wicked others may see it as in harmony. It all depends on how you are looking at it.

Lets say I am looking at the world as whole and thinking about how it might change to make life better for human beings. The first thing I see is over-population. There isn't enough food, diseases run rampant and people are ruining the planet from consumption.
Using that reference, any mass death of humans might be thought of as a good thing. To think that this is wrong thinking just realize that human beings already do it to animals by means of culling to keep numbers in check. Hunting season is a form of culling strategies many see as good. Its all relative to context.


Sure it will as long as it is relative to the society at hand.

Humans are developing a global society. Travel and communication across societies that have been isolated in the past. The lines of right and wrong are getting mixed because of this.
That mixture of healthy conscious looks like turmoil because we as a species have not yet developed a global agreement on values. We have started to but we still have a long ways to go until harmony can be established for all people.

Christianity has expanded its values globally but science and reasoning has uprooted those values recently. People have gained the ability for independent thought and religions require compliance belief without supporting evidence. Thus, religions see the world as wicked.


While I was raised in Christianity and many of my values are based in that doctrine I am able to step back and see how some can cloud the issue. I can fathom the exceptions for any wrong placed on the table. While I may not agree with those exceptions I can understand their possible validity. Ultimately, I have my own versions of always right and always wrong but I am also able to understand (not condone) other's unique views.

Dear tom4uhere, my defination of conscience and what qualifies it as a universal arbitar-to judge right and wrong -and yours are diametrically opposite.
Conscience:
It is that part of the 'human spirit(core)' that functions like a detective and judge in right or wrong situations. Its judgements are direct and independent of the mind and prevailing societal norms.
Therefore, a good conscience is infallible-unless it wouldnt qualify as a universal arbitar.
Further, REASON and knowledge are the functions of the mind as conscience is a function of the human spirit. The mind is developed through learning. However, conscience need not rely on the acquired knowledge to pass judgements of right or wrong. It has inbuilt ability to know right and wrong.
A man of good conscience will do the geographical location not withstanding. To good conscience, wrong is wrong and right is right.

From very early on in my own life, I was frustrated to learn that in the America I lived in, that people in authority did NOT believe that right was right and wrong was wrong. I experienced that repeatedly as a child, in all sorts of circumstances.

In school, I had to deal with a mixed lot of teachers, some of whom were wonderful people, and others who were liars and even bullies. But everyone who was officially in positions of authority were entirely excused from behaving according to the standards that the children were supposed to obey. My earliest experiences dealing with police officers were even worse. When one came to the school to work with the kids who were assisting with safely getting all the other children onto and off of the buses, and across the streets near the school, perhaps because I was two years younger and therefore half a foot shorter than the other assistants, that officer decided it would be funny to pick me up by one arm in front of everyone else, and make jokes at my expense. The next experience I had with police, was when some of them grabbed my brother and I off the street, as we walked from the local movie house to our mother's car, and held us without explanation in their patrol car. It turned out that some other children had shoplifted nearby, and the officers grabbed us because we were convenient. The shop owner was brought around, and immediately exonerated us, but the officers didn't apologize, or in any other way indicate that they gave a damn how terrified they'd made us for nothing. I was about 8 then.

Eventually with a long series of similar problems from adults and worse, I was forced to come to the conclusion that right and wrong weren't even relative to each individual, they were just words that people said when they wanted to praise or attack someone. Eventually I came to shy away from those labels, for the most part.

Since then, I have decided on my own, that I would be absolute about one thing at least: if a given person or group DID declare that something was right or wrong, that I would hold them to that declaration absolutely. Right and Wrong may not be independent of culture or social status, but damned if I will tolerate anyone declaring that there are different rules for themselves, than for everyone else.

However, the conscious is a learned ability. It is hinged on the morality that it understands. That is why there are documented examples of a person doing wrong but not understanding it was wrong until they are told.
It also explains why people from other cultures and societies have different opinions as to what is wrong. Completely normal things for some are terribly wrong for others.

For instance, in some cultures/societies it is considered wrong to sit with the sole of your foot facing someone. Here in the states, it is a non-event. If you visit one of those places and sit with your foot like that you may not know you are terribly insulting the person with you. They get angry and you have no idea what you have done. Your conscious did not intend to be wrong, it didn't know any better.


What that says is that every human spirit has the same conscious and that if there is no conscience there is no human spirit.

Not to be confused with consciousness which is the awareness of being alive.


If it really were independent of the mind, it would over-rule decisions. It would cause someone to not be able to do wrong in any sense of the word.

I get what you're trying to say, you however, do not get what I am trying to say.

Right and wrong are dependent on understanding. Since everyone has a unique understanding, concepts of right and wrong are subject to the individual. Their conscious then acts as you say, determined by their understanding of the concepts and criteria they perceive.


That is just completely inaccurate. All behavior is learned behavior. All understanding is the acquiring of knowledge. Concepts are acquired understanding of hypothetical outcomes that may or may not be witnessed as fact.


That is your religious background talking. It makes no sense. Good and evil is a concept invented by man to explain our different behaviors. In nature there is no distinction of good or evil.

A volcano is not evil.
A warm summer rain is not good.
A gentle breeze is not good.
A tornado is not evil.

We define these things as 'good' or 'evil' to try to cope with the reality of nature. Human beings are also nature. Thus, we label people and acts as good or evil to try to cope with nature.
There are very few people that can truly grasp nature.
So many try to label, box up and put a sticker on it.
They need for it to make sense. Nature is just nature.
Its nature no matter how you label it. There is no right or wrong.
There is only the right and wrong that we label, box up and put a sticker on so we can cope with the chaos of life and reality.

What I write may be true but it is not the entire concept.
Human beings, being social creatures, need to define good and evil and right and wrong so we can live in harmony.
The system must be working, obviously, because there are 7.6 billion of us living on this planet right now. Its flaws are many-fold and that is why there is conflict. It is the different perceptions of right and wrong that causes the conflict.

I both agree and disagree and...I feel bad that you have had to adopt such a strategy.

This op is an attempt to signify such proclamations as justified.
It tries to ask how those concepts are used when dealing with others. Asks for the participants to justify being a sanctimonious *******. It wants to know if others understand these concepts in a similar light so personal understanding might be easier to comprehend.

Life is only as complicated as we make it.


In reality, there are different rules for the individual vs the group. I have set rules for myself that I would never expect others to adhere to. I have set group rules that I also adhere to.
I have also set group rules that I did not adhere to.
Its the natural way of things.

As a parent, I set rules for my children that they were held accountable for that were not accountable for us.
As a family man and a manager, I set rules that everyone was accountable to.
As a person, I set many rules for myself for which only I am accountable for, to myself.

Society is much the same way.
It sets rules for the masses that certain members are not accountable for.
An ambulance can do 90 down the street but if you do, you get arrested. It is right for the ambulance but wrong for you (unless you're driving the ambulance).

In general, a police officer does not have to announce his/her intentions or apologize when acting in the line of duty. As a person, their own rules may mandate that action but in an official capacity they do not. Those right and wrongs are subject to the individual.

I'm sure most people have, at one time or another, experienced unjust actions by a group or individual. It is kinda unjust to label all people based on selective experiences.
I do understand how it could set a morality value in a child that doesn't understand the concept of individual actions. However, we are not children anymore, are we?

Kinda vague, but yes. Wrong is wrong to some degree until you change your mind,if it's something you can change your mind about.

That doesn't mean that what you decide, learn, or are taught is "wrong" at any certain time changes the universe so the universe enforces something as "wrong" making it an immutable universal absolute that never changes.

Wrong is wrong for as long as an individual and/or group enforces or continually and consistently reinforces something as wrong through behavior.

Unless you're highly religious.
Then wrong is wrong because god(s) said so.

Not to mention, not all "wrong" or "right" is created equal.
Some things you can personally consciously choose to label as "wrong" or "right" and then consistently behave to enforce it.
Other, generally more simplistic and atavistic things you take for granted, are perceived as inherently "right" or "wrong" and you reinforce naturally, many to most times without realizing it.


Of course.
All knowledge and information is used. Weighed and compared against experience, rewards, potential threats, etc.
Most assessments are done nonconsciously before being popped into the conscious through judgmental feelings which are then acted upon and analyzed.


Not really.
A lot of what is judged "wrong" is based on inherent emotional reaction.
Biological in origin.
All cultures and (generally normal brain type i.e. not psychotic sociopath) people have proscriptions and a universal consistent feeling or knowledge of "wrong" or "right" regarding certain things. Like types of "lying" and "murder" and "drowning" and "group protection."

Some basic "wrong and right is determined" by your biology.
It's not determined by "self," it's a natural reaction that influences your "self."


Sure there is.
Herd and group creatures, mammals, enforce social rules all the time.
Monkey pecking order determination and guilt, dolphin rape and response to it.
There are innumerable examples of there being "wrong or right" in nature.
There are even cross species rules regarding things like watering holes that many animals don't violate.

Wrong is wrong is that right.


Ohhh noo.. my Catholic teacher Sister Mary Williams would always say masturbation was wrong in the eyes of the Lord...


Picks up his Kleenex box throws it up against the wall....((( your evil))))....lol..
I will sin.... no more....hmmmmm...
Hmmmm...hmmmm.. looks down at the dented sad pathetic Kleenex box...ummmmm.... I'm sorry you're right it's not your fault... it was wrong of me to throw you against the wall like that...
Hmmm... you might be right Kleenex box..!!
If that was wrong maybe masturbating isn't wrong either.. in the eyes of the Lord..
Hmmm.... now I need to reevaluate everything..ohhh.great..lol

As to the context of this OP I agree with this example.

The concept being explored is willful wrong and right and how it influences your behavior towards another.

Pecking order, herding and watering holes are natural states that are not wrong or right (in this context).

If a male squirrel comes across a female squirrel with pups it will kill those pups to bring her to heat so he can mate with her. If another male squirrel comes upon the same female with those pups, that male will repeat the process. Its wrong, its right, but its natural. We can only assume the female squirrel has been wronged based on human understanding.

When your dog chews up your favorite shoe and you scold it, the dog feels remorse. The dog may look like it knows it done wrong before you scold it but that is inspired by your reaction to seeing the evidence. While the dog is trashing your place, its not deliberating on the right or wrong of its actions.

Unlike a child that is angry at you and breaks something or destroys something you cherish. They know it is wrong while they are doing it. I do this thing to spite you because I know it is wrong and you will react.

A wrong is not a wrong until it is valued as a wrong. A right is not a right until it is valued as a right.
If you grew up living in a society that stones women that are 'forward' sexually, stoning those women is not understood as wrong. It will only be wrong if someone convinces you that it is wrong. As far as you might understand, it is normal behavior.

Humans are entering into a world society. The turmoil is from the mixture of perceived wrongs and rights. Its a war of moral pecking order at a planet-sized watering hole.
You have those that are wrong or right without understanding why and there are those that are wrong or right on purpose. The ones that are wrong on purpose know that they are doing someone wrong yet do it anyway.

So, when considering placing judgmental evaluation upon another do we take into consideration whether they are wrong willfully or by ignorance?
Or...Do we judge them only on how they 'look' to us, never considering the source of their actions or methods?

But what does your kleenex box think about it all