re societally acceptable behavior in article c s tv h news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes in qvh tinnsg citation ksu ksu edu yohan citation ksu ksu edu jonathan w newton writes in article c qgm dl news cso uiuc edu cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior i disagree with these what society thinks should be irrelevant what the individual decides is all that is important this doesn t seem right if i want to kill you i can because that is what i decide exactly although this may be a dissapointing answer there has to be an interplay of the two personal ethos and societal morality a person s self generated learned set of beliefs are usually expressed on a purely mental verbal level and don t usually find expression in society except in an impure not in the sense of bad state sometimes this has to be so who is society i think this is fairly obvious not really if whatever a particular society mandates as ok is ok there are always some in the society who disagree with the mandates so which societal mandates make the standard for morality also what if one feels oneself to be part of more than one society in a very real sense to use the obvious example there is a political society and a racial society and a gender society and sometimes they do not always agree on every issue how do they define what is acceptable generally by what they feel is right which is the most idiotic policy i can think of so what should be the basis unfortunately i have to admit to being tied at least loosely to the feeling in that i think we intuitively know some things to be wrong awfully hard to defend though yes perhaps with an infamous do what you want so long as it doesn t hurt others the problem with this is that it is merely saying what you can do it is not a morality in that it doesn t propound any specifically preferred behaviours how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position by thinking for ourselves i might agree here just because certain actions are legal does not make them moral i ll add a hearty me two however one could just as well say just because certain actions are moral does not make them legal one still doesn t really get an impression of which one is truly right mac michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu with new taxes and spending cuts we ll still have billion dollar deficits michael a cobb and i won t raise taxes on the middle university of illinois class to pay for my programs champaign urbana bill clinton rd debate cobb alexia lis uiuc edu nobody can explain everything to anybody g k chesterton best regards adam john cooper verily often have i laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because acooper macalstr edu they had no claws
