I believe we all share a few basic
morals; for example, most humans will not commit murder, because it is wrong,
and most humans are concerned about others. Most of us were probably raised to tell
the truth (whether we do that or not is the question,) to do good (like holding
a door open for another person, helping someone when they are in need,) and to
do to others as you would like them to do to you (the Golden Rule.) So, some
moral principles are universal, and there are more than just these three I
presented, but there are some variations across cultures and people—most often
morality is a result of human emotions. What I mean by this is, we tend to act
on instinct and our morality is us just trying to make sense of that, or why we
acted that way in a situation and continue to act that way.
We all wear different spectacles and
the best way I can explain it is with this analogy: no two people, let alone
the same two fingers, have the same fingerprint and in the same way, no two
people act the same or experience the world the same. Fingerprints may be similar
and people may act similar, but neither are ever identical.
Our spectacles are
like a lens we see the world through, and it will affect how we interpret
things, react to them, and how we act morally. They affect how we act morally
because they define how we will react; when we see something through our
spectacles, we will interpret that a certain way and then act on it in a way we
see best fit for the situation. For example, a mom is at the store with her two
kids and one of them is crying and throwing a fit, two people are on the same
isle and only one of them goes up to the baby and tries to cheer it up. The
person who tried to help saw the situation and felt that she should try making
the baby laugh so he would stop crying. The other person may have seen the situation,
but thought it was none of their concern. If you think to any time you acted on
a situation and another person did not, it was because your spectacles caused
you to see the situation differently and caused you acted differently.
When we are wearing our spectacles,
and acting according to our morality, we are seeing and reacting to the world
in a certain, specific way. Our spectacles affect how we see the world by
placing certain things in a positive or negative light. For example, people
react to criticism in different ways; either positively or negatively and on a
spectrum of extremes. One person may take that and carry it in the back of
their minds for the rest of their life, allowing to dictate their every move
while another person may completely ignore it and continue to do the same
thing.
Sources:
Pictures:
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/06/14/fingerprint-matching-is-biased-by-the-assessors-prejudices/
http://www.lifezen.in/blog/debunk-old-eye-myths/
http://www.lifezen.in/blog/debunk-old-eye-myths/
Two comments on other posts:
I would ask, where do original morals for all people come from?
ReplyDeleteDalai Lama has an interesting statement and that is “our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” Now, obviously that goes to ask the question of what "helping" and "hurting" is. We have not come to a global consensus on what "helping" and "hurting" is and may never. I think that sort of strive to define these things definitely molds our character for better or worse depending on how you look at things.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting way to see how morals aren't something that we just decide on, but is a combination of nature and nurture that makes us who we are.
ReplyDelete