And that is the nature of humanity. Or maybe the nurture, or some combination of both. Because really, how can we say how much something affects people? If we all have different experiences that affect our perceptions, something that a person says might affect you and me very differently. We might come to the same conclusions, or very different ones. This becomes a problem with the issue of morality because who is to say that any one's morals are any more right than anyone else's? That is the nature of morality. It is personal, but it affects everyone. It is often in society agreed upon or accepted that "we" as a society hold ourselves to certain morals because they are right for our society. Are they? Clearly they affect members of society who disagree with them, or agree with them but break them for whatever reason. These people are punished, or are supposed to be punished by the standards we value in our society. And then there are those who might like to do something "immoral" but don't simply because they don't want to face the repercussions that society has set aside for them. And then there are those of us who agree with these morals, and don't have to worry about achieving our desires because they are things we can acheive while maintaining society's definition of morality.

But like you said, morality affects everyone. What you do, what you perceive as right and moral affects those around you because you treat them a certain way, or they perceive your actions a certain way. And I am not saying there aren't universal things that are necessary for us to live in harmony; e.g. not killing each other. But we haven't been living in harmony so far, so how do we really know what can be done or said to put us all on the same moral plane?

Was Hitler wrong? His actions affected an immeasurable number of people. He brutally slaughtered millions. Yes, in my mind, that makes him absolutely 100% wrong. But what could have been done to stop him or make him think hey, maybe this isn't right? We'll never know. I just find it hard to believe that anyone who develops a true understanding of this notion that morality affects everyone, even if moral actions are determined on a societal or personal basis, would do something like kill another person. Certainly there are circumstances in which we think killing a person is justified, namely self defense. There are situations and circumstances in which we develop the ability to think morally for ourselves by recognizing that some certain moral or standard cannot be held in a situation if we want to do the "right" thing.

All I am saying is, I often have radically different views from society on what is moral or immoral. But I am able to function in this society because my own individual standards or morality recognize morality as a thing that affects everyone. I hold myself to my own moral standards that keep me within society's standards of morality. But I am not really within these standards of morality because I come to different conclusions of why some act is moral or immoral in a given setting. I don't get punished for having different moral beliefs because my moral beliefs won't allow me to kill anyone or rob anyone or commit some act that society regards as horrible. I am comfortable enough with myself and my conclusions on morality that I am very much aware of the fact that any thing I do, no matter how big or small, can and probably does affect other people. And this keeps me from doing something like killing a person, not because the act itself is inherently wrong, as society would preach. But because every day in my own situations and experiences I know that what I do affects other people and what they do affects me. Awareness of this fact keeps me from ever seeing someone as enough of a threat to kill. Not because I share society's morals, but because I have my own morality that is intertwined with every other thing in the Universe because I don't know where or if my actions stop affecting other people.



Yes I am aware that I just wrote a freakin book on your livejournal page. Oops. Guess I had alot to say :)