Friday, February 17, 2006

Its been a while since ive updated our blog... dearest shruti refuses to utilize her enormous talent anymore... I suspect some kind of writers block....

Been wondering what defines right or wrong. All of morality is based on the principles which define these. Since our notion of right and wrong is based on the current societal norms, by being right we are just conforming to those.
Is that fair?
Do we have the right to occupy a moral high ground just because we agree with the majority?
This leads me to the conclusion that no one is in the truest sense ever 'right'.
All we can lay claim to is the fact that we followed the well trodden path.
Have we unknowingly become a bunch of sycophants........


D

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

definitely an interesting thing to discuss. there is an interesting notion of circularity, where if there are two things A and B,A happens because of B and B happens because of A. this circularity notion, although a simple one can be seen in so many instances that it is hard to believe that only a few people ever pause to ponder on the same.
anyway, if the state of A is given by the state of B and vice-versa then the obvious question is what determines either? we were faced with a similar problem in macroeconomics and Patnaik sir`s answer is that they both are historically given and are subject to change by external influence. Leo Tolstoy addresses the very same question in the following manner.according to him Accepted norms are determined by ethics and morality and ethics in turn is determined by accepted norms. so we have a circularity where both are determined by the existing superstructure(religion and customs play a very imortant role here, i`m afraid).once ethics and accepted norms are arrived at they both reinforce each other and only some strong external stimuli can break this.
basic human nature requires for a good %age of people to have some sort of assurance.this they seek through their moral highgrounds. this moral highground is reached by the application of the accepted norms and ethics. once a person is sure that he truly is on a moral highground, he can then start looking down upon others from this elevation point.another problem is that he becomes a part of the superstructure reinforcing the existing state. only few people really have the maturity to accept that they were wrong and were on a false highground(economists of different schools of thoughts are very good examples).

again another important philosopher of the last century, Ludwig Wittgenstein gives another opinion. according to him, world is a totlity of factrs and not a thing. our world(what is described to us) is a totality of facts bounded by our language. under such a scenario right and wrong cannot be determined.

clueless comrades said...

damn chowdhary.... im proud of ya!