Loading ...It occured to me today that everyone thinks they are doing the right thing. The idea came to me as i was puzzling over the actions of an erstwhile friend. When trying to figure out why she would act that way, trying to understand how she could reconcile her actions with those of a good person, it struck me that she actually thinks she is doing the right thing.
Is that right? Do we all actually think we are doing the right thing? The mind is an incredibly powerful tool, and moral relativism is a good way of justifying pretty much anything.
So I got thinking. I’m no saint, but I can’t think of the last time i did something consciously bad. I can think of lots of bad things that I have done, but its often only later, much later, that that realisation strikes me.
Perhaps no one does anything they know to be bad. This is a much more scary idea than it at first appears. What if Hitler thought he was doing the right thing? You know, i reckon he probably did…
If this is true, there are some important lessons to be drawn:
- Its useful to reflect on our actions, post facto. While in the middle of a situation, at least for me, its all too easy to convince myself that i am in fact doing the right thing. Its harder to so convince with the passage of some time. Eventually, some of that ability to stop deluding myself might spill over into my present actions rather than just my reflections on the past.
- But even then, how can you judge right from wrong? A set of firm, resolute moral laws is a good thing. Having a moral code, with some authority behind it, gives a benchmark against which one can judge one’s actions. That doesnt mean you will always do the right thing, but at least you will know when you are doing the wrong thing.
Perhaps i’m alone in this. Perhaps you either do no wrong, or don’t indulge in my self-delusion. But if you do, tell me how else one can at least tell the difference between right and wrong…
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You already know when you do something wrong otherwise you would not being having this conversation with yourself. You get the rules where you can. Satre said that “nothing is vouchsafed’ and this still holds true. If you’re actions stand to hurt one person that that is clearly wrong, but if they stand to hurt a million people then that is, a la Stalin, merely a statistic. You can’t please all the poeple all the time but you can please some of the people some of the time. Pick your friends carefully but pick your enemies even more carefully…they have longer memories and longer arms.