There is a lot of talk these days of morals in a divisive light. “Those are your morals,” or “That’s a moral issue,” or “Those aren’t my morals.” By using such phrases, the speaker distances themselves from an issue that another sees as intrinsically right or wrong.

Standard definitions for morality refer include “concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct” or “a study of action (right and wrong).” All of them seem to categorize the word as some sort of study, or some sort of code as defined by an authority.

Let’s consider another definition of morality – the relation of an action to one’s intended end.

There – no good, no evil, no right or wrong. Morality is simply a reckoning to one’s end.

Let’s consider a neutral example. A sports team works toward a common goal. In soccer, this is quite literal – the object is to put the ball into the opponent’s goal as often as possible, and to keep it out of your own. When a player is directing the ball toward the opposing team’s goal, his efforts and actions are moral. If, however, he intentionally kicks the ball into his team’s own goal, he has betrayed his team’s end and committed an immoral act.

This example may seem utilitarian, and even advocate the end justifying any means as moral. That is because of the simplicity of the example. In life, there may be overlapping ends to consider, such as one’s role in one’s family, one’s duty to country, and one’s responsibility as a human being. Such overlapping duties can lead to conflict in decision making, but by determining what is the highest priority, one can decide which edicts to obey and which to disobey, and when it is right to do so.

Perhaps I have gotten a bit ahead of myself here as we have not gone into prioritizing one’s duties and responsibilities, or our ends and purpose individually and as a whole.

However, it is important to keep this definition of morality in mind when you meet people who toss out phrases about morality as something that they disagree with others about. If they say their morality or moral code differs from you, there is little doubt that is true; but what they may not realize is that such differences in views on what is right or wrong stem from deep differences in purpose, end, and philosophical point of view – be careful of such persons.

It should also be noted that those who wish to be or claim to be amoral do exist as well; those who have no established moral code or even deny the existence that such codes can exist. They are to be feared, as Jack London observed, as wolves amongst men.

Technorati Tags: morality, evil, good, right and wrong, human, ethics, morals

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Found this story during my random browsing for something completely different.

For those of you who don’t know about EVE Online (as I did an hour ago) it’s a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game based around exploration, colonization, and conflict in a new galaxy. Kind of like starting over (allusions to Eve and Eden are found in the story background).

So, with real human players having a fresh start in a new galaxy, what happened? According to the Hilmar Petursson, CEO of Crowd Control Productions, the company that developed EVE:

It turned out, in the first few months of EVE that players of different nationalities were banding together in specific areas of space. The Scandinavians in one area, next to the Russians (who had hacked the game so they could chat in Cyrillic script, and no-one else could understand them). The Americans were across the other side of the galaxy and the French were in between The Scandinavians and Americans. All arranged around the pocket of neutral territory known as Empire Space.

Now here’s how it went: The Russians were highly organised and powerful in battle and were attacking the Scandinavians. By rights they should have wiped them out fairly quickly but things descended into a war of attrition lasting for a couple of months. This was because the Americans, whilst protesting their neutrality, were ploughing their considerable production capabilities into supplying the Scandinavians with ships and material. Through some audacious espionage, the Russians figured this out and hired the French to cut off the supply lines from the Americans to the Scandinavians. The Scandinavians quickly folded and the Russians were victorious.

Involved in all this was a combination of political manoeuvring, subterfuge and economics which wasn’t built into the software, having evolved out of the way people played the game. This was even before alot of the mechanics for alliances and other political shenanigans was built into the game.

What a lot we are! I seriously doubt with a fresh start we would b able to avoid the atrocities of our collective past.

Tags: EVE Online, Massively Multiplayer Online, MMO, human, players, political, subterfuge, political shenanigans

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“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity”
– Leo Tolstoy

Wish I knew where this quote was from, bu not much I can add to it.

Tags: meaning of life, humanity, Leo Tolstoy, quote

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