Disapointed By The Dichotomy
I've been thinking lately about the connections between morality, imorality, and amorality. Not so much have I been thinking about these things as they are, more so I've been thinking about what other people percieve these things to be. A big problem I feel, is with the verbal systems we use to assign things a moral placement.
The problem with verbal communication is that there is so much variety in the aplication of grammar and syntax and too much ambiguity surrounding the meanings of more common words. The same word can apparently have deviated meanings depending on the context in which it is implemented, but I fear that not everyone is able to perceive and adjust for these deviations.
Digressing back to moralilty and the like; right, and wrong. When I say "the right answer is four" in response to someone asking, "whats the right answer for two plus two?". I'm using right as a synonym of correct. However, when I say telling the truth is the right thing to do, it means something completely different all together. What people infer to mean moraly appropriate. The same thing holds true for wrong, moraly inappropriate, incorrect, or impossible.
Maybe it doesn't seem like I have a point, I think most of us learned these things in elementary school, but I was listening to some stupid show that was on while I was trying to sleep, and they said something about the legal definition of insanity. Insane being unable to discern right from wrong. I dont't know if this is true or not, but as disambiguous and specific as legal speak attempts to be, why would they define insane as being unable to discern one ambiguous notion from another ambiguous notion. Thats crazy.
Mostly because moral right and wrong are programmed values based on intention and desired consequence. No! Bad! Wrong!, these are all functional as negative values, applicable to behavior of the trained that is viewed undesirable to a trainer. Alterrnately Yes! Good! Right! serve as positive values. Either value may also be acompanied by a like inscentive, I.E. reward / punishment.
It's my contetion that the problem with using this form of conditioning with the human race is that it's producing massive amounts of individuals that are perceptively limited dichotomites. A dichotomite being one who allocates all information into a dichotomy of right and wrong. It is these individuals who often misassociate things like "can" and "may" or "right" and "possible". This sort of thinking can be very detrimental indeed.
As a more productive altenative I think people should abandon conventional morality, and plan all of their interactions with the surrounding world based on responsive emotional state, and personal intention. Since even repugnant acts such as murder, can be mandatory as a means of survival. It's pretty much senseless to consider whether or not said murder is right or wrong if you haven't even considered the real and emotional consequences of killing?