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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
As a child we are ingrained with the notions of morals by our parents (most of us anyway), our teachers, and most importantly, by this guy:
+ Show Spoiler +
Oh, sorry, I meant this guy (the one above is who I get my morals from now as an adult male):
+ Show Spoiler +
Love, kindness, honesty, justice, loyalty, honor and the like--it is good for children to have morals. As mischievous as some children may be, they still embrace some essence of morals as long as they were taught to, or so I would like to believe.
In the 8th grade (13 years of age), I moved and transferred to a new school. Apparently not many people transferred to this school as an 8th grader (the last year before graduating from middle school), and so I was looked upon with very critical eyes during the first few weeks.
And then my life changed. One day, there was a presentation given by a guest speaker in one of my classes. It was about a recent event where a pizza delivery guy (young male) was held up at gun point by a small group of thugs while delivering pizzas. This kid was stubborn. He would not give the pizzas up, and thus was shot dead.
At the end of the presentation, our teacher asked, "Who here thinks the delivery guy did the right thing?"
Amidst a silent class, the only hand raised was mine. The teacher asked me why, and I ranted on about notions of honor. To my right I could hear a kid whisper, "He's not one of us" (we became great friends a couple months later).
Where were the morals?
As a young kid I held many morals. If I did something wrong, I'd regret it and man up to it. If I was entrusted with something, I'd take care of it no matter what. However, after transferring to this particular middle school, my life took a 180. By the time I graduated, I was just like any other kid. I did not respect teachers, I did not respect my parents, and worst of all, I disrespected myself. Adolescence can be a horrid thing.
Last night I read and completed Natsume Souseki's "Botchan", a book often compared to the West's Huckleberry Finn. The protagonist represented old traditional values and, although not the brightest guy, was a straight arrow who held firmly onto his beliefs. The story depicts him struggling against the modernizing values of his time where, instead of honor, people did what was best for them no matter the means.
After I finished the book I took a deep look at myself. How am I now? How is society? As an adult male of 22 years, I have changed quite a bit from when I was a teenager. I would say I'm somewhere in between my days as a child and my days as a teenager. Although I understand the many concepts of morals, I do not blindly follow them. I don't mind lying at times to get my way, and if you asked me now if I would have taken the bullet for those pizzas, I would say no, and most people would agree that wasting your life over a pizza is stupid, not honorable.
As society ages, this trend seems frequent. We are no longer bound by morals, but by benefits. However, I want to believe in what is right, and for that, I dare not call anyone an idiot that righteously follows their moral code. Instead, I applaud you.
If I didn't have any morals as a child, I can't imagine where I'd be now. Instead of dying trying to protect a pizza, I may have died trying to rob a house. For this, I thank Barney.
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It is more heroic to live than to die.
In other words, the Pizza guy didn't get anything by sticking to his morality; he just lost everything.
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life or honor as delivery boy...
sometimes you just gotta know when you've lost
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Morals is more complicated than absolutes. While you prescribe to deontological conceptions of it, others may look to teleological ones. It's generally a matter up for debate.
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What you refer to as morals are the altruistic ethics that are instilled in almost everyone from a young age. They are based mostly on the set of morals prescribed in the Judeo-Christian religions.
Because these morals say it a virtue to sacrifice yourself for others, many people find it inherently hard to live up to them, since most people want to continue their lives.
Objectivism is a philosophy that holds that it is moral only to act rationally in ones self interest. If everyone followed the objectivist ethics, no one would be taken advantage of. If you followed this set of ethics, you would neither die defending a pizza, nor robbing others (both of which are immoral acts).
Morals is more complicated than absolutes. While you prescribe to deontological conceptions of it, others may look to teleological ones. It's generally a matter up for debate.
I am curious as to how you make your decisions if you don't see morals as an absolute guide to living.
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If he really believed his code was worth dying for that delivery boy is a better human being than most and it's a shame there isn't more people like him out there.
If he was just being stubborn and didn't really believe he was going to get shot, well...don't know what to say about that.
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I think a tough point is that our society no longer guides young people to a healthy understanding of right and wrong. More and more people are coming to a point where they realize they don't know what is worth believing any more.
I think that in other types of societies, Native Americans for example, the youth grew up learning about LIFE and thus were healthy adults with a strong since of honor, right and wrong. They learned about providing for one's self, protecting one's family, and other things that lead them to a "moral peaceground" if you will, where they are at an understanding of themselves and maybe more.
Now compare that to our modern society. The media (For ONE) warps the youths perception of what is ok so drastically that once people start having to live in the real world (generally after school, 22, did you just get out of college?) they realize that they have no idea what is ok.
Some people live their lives in the cubicle, never really questioning life or anything. Booze also helps with this. Imagine how some alcoholics actually live their lives in a state of drunkenness....
But i think it's important to do good things. If you are living for a better world, a better society, where more people can be happy.... thats a good life to me.
IDK i'm rambling, tell me if you want me to talk more.
hahahha PS, how many of you guys DON'T smoke weed? 
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Such a bad question. What he did was more than a simple "giving away the pizzas". Assuming the story is true since it reeks of BS, he did not believe he was gonna die, and the morals of your actions shouldn't be measured by the way other people respond to them. As the moral code is supposed to be personal.
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You can say "that delivery guy was stupid, who dies for a pizza?" but then again, who kills someone for a pizza?
I really doubt that the delivery boy though "This pizza is to die for" and decided to defend it with his life. I'd imagine that he was just standing up for himself. It happened to be the wrong decision in retrospect, and a lot of people might equate that with it being the wrong decision at the time. But no one can predict the future, so this sort of act utilitarianism isn't possible. All we can go by are general principles, and I think this guy had the right principles there. It was just not the best time to pull them out.
I'm sure a lot of Starcraft players understand the concept. Usually you're not playing to win, you're playing to get better. In a tournament situation no one will blame you if you 6pool, but if you 6pool all the time on the ladder then you're only hurting yourself.
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On February 02 2011 10:45 starfries wrote:
You can say "that delivery guy was stupid, who dies for a pizza?" but then again, who kills someone for a pizza?
I really doubt that the delivery boy though "This pizza is to die for" and decided to defend it with his life. I'd imagine that he was just standing up for himself. It happened to be the wrong decision in retrospect, and a lot of people might equate that with it being the wrong decision at the time. But no one can predict the future, so this sort of act utilitarianism isn't possible. All we can go by are general principles, and I think this guy had the right principles there. It was just not the best time to pull them out.
I'm sure a lot of Starcraft players understand the concept. Usually you're not playing to win, you're playing to get better. In a tournament situation no one will blame you if you 6pool, but if you 6pool all the time on the ladder then you're only hurting yourself.
Probably not. If this is a real event in the first place. I think the point here though is the teacher used it as an example to ask about morals/decision making. In that version of the story, and in terms of what is relevant to the OP the pizza guy felt that the pizzas were worth dying for.
pizzaman die from his cheese
so sad
Well played.
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On February 02 2011 10:45 starfries wrote:
I'm sure a lot of Starcraft players understand the concept. Usually you're not playing to win, you're playing to get better. In a tournament situation no one will blame you if you 6pool, but if you 6pool all the time on the ladder then you're only hurting yourself.
pizzaman die from his cheese
so sad 
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On February 02 2011 10:15 Occidental wrote:Morality is more complicated than absolutes. While you prescribe to deontological conceptions of it, others may look to teleological ones. It's generally a matter up for debate. I am curious as to how you make your decisions if you don't see morals as an absolute guide to living.
My statement already pointed out the distinction between a system of absolute side-constraints under deontology, versus the utilitarianism of teleology. For instance, were you to be presented with a hypothetical scenario where lying to a Nazi could save a Jew's life, utilitarianism would be a clear choice for the ends to justify the means.
Morals, of course, get complicated when it comes to situations like "is it morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people?" Hence, why "morality is more complicated than absolutes." But the idea that all morality is supposedly deontological is silly. For instance, see the works of John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, or David Cummiskey.
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I can't believe they told you that story in the 8th grade. I don't see why they would tell you something like that. What was the teacher trying to illustrate, not to resist against armed men?
The decision doesn't reflect upon morals at all. I don't see how it's immoral to not want to die for pizza. Sure, it's moral to stop thieves, but it should be just as moral to let the thugs take the pizza and then report the incident in an attempt to catch the criminals.
I would call what the delivery boy had pride and possibly honor, but to the point of irrationality. (I'm not blaming him at all, he was fairly young and had probably never experienced such an event before.) Honor and morality are two quite different things, and really can't be compared. Because honor can certainly be immoral, and morality can certainly be dishonorable in some scenarios.
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I wish more people stuck to their morals and beliefs. The world has gotten so cold these days.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Now compare that to our modern society. The media (For ONE) warps the youths perception of what is ok so drastically that once people start having to live in the real world (generally after school, 22, did you just get out of college?) they realize that they have no idea what is ok.
I'm actually still in college.
Probably not. If this is a real event in the first place.
It was a real event. It was on the news here at the time (it was a local event).
I can't believe they told you that story in the 8th grade. I don't see why they would tell you something like that. What was the teacher trying to illustrate, not to resist against armed men?
There were actually guest speakers there (one was the father of the kid who died, and one was the father of the kid who did the shooting). The actual point of the story, which we actually saw on video, was to demonstrate that killing and robbing people was wrong. They had a whole clip of the murderer regretting his actions, making a speech, etc. At the time, the shooter was 16.
What people are bringing up as "different sets of morals" is fundamentally correct. Depending on your ethnicity, religion, parents, and other factors, people's moral codes differ from one another.
However, the question I want to present here is, as a society (specifically your own), how are you experiencing this decline in morals? From what I know of the modern world, old values such as chivalry, honor, selflessness are generally almost extinct. Although people may hold different sets of values, it's hard to find anyone that will live up to any set. Is it a problem of the media, or is it a problem of kids growing up disillusioned by their environment? For me, it was my environment, but I can't help but think the media plays a big part in teaching kids ridiculous things nowadays (see: rap).
When you look around your own world, what do you see? How do you carry yourselves amongst the corrupt?
pizzaman die from his cheese
so sad
lol, good one. -_-
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