What if I told you that there was a pill, potion or powder that you could give to another person and when they took it, you could do whatever you wanted to them, and they wouldn’t mind? Hell, they wouldn’t even remember.
Would you do it? Free and clear, no consequences.You could rob them, rape them, strangle them, and they would never know. They’d just be asleep.
Of course all of our cumulative moral training springs to the surface to scream that, even if we could get away with it, that that doesn’t make it right. That’s true. But does it make it wrong?.
People have impulses, desires, and often they find themselves on the opposite side of the law, never noticing where they crossed the line. Like in this book I read.
The book is called A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. In it three men find a small plane crashed in the woods. The pilot is dead, and in the otherwise empty cabin is a duffel bag filled with cash – $4.4 million to be exact. They decide to keep the money, and the ensuing story is a suspense/morality tale about greed and suspicion.
There’s a scene in the book where the main character, Hank, who has been put in charge of holding the money, is trying to convince his wife that what he did was OK, and that it wasn’t an immoral act. They argue for a page and a half, and finally his wife breaks down and says, “I’m not worried about the morality of it Hank. I’m worried about getting caught. That’s what’s real, the rest is just talk.”
Is it, perhaps, that our morals, our sense of what is right, comes out of a fear of consequences more than a proactive desire to “do the right thing?”
If stealing wasn’t illegal (read conducive to jail sentence), or if you weren’t afraid of the wrath of your appointed deity, would you snatch a Snickers bar from the BP? If I gave you this magic pill would you use it? Could you justify it?
What about “Caveat Emptor,” which means, “let the buyer beware?” If that man walked into that dark alley for a shortcut, he must have expected to get robbed. If that homosexual hit on that guy he must have expected to get beaten in the parking lot, right? If someone accepts your magic pill, it’s not your fault what happens to them . is it?
Or what about that car you have that drinks up oil like a sailor on a bender? You really need the money, and well, if they aren’t smart enough to check it . What about speeding?
It’s wrong, it’s illegal, no one will ever know, and most of the time no one gets hurt. What about calling into work sick just so you can sit at home? Lying about your age to get a beer, get a job or get a date? Is morality “just talk?” Maybe we just have it backwards.
Back to the magic pill. What if you could sneak it to somebody, like ground up in a drink, or sprinkled on some food? What if they would never know it was you who did it?
Are you tempted yet? This isn’t “splitting hairs” folks. It’s everyday decision making on trial.
People try to “get by.” They “cut corners.”
Could it be that we are ‘moral’ when it suits us? When it’s practical? Is it that morality is “just talk” and that consequences are what’s real.
In the end, doesn’t it just come down to the thought that if no one knows or is badly hurt, if it gets us what we want or need, if we promise never to do it again, then somehow it’s OK?
Take a close look at what you say you believe, and the morals you espouse, the standards you claim to follow. Is it something you do everyday, all the time, or is it the secular equivalent of the “Sunday morning Christian?”
Think about this. People have used morals, beliefs, values and passions, to justify all kinds of horrors from war to religion.
Two hundred years ago it was OK to have slaves, and 100 years ago sex was even more taboo than it is today. Respectable couples didn’t live together. Fifty years ago homosexuality was a criminal offense, that was actively punished, and spousal and domestic abuse was considered the “business” only of those involved. The rest had to butt out. We won’t even discuss abortion. All these things in America alone.
Does this perhaps say something about the absoluteness and objectivity of morality? Is it that certain things, over time have become right or wrong, have we “fallen away” from what is truly ‘right,’ or are we falling into it? If we were right about some things back then, but wrong now, how do we know that the one is right and the other wrong? Who gave us the keys to the universe?
Some say “love thy neighbor as thyself,” which seems like a good rule, but if it comes down to you or your neighbor is it right for you to die? Is it right for him to let you?
Are there any rules that everyone could follow, or just one big one, one blanket that covers all the sins? I think not. Is it perhaps that there are no rules? Or that we can’t ever know them? Who’s to say?
It is, however, possible that we have gotten morality backwards, where instead of taking our behavioral clues from our values, our values have become subject to what has become, for each of us, acceptable.
When all is said and done, people do what they want. If they want to “do the right thing,” they do. If not then they do whatever they choose.
Think about the rest of the world.
In some lands adultery is still punishable by death. In some places it’s OK to subjugate women and murder children of an undesired sex. What about the values that allow female circumcision?
What about millions of dead Jews in Germany, thousands of dead tribes people in Rwanda? What about Israelis and Palestinians? What about Iraq? Everyday every living, thinking being has to make decisions about what they are willing to do, for good or bad.
We are what we value, and we do what we can deal with.
In the end, it’s like Hank’s wife said, “Consequences are real, and (morality) is just talk.” It’s not what we think, it’s what we do, that shows us who we really are.
In case you’re wondering, that “magic pill” exists, sort of. It’s a drug called commonly known as G.H.B., one of the “date rape” drugs. In large doses the victim passes out and often has amnesia. Certain persons use this in taking advantage of others, usually in a sexual manner.
But like I said earlier, it would be OK to use it if there were no real consequences for us, and if no one got hurt too bad . right?

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