h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Choices are not always dilemmas. Dilemmas should be used as a description for those choices which are difficult to decide because neither choice is ideal.

Surely choosing between temptation and abstinence is not so much a dilemma as a gamble - will you be found out / regret your decision?

If you can know you're doing the right thing where's the downside ? and vice versa. If you don't feel good doing the right thing you are a sad puppy .
There are dilemmas, but I don't think temptation alone is adequate to create one. Personally I make my moral choices driven by fear of guilt of making the wrong choices.

Going to war with Iraq, or not, was a real dilemma - there were pros and cons to each decision.

Sometimes it seems as if you can avoid the dilemma, the making of a decision, by procrastinating. This popular method of 'non' decision making is in itself a decision and can be a dilemma in its own right - rarely will the problem go away by being ignored, sometimes leaving it alone will make it worse.

"A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually.
One must fight for a life of action, not reaction."
-- Rita Mae Brown

eh? Please expand and discuss relevance of quote. Maybe I'm still half-asleep but that has gone right over my head like an aeroplane.

Pimms

hey..........
life is not all about doing the right thing,
to follow the same old golden track .
this is dull......
and its like being a slave to the (own) moral code.
take some crazy action, put away right or wrong
do something...............

so whan you are 80 you know that your life was not wasted
but dont always step on someone's toes !!!

"our life is frittered away by details" - Thoreau
"hitch your wagon to a star" - Emerson

Hey! What is this Quote-U-Like?

This poetry and quotes stuff seem like Delphic oracles to me - do you agree with the fellow or what?

It seems to me (and I'm a sidekick) that Pimms seems like 'Primms' in this comment, but this may be due to mixing up too many observations in his .

The first point being made is many of life's little decisions can not be called in any real sense dilemmas.

The second point is that dilemmas can be based on the 'simple' choice between action and inaction - as long as both have negative impacts.
The example it must be said is not appropriate to a discussion of life's 'little' choices. Pimms

So Yay! for pedantry Pimms I agree with you (I'd be mad not too)
Tweety Pie

The main problem with 'right and wrong' as I see it, is this. It is a theory invented by the human species. No other species lies awake at night wondering if they should have eaten their tree mates last banana or not! Shit just happens! Good or Bad is purely a judgement call on our parts and is not even similar dependant on where you are!
For example: Customs in most nations differ, so what is good & bad in one country may not be the same once you have crossed a border into another land! So I feel that it is all completely subjective, and even murder may not be considered so bad in a massively overpopulated land.

Nuff said......Mad Hamish
(Currently on the French Riviera sipping wine from the bellybuttom of a pretty young maid)

Lucky for some Hamish, though there are drawbacks - constantly needing to refill for one.

Your existential relativism that ethical standards are man-made and dependant on the ethos (standards of the community) that one is part of doesn't make trivial the issue of how one should behave.

Would you not agree that it would be a bad thing if someone wanted to murder you? If you think it wrong for other people to do things to you without your consent, surely it is not purely subjective whether it would be wrong for you to do the same things to someone else?

Are you familiar with the Golden Rule? Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies summed it up pretty neatly: Do As You Would Be Done By. Much ethics is based on this axiom. Why you should live by this common sense rule is much harder to define.

In terms of communities it is easier if one appears to do so, as being known as an amoral git only looking out for oneself rarely makes it easy to have good relationships with others.

Whether this is carried over to surreptitious banana theft, where you are unlikely to be found out, is where the gamble comes in. How important is reputation?

Food for thought?

Pimms

Some good points indeed Pimms! I still feel that in order to maintain community, the 'concept' of Good & Bad are essential as yard sticks for behavior. When a new male Lion becomes the Leader of the Pride, it will systematically kill all lion cubs not of it's own. This is neither good or bad to them, just the way it is! The point I was making was indeed as you said, but regardless of my own feelings or reactions if someone wanted to kill me (why I can't imagine), the base reaction of good or bad is still only a human justification for/against their actions.

Mad Hamish
(Sailing the sea of cheese, on a Dorito)

MadH
'only a human justification'? The foundation of this discussion (as I understand it) is Life's Little Dilemmas and how one responds to them. It presupposes the ability to comprehend and make (rational) decisions.

I don't imagine there would be much opposition to your stance that it is only meaningful to judge an action good or evil if the actor has the ability to comprehend the value of their actions (lions in your example, but I'd guess you'd allow those who are criminally insane as well).

So assuming no criminally insane people read this (Bwaaahahaha!) it is fair to allow value judgements on researcher's predilictions for theft (or angelic restraint )

Pimms
if all the world were doritos and cheese
and Researchers were made to think
of all the bars in all the world,
from which belly would they drink?

Very True, very true. I suppose the point I was trying to make, in a round about way(alchohol does this) was that, the human obsession with 'right and wrong' has becomes unhealthy and a very easy way to justify and satisfy the human need for judgement. So to bitch and moan about the little foibles of life, such as a stolen chocky-bar seems to me to be a bit inconsequential really. I just get a tad 'narky' when some people (yourself excluded) spray off about judgement calls that are not only not theirs to make, but turn them into major drama's because they live in a small world.
So, yes, I would take a flatmates chocolate bar, but I would also replace it later(so I could then eat that one at a later date! Aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahcoughcoughsplutter, damn cigars)

Mad Hamish
(Learning to knit with fencing foils)

I find myself somewhat more absolutist than MadHamish, but I get the point. For example, my girlfriend goes to school in a rather conservative Christian college. It's only this past year that they've recognized ballet as being a legitimate art, having previously viewed it as dancing, which leads to sex and was therefore evil. I know, it's really bad.

Now me, I'm way more liberal than that (and luckily so is my girlfriend). So I like to compare different people at her school, all of whom belive they alone know what's right and wrong, even though they all have clearly different beliefs and levels of strictness.

It's really interesting to see how badly they deal with temptation. There's little admission of premarital sex, yet girls withdraw from school due to 'medical problems'. Which I think is pretty funny, as I don't see pregnancy as a medical problem (maybe an economic/social one). Drinking is prohibited, as is smoking. Technically, boys and girls aren't allowed to be alone together in rooms. And most of the students are on the lookout for each other. As a result, they are all quite uptight, insanely obsessed with sex (though not having it), and making bad decisions such as marrying young to alleviate the physical needs.

So I think they're quite silly, but I still think there is an absolute right and wrong. The biblical "Love your neighbor as yourself" generally holds true across all cultures/civilizations. I really don't mind if two people who love each other have sex. In a broader sense, there are natural urges people have that don't necessarily hurt anybody, and if you call that 'temptation', then you are in for problems with self-control and guilt and feelings of frustration. You still shouldn't cheat/steal/defraud someone out of anything (and that includes sex where it's happening on false pretenses such as booze or lies), because that violates "love your neighbor as youself".

So I'm all for booze and lovemaking and chocolate, so long as I give to the poor and don't hurt anybody in the process. Temptation, ho!!!

Why aren't ther more pedants agreeing with my nitpicking use of the word dilemma, rather than delphic oracles and earnest people discussing the requested issue of ethics as it relates to everyday life?

I think I'll go on a bender.

Pimms

Pimms- Could it be that you are putting too much thought into matters such as these. as the old saying goes,"the more you look the more you find". Relax! I have a theory on life in general that has seen me through most dramas(and one or two police cells). When faced with dilemma's such as these, ask yourself, "Is this life or death? if the answer is yes, don't do it. If the answer is no, then please yourself. Eat the chocolate, it's only food! Kiss your mates girlfriend, if she let you do it she's not good enough for your friend anyway!
Now I know that this makes me appear selfish and rude, and in truth, that is about the size of it, but at least I am honest.

MadHamish
(In Antartica ,fighting a polar bear with a leather flying helmet and a stick of wet celery.)

Surely - a difficult three-way choice (with three horns) is a "Trilemma" ?