Morality?

[Rob4Hope]

I'm gunna ask a question that isn't meant to be silly or shallow.

Why be ethical?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and realize one of the biggest reasons why many people choose to "obey the law" is because they are afraid of being caught and punished. When I think about morality in general (being a kind honest person), I am bewildered by the teachings in he BoM that influenced me, and it makes me angry. Do you realize that the punishment in that book is .... << drum roll >> .... you feel bad? And that "bad feeling" makes you shrink from the presence of God?

I know a LOT of people who have done some really nasty mean and illegal things. They don't feel bad at all. They feel pissed they got caught, and they also feel superior when they don't get caught.

So, you are telling me that the "punishment" for being a creep is ... you feel bad?

If we take the punishment side out, I can think of a few practical reasons why being a moral person is valuable:
1. It allows people to form bonds of trust which facilitates community
2. Its more constructive in nature and allows building things, not just community
3. It can be something valued for its own sake. Just being a good person....
4. Etc.

But, there are some people who I consider VERY immoral who have benefited by being parasites of the system. They live lives that--to be frank--are much more lavish than mine, much more comfortable than mine, much easier than mine.

So, what be a moral person? What benefit is there, and what benefit by being an immoral person?

[Linked]

I find myself drawn to fairness. I recognize that perfect fairness is impossible and striving too much for it can lead to tilting at windmills and missing your life. But it is the engine for my morality. To me it is it's own good. Trying to be fair drives me to:

- Pick up my litter
- Clean up after myself
- Do my share of work at work
- Not cut people off on the road
- Turn off my cell phone at the movies
- Understand my kids before yelling at them
- Pay the tip for both people at lunch because I ate half the dessert the other guy paid for
- Not kill people

I think this is closely tied to the golden rule. It is not my only morality engine, but it's probably the loudest.

If I'm honest the next loudest (or maybe the loudest) is wanting to be in good graces of those around me. Social pressure is a big driver for me. And I think that is probably pretty normal. Humanity couldn't have the super communities we do without lots of pro social behavior, where the good of the community comes before the good of the individual naturally; by rewarding caving to social pressure more than individualistic and anti-social behavior in the majority of people.

[alas]

Yes, there are some people who have no clue about morality and they seem happy. Take 45 for example. Powerful position, lots of money, beautiful wife. Do you think he is happy? My years studying psychology tell me that he is pretty miserable. A narcissi is only happy when he is getting lots of love and adoration. Which with the lowest approval rating of any president for his first year of office, he isn't getting.

But the important question for each of us is not are people who lack morals happy, but would *I* be happy screwing other people over? You know, Rob, I don't know you in real life, but somehow I don't think you would like yourself if you treated other people dishonestly or unkindly.

[Palerider]

Before making comment, can you give me a specific reference from the BoM?

[LaMachina]

I think maybe you're coming at the question backwards. You state that acting immorally or unethically can make us feel 'bad' and that, in and of itself, maybe isn't a good enough motivator.

But the BoM also states 'men are that they might have joy' and that is what we're all desperately seeking. We all want happiness but we're not always wise about how we seek it.

The famed Greek philosophers were all quite convinced that happiness, true happiness as always mentioned by the TSCC, isn't attainable by possesions or good fortune or religion alone but only by leading a virtuous, courageous and principled life. I find their position pretty convincing.

I also enjoy the following quotes from Marcus Aurelius:

Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

[dogbite]

Ad hoc arbitrariness is the problem all traditional religions share. Blind consensus covers this arbitrariness over, but as soon as you start asking questions, it becomes ever more obvious. Ethics and meta-ethics represent attempts to rationalize this arbitrariness, but can never seem to bootstrap any scheme out of the mire of philosophical disputation, leading to the suspicion that they too, are arbitrary. The suspicion in our world is that moral authority basically boils down to power. The fact in the World is that this arbitrariness is an objective feature of reality. Since modern readers rely on modern versions of blind consensus, the idea was to write a fantasy that would grate against moral sensibilities, calling attention to the plight of all morality in the modern age

Another disturbing quote from Scott Bakker

[Rob4Hope]

Before making comment, can you give me a specific reference from the BoM?

Mosiah 2:38 Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.

Sounds like you end up feeling bad, but feeling bad on steroids.

Lets face it. Some people do bad things,...and they don't feel all that bad.

[Rob4Hope]

Yes, there are some people who have no clue about morality and they seem happy. Take 45 for example. Powerful position, lots of money, beautiful wife. Do you think he is happy? My years studying psychology tell me that he is pretty miserable. A narcissi is only happy when he is getting lots of love and adoration. Which with the lowest approval rating of any president for his first year of office, he isn't getting.

But the important question for each of us is not are people who lack morals happy, but would *I* be happy screwing other people over? You know, Rob, I don't know you in real life, but somehow I don't think you would like yourself if you treated other people dishonestly or unkindly.

There was something that precipitated my starting this thread. I've got a boss who is a TYRANT! He is hated by most, feared by all, and mostly on good days a mild jerk at best. He got to his position in part by being a jerk. He gets paid for being like that as well, at least to a degree. It benefits him. And I will say in all honesty, I've had my fantasies of getting even. It was this whole turn of events with some things that happened this past week that got me thinking about this whole topic.

When I went through my faith crisis, I seriously questioned the existence of God. But as I did that, I also realized that external control, or having the "locus" of authority being external to me (think Fowler's stages of faith here), also made me consider that right/wrong were things beyond my control. Why?...because they were outside of me. With the shift of authority moving inside, I was left with the CRAZY (and at the time frightening) idea that maybe right and wrong literally is what I choose it to be. If that is the case, then right/wrong could be different for other people as well--not universal. So, does that mean what one person does as they 'screw someone over' is not even considered bad or wrong?...and hence they don't feel bad about it?

Morality is such a fickle thing!

For years in the good old USA, we had this interesting thing called black slavery. There were MANY people, including many LDS authorities, who felt it was a good thing for the black people. Why?...because they were born to it! Yeh right...I reject that flat out. But, I can't ignore that there were many who felt ethically justified in the practice. For them (not speaking for myself and trying hard to keep my own sense of ethical right/wrong out of it) was it really a 'wrong' or 'immoral' practice?

This is just one example of many!

I've concluded and actually was forced to conclude because of how painful my own faith crisis and transition was, that morality is literally and ONLY what I make it. I believe there is a right/wrong in life. And it doesn't matter what others believe, because I GET TO HOLD WHAT I BELIEVE INSIDE ME.

But, I have been thinking a little harder about this topic. Its a paradox for me. If there is no universal right/wrong, then just about anything can be justified, and who am I to decide what others do, even if it hurts me or those I care about.

PS. I think someone said something about "power" up their in a prior post?

I agree with this at the macro level. Those in power decide what is right/wrong. Or at least at the macro level, they choose. Wasn't gay marriage considered wrong at the macro level for most of the history of this country? Those in power made that rule.

[Rob4Hope]

Let me open up this topic in the context of "seeking the greater good"....as a justification of the "ends justifies the means".

I personally believe this idea is unethical, but there are many who don't. Let me give you some examples of what I mean taken from people I know, or things I have read:

1. Guantanamo Bay torture. If it saves American lives, then any means is justified, including scooping up people and torturing them. I know two people personally who believe this. Hence, if people are tortured to death, or into insanity, as long as it is for the purpose of protecting American lives, it is totally fine.
2. Black Slavery in the USA. I mentioned this in a past post. There were a LOT OF PEOPLE who felt it was more moral to hold slaves in possession than to not. Blacks were considered by many as an inferior race by birth, and as the result, the practice was justified, even beneficial to the group.
3. Communism. There have been a lot of people who felt and still do that control of property by the state and the organized approach of doing that to ensure benefit to all, is justified....regardless of whether it works or not. Think Social Security, the biggest legal Ponzi scheme of them all IMHO.
4. Harvesting of organs. There are people who have the means to purchase organs on the black market for those they love--like a child. They believe the ends justify the means, so regardless of where the organ comes from, they believe it is right to do this.
5. The inferiority of race. Think of the people who turned in their neighbors who were Jews because they supported the law and felt there was a good reason to do it.

All of these things have to do with what people believe (or at least that is what I want to bring out). To those people, some actually believe it. Does that make them immoral if there is no 'universal' right or wrong?

Tribalism seems to be an innate human condition. Were we born wrong because that is how we typically are at birth?

Oh, and one last big one. There are many who believe that homosexuality is immoral, period. They believe it is an affront to nature, God, and the human race. They use their influence legally and in some cases illegally, to carry out their agenda. In their minds, they ARE NOT WRONG or being unethical. So, are they wrong doing this because others may believe differently?

Like I said in another post, morality is such a fickle topic!

[Thoughtful]

Laurence Kohlberg wrote about how people process their morality based on his Heinz dilemma. Carol Gilligan expanded it to include women's ways of thinking, and Haidt wrote more recently about the pillars on which moral decisions are made. These are all good places to dive in if you haven't read them.

Based on your comments above, "many people" this is like where Kohlberg places kids, but some adults, the idea that punishment is the reason we don't do xyz. Behaviorism, would tend to agree it is all a function of rewards and punishments.

In talking to people, I think a lot of the people actually rely on hermeneutics and make their decisions based on that. My Spouseman is an example of this. He is less interested in changing his behavior based on church history due to the fact that it would involve changing the mental shortcuts on which he evaluates his decisions. That sounds very simplistic, and he's not a simple person at all. He just is too busy with diverse responsibilities in his professional and academic life to make any huge changes, and the cog dis hasn't caught up yet (he's probably too busy to think about cog dis, so the hermeneutics keep working).

I like "do no harm" and enjoy evaluating potential harm that could occur. That's part of my job though, and it's enjoyable to me. Before I entered this field, I was into that as well, including not only people, butt also animals and the earth. For example, I like to relate tithing back to things like composting or giving my chickens treats from table scraps, and this donation of a surplus results in the bounty my garden and hens provide. To me, tithing in this way feels good and moral, because it's mutually beneficial to the things in my stewardship and consequently to myself. City Creek as a function of "tithing" feels less moral as its merely a for profit venture for the church, and benefits no one, and the kick backs are for the church, not the people who donated.

When I think about people who are unethical, there are two types, those who just don't care and seem to end up in jail fairly quickly, vs. those who are manipulative and try to appear moral while exploiting others and even preaching about their own morality or attempting to lead others. I can name 5-6 Of these in my ward, and 1-2 in my workplace, and another handful in my clientele. These are the ones that send my alarm bells ringing. I call it my manipulation radar. These people I see as purely self interested.

[Rob4Hope]

Laurence Kohlberg wrote about how people process their morality based on his Heinz dilemma. Carol Gilligan expanded it to include women's ways of thinking, and Haidt wrote more recently about the pillars on which moral decisions are made. These are all good places to dive in if you haven't read them.

Based on your comments above, "many people" this is like where Kohlberg places kids, but some adults, the idea that punishment is the reason we don't do xyz. Behaviorism, would tend to agree it is all a function of rewards and punishments.

In talking to people, I think a lot of the people actually rely on hermeneutics and make their decisions based on that. My Spouseman is an example of this. He is less interested in changing his behavior based on church history due to the fact that it would involve changing the mental shortcuts on which he evaluates his decisions. That sounds very simplistic, and he's not a simple person at all. He just is too busy with diverse responsibilities in his professional and academic life to make any huge changes, and the cog dis hasn't caught up yet (he's probably too busy to think about cog dis, so the hermeneutics keep working).

I like "do no harm" and enjoy evaluating potential harm that could occur. That's part of my job though, and it's enjoyable to me. Before I entered this field, I was into that as well, including not only people, butt also animals and the earth. For example, I like to relate tithing back to things like composting or giving my chickens treats from table scraps, and this donation of a surplus results in the bounty my garden and hens provide. To me, tithing in this way feels good and moral, because it's mutually beneficial to the things in my stewardship and consequently to myself. City Creek as a function of "tithing" feels less moral as its merely a for profit venture for the church, and benefits no one, and the kick backs are for the church, not the people who donated.

When I think about people who are unethical, there are two types, those who just don't care and seem to end up in jail fairly quickly, vs. those who are manipulative and try to appear moral while exploiting others and even preaching about their own morality or attempting to lead others. I can name 5-6 Of these in my ward, and 1-2 in my workplace, and another handful in my clientele. These are the ones that send my alarm bells ringing. I call it my manipulation radar. These people I see as purely self interested.

I'm glad I am on this site. You folks are WAY more informed than I am with so much of this. <<sigh>>

I have to say something personal: I was blessed and cursed with something--curiosity. It has been my best friend and worst enemy. Why?...because it leads to learning, and at the same time informs me with how ignorant and unlearned I really am.

[Thoughtful]

I'm glad I am on this site. You folks are WAY more informed than I am with so much of this. <<sigh>>

I have to say something personal: I was blessed and cursed with something--curiosity. It has been my best friend and worst enemy. Why?...because it leads to learning, and at the same time informs me with how ignorant and unlearned I really am.

I'm the same way, I'm afraid. There's never been any question on the color of the pill for me. I want to know.

[alas]

Laurence Kohlberg wrote about how people process their morality based on his Heinz dilemma. Carol Gilligan expanded it to include women's ways of thinking, and Haidt wrote more recently about the pillars on which moral decisions are made. These are all good places to dive in if you haven't read them.

Based on your comments above, "many people" this is like where Kohlberg places kids, but some adults, the idea that punishment is the reason we don't do xyz. Behaviorism, would tend to agree it is all a function of rewards and punishments.

In talking to people, I think a lot of the people actually rely on hermeneutics and make their decisions based on that. My Spouseman is an example of this. He is less interested in changing his behavior based on church history due to the fact that it would involve changing the mental shortcuts on which he evaluates his decisions. That sounds very simplistic, and he's not a simple person at all. He just is too busy with diverse responsibilities in his professional and academic life to make any huge changes, and the cog dis hasn't caught up yet (he's probably too busy to think about cog dis, so the hermeneutics keep working).

I like "do no harm" and enjoy evaluating potential harm that could occur. That's part of my job though, and it's enjoyable to me. Before I entered this field, I was into that as well, including not only people, butt also animals and the earth. For example, I like to relate tithing back to things like composting or giving my chickens treats from table scraps, and this donation of a surplus results in the bounty my garden and hens provide. To me, tithing in this way feels good and moral, because it's mutually beneficial to the things in my stewardship and consequently to myself. City Creek as a function of "tithing" feels less moral as its merely a for profit venture for the church, and benefits no one, and the kick backs are for the church, not the people who donated.

When I think about people who are unethical, there are two types, those who just don't care and seem to end up in jail fairly quickly, vs. those who are manipulative and try to appear moral while exploiting others and even preaching about their own morality or attempting to lead others. I can name 5-6 Of these in my ward, and 1-2 in my workplace, and another handful in my clientele. These are the ones that send my alarm bells ringing. I call it my manipulation radar. These people I see as purely self interested.

I'm glad I am on this site. You folks are WAY more informed than I am with so much of this. <<sigh>>

I have to say something personal: I was blessed and cursed with something--curiosity. It has been my best friend and worst enemy. Why?...because it leads to learning, and at the same time informs me with how ignorant and unlearned I really am.

One of my professors used to say that knowledge leads to more questions, so the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. So the humble person realizes how much they don't know and is open and searching for more knowledge.

I also recommend Kohlberg but be sure to take the side trip to study Carol Gilligan. When I first studied Kohlberg, I felt like he was missing something major, because I followed his theory up to a point and then said, no that is wrong, dead wrong. It is a "higher" or better reason for morality to not hurt other people than it is to self centered lay say, "I am not the sort of person to do that." It just struck me as selfish and self centered to be more concerned with how I feel inside of me than to consider the damage I might do to someone else. In my opinion, Kohlberg had not himself made it to the highest level and neither had the male psychology teacher. Funny that Kohlberg thought most women didn't make it to the "top" level and I am sitting there thinking that I have outgrown their " top" level and the Kohlberb is misunderstanding what the women are saying because it is "all Greek to him". The women were not using the same language as he was so he could not even see that their reasons were better than his. But what really happens is a sideways split (at least according to men, I still think women's reasoning is better)

And yes morality is complicated with some things not black or white. For example, in the criminal justice system I have frequently heard that putting one innocent man behind bars is worse than letting 100 murderers go free. But that is pretending that those 100 free murderers are not going to kill again and again. Say 50 of those murderers do it again. Isn't the life of the 50 new murder victims more important than the one guy who might have been locked up unjustly if the attitude was that it is more important to get the criminals off the street? So, maybe it is not better to let untold numbers of murderers go free to do it again, because if only one of them murders again, it has cost a life that was just as important and innocent as that one innocent sent to jail. Consider when someone gets off and then does kill again. The public is outraged. The public does not feel that that one murderer going free was better than putting an innocent man in jail. So, which is it? Should our criminal justice system err in the direction of protecting the public, or err in protecting the innocent accused? Hell, I don't know.

It's complicated. The trick is to figure it out the best we can.

[Rob4Hope]

Laurence Kohlberg wrote about how people process their morality based on his Heinz dilemma. Carol Gilligan expanded it to include women's ways of thinking, and Haidt wrote more recently about the pillars on which moral decisions are made. These are all good places to dive in if you haven't read them.

Based on your comments above, "many people" this is like where Kohlberg places kids, but some adults, the idea that punishment is the reason we don't do xyz. Behaviorism, would tend to agree it is all a function of rewards and punishments.

In talking to people, I think a lot of the people actually rely on hermeneutics and make their decisions based on that. My Spouseman is an example of this. He is less interested in changing his behavior based on church history due to the fact that it would involve changing the mental shortcuts on which he evaluates his decisions. That sounds very simplistic, and he's not a simple person at all. He just is too busy with diverse responsibilities in his professional and academic life to make any huge changes, and the cog dis hasn't caught up yet (he's probably too busy to think about cog dis, so the hermeneutics keep working).

I like "do no harm" and enjoy evaluating potential harm that could occur. That's part of my job though, and it's enjoyable to me. Before I entered this field, I was into that as well, including not only people, butt also animals and the earth. For example, I like to relate tithing back to things like composting or giving my chickens treats from table scraps, and this donation of a surplus results in the bounty my garden and hens provide. To me, tithing in this way feels good and moral, because it's mutually beneficial to the things in my stewardship and consequently to myself. City Creek as a function of "tithing" feels less moral as its merely a for profit venture for the church, and benefits no one, and the kick backs are for the church, not the people who donated.

When I think about people who are unethical, there are two types, those who just don't care and seem to end up in jail fairly quickly, vs. those who are manipulative and try to appear moral while exploiting others and even preaching about their own morality or attempting to lead others. I can name 5-6 Of these in my ward, and 1-2 in my workplace, and another handful in my clientele. These are the ones that send my alarm bells ringing. I call it my manipulation radar. These people I see as purely self interested.

I'm glad I am on this site. You folks are WAY more informed than I am with so much of this. <<sigh>>

I have to say something personal: I was blessed and cursed with something--curiosity. It has been my best friend and worst enemy. Why?...because it leads to learning, and at the same time informs me with how ignorant and unlearned I really am.

One of my professors used to say that knowledge leads to more questions, so the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. So the humble person realizes how much they don't know and is open and searching for more knowledge.

I also recommend Kohlberg but be sure to take the side trip to study Carol Gilligan. When I first studied Kohlberg, I felt like he was missing something major, because I followed his theory up to a point and then said, no that is wrong, dead wrong. It is a "higher" or better reason for morality to not hurt other people than it is to self centered lay say, "I am not the sort of person to do that." It just struck me as selfish and self centered to be more concerned with how I feel inside of me than to consider the damage I might do to someone else. In my opinion, Kohlberg had not himself made it to the highest level and neither had the male psychology teacher. Funny that Kohlberg thought most women didn't make it to the "top" level and I am sitting there thinking that I have outgrown their " top" level and the Kohlberb is misunderstanding what the women are saying because it is "all Greek to him". The women were not using the same language as he was so he could not even see that their reasons were better than his. But what really happens is a sideways split (at least according to men, I still think women's reasoning is better)

And yes morality is complicated with some things not black or white. For example, in the criminal justice system I have frequently heard that putting one innocent man behind bars is worse than letting 100 murderers go free. But that is pretending that those 100 free murderers are not going to kill again and again. Say 50 of those murderers do it again. Isn't the life of the 50 new murder victims more important than the one guy who might have been locked up unjustly if the attitude was that it is more important to get the criminals off the street? So, maybe it is not better to let untold numbers of murderers go free to do it again, because if only one of them murders again, it has cost a life that was just as important and innocent as that one innocent sent to jail. Consider when someone gets off and then does kill again. The public is outraged. The public does not feel that that one murderer going free was better than putting an innocent man in jail. So, which is it? Should our criminal justice system err in the direction of protecting the public, or err in protecting the innocent accused? Hell, I don't know.

It's complicated. The trick is to figure it out the best we can.

This is a REALLY good one Alas. The dilemma you pose here is similar to the Guantanamo one I mentioned above.

Its kindof sad that such a dilemma exists. If you were to ask the guy who got sacrificed in the prison, then he probably has an opinion, because ITS HIS LIFE!

Another interesting dilemma is the attempted suicides in prisons. It seems the "moral?" majority thinks capital punishment is wrong. But you then have people in prison, often those in Super Max environments, go absolutely nuts and attempt suicide. They are stopped from doing that, strapped down into restraints where they can't move for extended periods of time, drugged up, and put back in their cells. The only way out for them (so many indicate) is suicide. But, as a "moral" majority, we don't allow that. Oh no,...they don't get to choose. They need to sit and rot in that cell.

To me, this is a paradox...really. The same issues exist with the idea of mercifully letting someone die, like pulling the plug on their iron lung or removing the feeding tube. But in such cases, they are left to slowly starve or dehydrate, instead of being given a shot or something to end it.

This is all just part of the bigger paradox. It all comes back to what is considered ethical and not.

What a fascinating topic....and a bat sh1t crazy one all at once!

[Thoughtful]

Have any of you seen this "sociopath test"? I saw it on social media, no idea about validation.

You're in charge of the switch track and a train is going to crash. 5 people on board will die if you don't flip the switch, but if you do, one person walking on the other tracks will die.

Most people supposedly will flip the track.

But, what if you must personally push a person off an overpass to save the train of 5 people?

Supposedly only a sociopath experiences no distress at the choice to save five by directly killing one.

Though my personal thought is that the sociopaths I know wouldn't care either way assuming no one sees. They will do what benefits them most personally, including how other's perceptions of them would be manipulated by either choice, toward a supposed end that only benefits themselves. (ie. Manipulating people's perceptions to better their own life, not to actually be or be regarded as better). So I don't assume a sociopath would reduce it to 5>1 and automatically kill.

Anyway, that's a random tangent.

[alas]

Have any of you seen this "sociopath test"? I saw it on social media, no idea about validation.

You're in charge of the switch track and a train is going to crash. 5 people on board will die if you don't flip the switch, but if you do, one person walking on the other tracks will die.

Most people supposedly will flip the track.

But, what if you must personally push a person off an overpass to save the train of 5 people?

Supposedly only a sociopath experiences no distress at the choice to save five by directly killing one.

Though my personal thought is that the sociopaths I know wouldn't care either way assuming no one sees. They will do what benefits them most personally, including how other's perceptions of them would be manipulated by either choice, toward a supposed end that only benefits themselves. (ie. Manipulating people's perceptions to better their own life, not to actually be or be regarded as better). So I don't assume a sociopath would reduce it to 5>1 and automatically kill.

Anyway, that's a random tangent.

The sociopath may want to watch the train crash all everybody die just for the fun of it.

And yes, Rob, if you get thinking too much about some of these things, you will go batshit crazy.

Meanwhile, this discussion is lots of fun, but my husbands wants me getting housework done, because the next few weeks are supper busy, and he has a point.

[Thoughtful]

Have any of you seen this "sociopath test"? I saw it on social media, no idea about validation.

You're in charge of the switch track and a train is going to crash. 5 people on board will die if you don't flip the switch, but if you do, one person walking on the other tracks will die.

Most people supposedly will flip the track.

But, what if you must personally push a person off an overpass to save the train of 5 people?

Supposedly only a sociopath experiences no distress at the choice to save five by directly killing one.

Though my personal thought is that the sociopaths I know wouldn't care either way assuming no one sees. They will do what benefits them most personally, including how other's perceptions of them would be manipulated by either choice, toward a supposed end that only benefits themselves. (ie. Manipulating people's perceptions to better their own life, not to actually be or be regarded as better). So I don't assume a sociopath would reduce it to 5>1 and automatically kill.

Anyway, that's a random tangent.

The sociopath may want to watch the train crash all everybody die just for the fun of it.

Exactly. We really don't know, but it would depend on what that individual wants at the time, not about any sort of interest or compassion toward others.

[Rob4Hope]

So,...considering the scripture I listed above there...the one where the punishment is you feel bad?

I'm immediately thinking about BKP's talk about homosexuality, and how God would never allow someone to be born in such a way they couldn't do something about it. But, do you realize that if there is a genetic reason or something like that for being a sociopath, that the entire program is derailed right there?

If I read that Mosiah scripture right above there, you have to have a conscience to be punished for your sins. But, if someone has no conscience, then they are incapable of being punished.

So, what would a TBM say about that? If you ain't got the "light of Christ" in the first place?...you were born that way?....

God's plan apparently has some real problems. I would be interested in learning about the answer.

And, just so you know, I still know people who believe that black people will be resurrected white. That is how far some of his crap can go!