The whole world is going insane. I think it has to do with tolerance.
In the old days, certain behavior was simply not tolerated. People exhibiting bad behavior were so thoroughly shamed and punished for it that they often managed to curb their worst impulses in order to avoid harsh consequences.
If that wasn’t enough, people were shunned, banished or institutionalized. In some cases incarcerated or executed.
Significantly, there were behaviors that, if exhibited, would cause the perpetrators to be removed from society and prevented from reproducing.
I think what we are seeing now is not only the consequence of too much lenience, and too little discipline, but also reverse evolution.
We are actually seeing violent and sociopathic traits being passed on from generation to generation. For a million years, strict taboos regulated human breeding - now it is a free-for-all since all morals standards are out the window.
Yes,
In a society where you throw out morals, what do you have left? So called ethics, which are man made, situational (self admitted) and highly inconsistent. What you are left with is what we call “ethics,” but what is that?
In a modern Western society, you basically have a form of mob rule. Whatever the majority feels is right, becomes right ethically (the new concept of right and wrong), legally, supposedly scientifically.
Since man is by nature a sinner always seduced by sloth, greed, gluttony, pride, envy, wrath and lust, the results are predictable long term in where such a society will end. Man is hedonistic: selfish, short sighted and emotional.
***Today’s society also has taboo’s, but these are defined by academics, politicians, lawyers, and Hollywood.***
Both the rules and those defining the new rules have changed.
The people defining society today have a far higher pay grade and more advanced education, they attend more prestigious schools, than those silly folks that defined things in the past. I’m sure their income, degree, and school will ensure the best possible outcome. /sarc
These new standards of social conduct are not rooted in function, cultural heritage and religion, nor nature.
Hence you end up with kids getting mutilated at 12 because it’s the newest fad with all this gender nonsense. We violate peoples privacy and destroy their livelihood with Covid because it was politically expedient at the time. We end up using tax money to pay for HIV preventative medicines (PrEP) worth $1,750 a month per person but do little for someone with cancer, diabetes, or heart disease which cannot be prevented with a condom. We aggressively recruit women into the armed forces despite a laundry list of issues and poor historical performance...
-Culture / ones ethnic history and religion
-Nature
-Function and empirical evidence, i.e. logical based decision making
-The concept of truth and being consistent and transparent
None of that plays a role in policy making anymore.
Today we believe that we can make it so by simply saying it is so. Repeat it often, cancel dissent, pretend science supports the cause (science is the logical/rational seal of approval even though very little is actually science): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
But that doesn’t answer the original question, what are ethics? They are no more than what the majority being steered by economic and socio-political forces can agree on. Ethics usually mirrors corporate and government policies as well as the law. Ethics are a non-doctrinal attempt at replacing morals in telling people what right and wrong is. Of course this is the nuance meaning and not how Webster will define it.
Ethics are highly inconsistent and can change by location and over time, in fact even between people (hate crimes, quota’s for hiring or college admission), it does not need to be transparent. Not even the Golden Rule needs followed by those that are ethical today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule
In an ethical system of thought, an abortionist can be a good guy.