When do you choose your own happiness over what is morally right?

Sticking to my morals makes me happy. I don’t feel that the two are mutually exclusive. Some people choose their greed over their morals, but I could never do that.

when I used to buy meat from farmers who reared their animals in poor conditions

@essieness I don’t mean to imply they are mutually exclusive. Was just thinking about possibilities where they might be.

n/m

I keep choosing what’s best for the greater good over what might make me happy at the moment and it’s beginning to manifest in negative bitter feelings to where I consider acting out in ways that go against the very things I most strongly believe in. It’ll be a challenge for me to get beyond myself and still have some dignity left.

@lynneblundell That’s a great example, and I’m with you there.

That reminds me that nearly every time I make a purchase, I am required to throw some packaging away. I am morally opposed to garbage, yes, and I only do minor things to cut down on my impact (carrying my own coffee mug, bringing canvas bags for shopping). But look at this list of communities that have moved or are moving towards zero waste! http://www.zwia.org/zwc.html

@creatrixe My hubby works for a company that has approximately 97% zero waste. His job is to maintain that. It is so refreshing that there are companies out there with these values. And guess what? It isn’t hard to do. Well from this standpoint. They are a huge company and their trash output is so so small. They recycle, reuse, and compost. More companies should jump on board because it really isn’t that difficult.

I think the two are intertwined. It could be argued that happiness is best achieved through leading a moral life.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic Exactly.

i think most people will respond in a way that’s very dependent upon a specific situation. for example, suppose you have direct knowledge that a family member committed a crime. how would you react? i bet for most of us our response would depend on the crime committed while for others family is family no matter what.

@RedPowerLady He must feel so proud to work there! My company is virtually paperless, but the guys here go to McDonald’s every day and the garbage piles up. How do you deal with employees who refuse to make their own lunches? Is that where the 3% waste comes from?

I’m going to try to find a way to bring this up at work. Good inspiration.

The flesh is weak, the spirit divine.

@creatrixe I’m going to ask hubby about that. I was going to say recycle but you can’t recycle anything with food products on it so that is waste. I know some of their waste is exactly that, because they are an herb factory so they can’t avoid food products altogether. That is why I think most people bring their own lunches, because they are working at an herb place, takes a certain kinda employee, mostly ones that are already environmentally conscious.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic So there has never been a circumstance where the two were seperate? I totally agree that they are intertwined, i am talking about the circumstances in which they are not.

@avalmez I’m okay with people responding that way. Would provide an interesting answer in the least.

@RedPowerLady not sure i get your comment and so that you get my point. i guess my essential comment is that all are found wanting and theerfore none moral, in absolute terms at least. note in my prior comment i left no room for the person who would report a crime in all cases regardless of the nature of the crime, such as jay walking.

@avalmez You are right, i didn’t get your initial comment, thank you kindly for clarifying.

You do always choose your personal good over the morally right: When doing something you consider morally right, you try to get a good conscience and consider yourself ‘good’. So it’s just one way of being egoistic!

@James17555 Ahhh that is a very interesting point!
Along a similar lines I enjoy the question: “is there any unselfish act?”

Back to the comment about turning a family member in for a crime, that seems a perfect example of what the original question asks.
I think of the unibomber’s brother who faced this and what happened.
It is a tough dilema, could you, would you turn in your sibling? Your child? Would of depend on the crime?
Those are hard questions for me to answer…. What does that say about my morals?

Whenever I eat meat or animal products.

Which is, unfortunately, a lot.

@basp without giving specific examples, is seems clear that morals can come into conflict with each other and that’s when the going gets tough. who’s to claim loyalty to family is not moral?

and in any quandary that presents alternative reactions, different people can chose a different alternative and still each feel fine about their choice. the saying, “to thine own self be true” (the egoism referred to above) i think presumes a certain correctness or moraility of the self.

it’s when the self is damaged (persons referred in the q, e.g.) that the morality of the self becomes relative in a extent that is obvious to all reasonable people that somethings gone wrong with that person.

i’m certain that i’m not expressing myself clearly above, but i guess my bottomline is that no one is absolutely moral even within their own set of moral values. and, that is not necessarily “evil”.

secondly, although morality is relative, there are a core set of values that reasonable people will agree to – the law certainly attempts to capture this core set, but not everyone will agree that every law is moral. that’s why we have a judicial system.

@RedPowerLady Sometimes doing the right thing is the most difficult thing in the world to do.

Sometimes you may not even feel good about doing the right thing but it always feels better than doing the wrong thing.

There’s also the idea that right and wrong, moral and immoral are not absolutes but rather subjective labels. I think that may be a discussion for another question lest I digress too much.

Avalmez
You make some good points. And, at the same time, I think it is good to question, to explore where and how limits are set individually and collectively.

I don’t analyze every choice I make, but on the times when there may be a conflict, I would lean very heavily in favor of the moral/ethical choice.

@basp so pose a theoretical you think will provide insight

@yarnlady suppose the moral/ethical is not clear or conflicts exist among ur set of moral values

I guess I think this is a false dichotomy. If you look at the long term, doing the morally correct thing is always better. It is only in the short term that you might be happy doing the wrong thing.

For example, I would tell an employer a serious weakness for the job, rather than pretending I have something I don’t have. I didn’t want to get caught needing to know something I didn’t know if I got the job under false pretences.

As it happened, I got the job anyway, and they appreciated my honesty. They said I could learn what I didn’t know, on the job. That worked out well.

I have employees (grad students) who go on the job market during the time they work for me. They take varying strategies. One took this “running scared” strategy. She applied for 100 positions, and was running around doing all these interviews. She was just desperate. I told her I thought she should do maybe 20 applications targetted to places she really wanted to work.

She didn’t take my advice. She got a position. A year later, she called me to ask if I would be a reference. It turns out she hated her job, and wanted to get out of academia and go into business. If she had been honest with herself, I think she would have found something much more suitable. But her focus was purely on the short term, and maintaining her visa. Short term happiness; long term unhappiness.

@daloon I like the thought process about short -term versus long-term happiness.

Thanks, @RedPowerLady. I think it has applications all over the place, but especially in business. The focus on short term goals has lead directly to this huge recession. Unfortunately, the traders didn’t just hurt themselves, they hurt a lot of other people, as well.

If a business focusses on providing a quality product, and they care about customers, and they grow slowly, I think they will do well over the long term. Fast moving confidence tricksters will often find their way into prison. Like Bernard Madoff. And the Enron assholes.

hey! former Enron guy here! And, I had nothing to do with events/acts that led to the downfall of what was a great company but was led by management to a tragic end. I may otherwise be an asshole, but not as a result of my relationship with Enron :) Many decent folks working for the company got hit hard

and, what’s more, when the right thing to do is clear, your analysis works. when it’s not so clear, or when it becomes clear after the fact, or when not doing what others might consider the “right” thing might be the best thing to do, life just ain’t so much a clear dichotomy that indicates how to act.

@avalmez: I believe people have a choice about where to work and many other things. I have never worked for a large corporation because a) they wouldn’t have me and b) I don’t trust them. If you work in the energy industry, you have to know that there is a good chance that shady things are happening. It’s not like it hasn’t been in the news, over and over.

I believe that privates have just as much responsibility for the army as generals do. We all have a moral obligation to stand up for what is right (although, yet again, I would never join the armed services).

As to the murky crystal ball—I don’t think it’s all that murky. The information is there if you pay attention. You may not be privy to all that goes on, but you have to feel it, if you let yourself. Were you really surprised at what went down?

Now when I said Enron assholes, I was really thinking about top leadership, not all the other employees. I don’t know you, so I can’t say anything about you, although, I assume you live (or lived) in Texas, and that already casts doubt on you. (Ouch, ouch, stop it. I’m kidding, I’m kidding) ;-)

In any case, it would be really interesting if you could come up with some of those not-so-clear situations to see what people think the moral thing to do would be. It’s always fun to discuss those things.

@daloon as a native texan i subscribe fully to the “American by birth, Texan by the grace of God” maxim. So. i get your doubt and give you the benefit of the doubt about that.

here’s a case that really results from another thread. The question raised was is it possible to be in a passionate, intimate and loving relationship that doesn’t involve sex.

my response was that in non-familial relationships or relationships where one partner is impaired (sexually), i think that consummation of the relationship is the ultimate and natural outcome of such a relationship. I then stated that i know of cases where an impaired partner grants the other leave to seek sexual solace elsewhere.

you can check that thread out for more details. but, i actually thought it’s intersting to consider the morality of such a situation – a loving and intimate couple that is unable to consummate their relationship and so grants the functional member of that couple to seek sexual solace elsewhere.

is that an ultimate expression of love and concern for the physical needs of the impaired partner for the other, or it it immoral?

and, no one can presume to work in an industry or for a company expecting that there’s a good chance that nothing shady will not take place – come on, that’s almost lame with all due respect.

@RedPowerLady Well, an unselfish act is impossible as well. You always do things to profit yourself. Even Remoeo and Juliet as an example: Juliet dies because she couldn’t live without him. It’s in no way altruistic. Love, especially, is the most selfish feeling in the world!

Buying only fair trade certified products would be morally right. And I do buy some of those products e.g. coffee. But it would make me very unhappy having always to spend an extra hour going from shop to shop or to spend extra time online. I’m a commuter often stuck in heavy traffic and I’ve got a demanding day job. It would also be morally right to use the train or always walk or take the bike instead of the car. But on windy and rainy days this would make me very unhappy.

@avalmez: Well, I’m sure my view is skewed. For most of my life, I’ve been working for various political causes; one of which, in my early career, was fighting “Big Earl.” This was during the first oil crisis. I have to wonder what would have happened the last two or three years if some of our proposals had been implemented.

@James17555 I can’t argue with you on that. But I am determined to, one of these days, think of an unselfish act.