Money... the root of all evil! - Page 2

chotadipo · (#11 (**permalink**))

>I contend that the root of all evil is plain and simply a
>failure in empathy. The second one fails to empathize with
>another human beings plight, is the second immorality becomes
>not just possible, but inevitable
>
Death, I think you meant altruism, since Empathy assumes the victim is disadvantaged. Do you expect me to Empathise with a rich robber? But I can show altruism towards him because as a human being, I feel he is one of us and deserves better.

This brings me to my point that it is Ethics that dictate how someone will handle a situation. While you may see a situation that looks like it was accted upon through a 'don't care' perspective, it could just be that he had his own set of Ethics that he was basing his actions on.

ngong · (#12 (**permalink**))

Money doesn't cause evil, people cause evil.

Death · (#13 (**permalink**))

>Death, I think you meant altruism, since Empathy assumes the
>victim is disadvantaged.

No, actually I meant exactly what I said. Evil acts by definition put someone else at a disadvantage, hence it is empathy that is required to deter an individual from commiting said acts. e.g The rich robber, would not rob someone if they could empathize with the position of an individual being robbed, hence no rich robber to begin with.

>This brings me to my point that it is Ethics that dictate how
>someone will handle a situation.

You do know an ethical standard and the motivation to follow that standard are NOT the same thing. It's a statistical fact, that the majority of the criminals in prisons today, know and acknowledge what they did was wrong, but they still did it anyway (I myself can think of a number of things I've done, which at the time of doing, I knew were wrong, but I still did them anyway). The bottom line, is that Ethics are simply nothing more than a guide line of how someone SHOULD live their lives...how they actually choose to live them, is another story altogether. Having everyone agreeing that the murder of an innocent person is wrong (which 99% of the world does right now) will not stop murder from occuring.