James E. Wilson, MD (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dr_conscience) wrote2009-09-17 09:18 pm
dr_conscience) wrote2009-09-17 09:18 pm
[21st consult]
Restrictions are... important. They keep order, they maintain guidelines, they keep society running, and, most importantly, they're usually put in place to protect people. In many, maybe even most cases where these restrictions are tested, they do accomplish just that. Unfortunately, in order to accomplish that in these cases, one arbitrary rule is put into place. That means there's no room for judgment, no flexibility. there can be no exceptions, because if you let one violation pass for one excuse, it makes it just that much more difficult to enforce that arbitrary rule.
This past weekend brought up a lot in the way of moral ambiguity, it seems. When is it right to do something that's generally considered wrong? Who decides what gain outweighs what loss, how do you determine when the balance is tipped?
People are capable of terrible things, but those same people who have done terrible things are still capable of good. Things aren't always clear, or clean-cut; there isn't pure good and pure evil, at least not in most worlds. If our moral alignment is merely the sum of our actions, how much weight do our intentions, our motivations, have when we're doing the math?
Whatever the case, these people did not deserve this. What they need, those who truly did deserve any form of incarceration, is rehabilitation, encouragement to better themselves, to make better choices, support; not torture and destruction. Even those who can't be reformed, who refuse to change, shouldn't be tormented. Just because the system is on your side, because you call it justice, doesn't make you torturing someone any less immoral.
We all make decisions we aren't proud of, mistakes we wish we hadn't. People have lapses in judgment that lead us to do things we normally know to be wrong, for whatever reason. It's part of being human, or... any equivalent thereof.
What matters most is what you take from those mistakes.
This past weekend brought up a lot in the way of moral ambiguity, it seems. When is it right to do something that's generally considered wrong? Who decides what gain outweighs what loss, how do you determine when the balance is tipped?
People are capable of terrible things, but those same people who have done terrible things are still capable of good. Things aren't always clear, or clean-cut; there isn't pure good and pure evil, at least not in most worlds. If our moral alignment is merely the sum of our actions, how much weight do our intentions, our motivations, have when we're doing the math?
Whatever the case, these people did not deserve this. What they need, those who truly did deserve any form of incarceration, is rehabilitation, encouragement to better themselves, to make better choices, support; not torture and destruction. Even those who can't be reformed, who refuse to change, shouldn't be tormented. Just because the system is on your side, because you call it justice, doesn't make you torturing someone any less immoral.
We all make decisions we aren't proud of, mistakes we wish we hadn't. People have lapses in judgment that lead us to do things we normally know to be wrong, for whatever reason. It's part of being human, or... any equivalent thereof.
What matters most is what you take from those mistakes.
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