A Definition of Ethics
The Internet says:
eth·ics[ˈeTHiks]nounmoral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity:"medical ethics also enter into the question""a code of ethics"Similar:moralsmoralityprinciplesidealscreedcredoethosthe moral correctness of specified conduct:the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles:"neither metaphysics nor ethics is the home of religion"
And if you drill down to morals, it SAYS:
moral[ˈmɒr(ə)l]adjectivenounconcerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour:"the moral dimensions of medical intervention""a moral judgement"Similar:virtuousgoodrighteousuprightupstandinghigh-mindedright-mindedholding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct:"he prides himself on being a highly moral and ethical person""he is a caring, moral man"
I could probably keep going and continue getting new layers of meaningless jabber.
By what metric are we measuring things like right and wrong behavior?
I have a life-threatening genetic disorder and I was molested as a child. In my experience, sex is the single biggest thing we freak out about over so-called ethics.
And also medical ethics is a big damn deal. In fact, medical outcomes are so strongly impacted by human behavior that there's no clear bright line between ethics and medical best practices.
Sex and public health have this in common: The actions of one individual can do enormous harm to a great many other people, even if those people ALL "behave ethically."
ONE lying jackass with an STD can seduce multiple women who ALL are good girls playing by the rules and imagine he's their boyfriend and this is a monogamous relationship and all of the good girls will get sick in spite of all being virgins when they met him and all being faithful and genuinely monogamously involved and believing he is also faithful.
ONE jackass can get multiple girls pregnant and be incapable of supporting all the resulting children and will ruin the lives of those women, ALL the innocent children and leave the ENTIRE community with a thorny problem with no good solutions because trying to remedy the harm to his victims is a giant burden for other people trying to make sure they eat and have housing etc. and effectively rewards him while not really getting the lives of the women and children entirely up to speed and on par with that of married gals.
Even though they themselves played by the rules and did nothing wrong morally.
The problem is we don't really talk about ethics in terms of trying to find ways to meet our own needs without harming other people.
Instead, we have a list of prescribed rules handed down from previous generations who learned the hard way that it SUCKS if you do X and then the world changes in some way and it sucks less and we think they are stupid.
And the rules are frequently individual rules where it makes no sense if you look at the whole picture.
There's a scene in All in the Family where Archie Bunker tells his daughter men are supposed to have experience before marriage and women aren't and she shoots back "Who are they supposed to get experience WITH?"
Someone once snarkily suggested to me the answer to this conundrum is obviously that widows should be deflowering young men so everyone can play by the rules.
Which is funny because you know the Archie Bunkers of the world would be OUTRAGED by that suggestion.
I find social analysis interesting generally. Like if you look at what happened, how and why did it go that way?
People tend to not like it when I talk about such things because most people think I'm justifying bad behavior or something like that.
As if pointing out that it's not possible for everyone to "be good boys and girls" and make society work when you have conflicting rules like that must be suggesting "Prostitution is morally good!" rather than "THIS is WHY we have prostitution and there's something fundamentally broken if your rules ONLY WORK if there are a few small number of criminal women illegally having sex with all your good men to get them experience."
If you want a functional society, you need rules everyone can ACTUALLY follow and get their needs met both LEGALLY and "ethically" in the eyes of their social group.
If you have rules and social expectations where it's not possible to work things out without SOMEONE being a criminal, then don't be all shocked when you find yourself living in Sodom and Gommorah.
Because in addition to the reality that you need criminals to exist to make your broken rules about "goodness" work AT ALL, it creates a lot of psychological, emotional and social fallout, such as:
1. Only bad boys get their needs met, therefore bad boys are HOT.
2. I'm a bad person for having sex AT ALL, therefore I might as well also steal or whatever because I'm going to hell anyway!
3. We can't REALLY enforce the rules because everyone knows the rules are so broken, if you enforce them, society comes to a screeching halt and the population dies out. So that means we have no idea where to draw the line morally because we NEED criminal scum to function at all and I'm SO CONFUSED!
My definition of ethics is: Trying to find ways to meet your own needs without harming other people.
And sex and health end up being major foci of mine because that's pertinent to my life.
How you make rules for behavior that protects ALL pertinent parties will vary depending on circumstances.
So, for example, very wartorn areas sometimes allow men to have multiple wives so that all women CAN have a husband and for purposes of population replacement because then the shortage of men can still father a bunch of children.
It doesn't work to do it the other way and let women have multiple husbands. You rarely see cultures that tolerate "respectable women" having multiple legitimate relationships because it calls into question who the father is and it gives no survival advantage and you don't typically see men outnumber women, etc.
And then cultures that don't allow for multiple wives feel that is BAD and IMMORAL and BREAKS THE RULES rather than wondering "Why do they do that?" and "HOW does that work?"
I'm someone wondering why do they do that and how does that work. Because I find it interesting to examine what new rules or behaviors are part of some gestalt or whole new system.
Humans tend to NOT think about the big picture. We freak out about someone breaking A SINGLE rule because we are aware it all interrelates and it's too much to learn the ENTIRE process or the rules for two different systems.
We operate on a basis of trying to get through the damn day and we need specific rules that apply to limited situations so we don't NEED to spend thirty minutes grilling a guy before saying yes or no to sex. We have If/Then rules memorized, mostly for heteronormative monogamous patriarchal nuclear family culture and we just don't make rules for gay people and single parents and etc.
YOU PEOPLE just shouldn't exist.
By which I mean ME because I'm a divorced single mom and can't make my life work because I no longer have a husband, so fuck me and the horse I rode in on.
So THAT is my diabolical motive for wondering HOW to make life work if you fail to fit the prescribed boxes in question: I would like to make MY LIFE work in spite of being divorced and CELIBATE for medical reasons and unable remarry as the solution to my problem.
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