Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ethics - who defines them?

What are ethics? I looked it up on wikipedia and here’s what it says: Ethics is a major branch of philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life. It is significantly broader than the common conception of analyzing right and wrong.

Who defines this code? Is there a standard followed around the world, like the laws of the jungle? Then again, even the jungle has its deviant creatures as depicted in the movie ‘The Ghost and the Darkness’.

The horror of Mumbai’s terror still lurks in the fringes. Will something big erupt in Bangalore soon? We haven’t kissed danger out here; we are but silent spectators to all the evil spewed across the nation. I can empathize with natural disasters, blaming the wrath and fury of devastation wrecked on the mythological gods; but how can one even begin to comprehend calculated schemes to take innocent lives and blow them all to smithereens?

I digress as always…back to ethics. We learn as we grow but the core being is formed at a young age. An impressionable mind, they say, is easy to take over. Does this mean that people seek the youth to twist their minds into what they believe rather than give them a chance to identify with the world themselves?

I’m confused. If I was 20 and still mad at the world for things not happening the way I wanted it to, would I join a militant faction to right the wrong I felt was done to me or those around me?

Leaving terrorism aside, that subject will always be up for debate. Who defines human ethics?

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