Kyo

I believe the opposite of most of the comments posted here.

For one, I believe humans are inherently animalistic. They hurt others for fun and for profit - anyone who has seen children tormenting animals or elementary school bullies knows what human nature is capable of. We will rob, steal, murder, rape, and commit all sorts of other 'heinous crimes' if societal constructs were not in place to pre-empt or discourage us.

Consider this - rules exist only for those that follow them. Those without discipline or breeding are the ones that become drug dealers, drunken wife beaters, child molesters, etc. We don't have to be taught to be bad - is anyone 'taught' to murder other people? Is anyone 'taught' to rape? No. Murder happens when people lose control, not when they 'learn' to be evil. We are all naturally inclined to hurt and destroy what we fear and what we oppose. Men need sex, so if they can't get it from a willing partner and do not have enough self-control or fear of the law, they will rape to get it. Desire is not learned - it is innate. We are taught self-control.

As for intent vs. apathy, I give you several versions of the same dilema:
a) A man is pushed off a cliff with a rope around his waist. You can choose to either grab the rope or let him fall.
b) As a catch, assume he is extremely heavy, so that you know without a doubt that even if you grabbed the rope, you would not be able to pull him up - but you wouldn't be pulled over the edge with him either. Assume further that no one is going to help you, no matter how long you wait.
c) Now assume he is so heavy that you know if you grabbed the rope, you would be dragged over the edge with him.

In each case, is grabbing the rope (doing something) or letting him fall (doing nothing) the ethical action? More importantly, why? And another thing to consider - what if you were already holding the rope when he was pushed over? In each of the three cases your choice is now to either keep holding (ie, do nothing), or let go (do something). Does it make any difference which is the 'active' choice and which is the 'passive' choice?

Now consider: in a), assume you do not grab the rope. Who is responsible for the man's death: the one that pushed him over the cliff, or you, who did nothing to save him? For a more striking example, say you witnessed a shooting. The man is still alive, but needs hospitalization or he will die on the street. You could take him yourself, but there are other people driving by who saw it also. If you choose to ignore him and go your merry way, who's fault is it if he dies?

On ethics, be wary of taking the utilitarian viewpoint - there are many slipperly slopes down which utilitarianism fall. To clarify: utilitarianism states that something is correct or 'ethical' if it maximizes happiness.

To begin with, several questions arise: whose happiness are we maximizing? The happiness of an individual? The collective happiness? Who 'matters' when considering the collective? Where do we draw the line? Do animals count? Better yet - since plants cannot feel happiness, are they completely irrelevant?

How exactly do you measure happiness? If you had two choices - one that could make a dozen people a little happier, and one that could make one person very, very happy, which is more ethical? Is there any way to quantify exactly how much happiness we are gaining in each case?

If you still insist on "happiness = right" then I give you this example:

There is a homeless man on the street. He has no family, no relatives, no friends - no one that would care if he died. There are twenty people in a hospital, all of whom have families and bright futures - except that they need organ transplants immediately or they will die. Coincidentally (*cough*), the homeless man is the only match for the organs - if he is killed, his organs can save all twenty people, otherwise all twenty will die. Would it be ethical to murder the man for his organs?

If so, what if there were only five people that needed his organs? Or two? Or one - how do you determine who is 'worth' more happiness? Going the other way, what if 40 people needed his organs? 100? 200? What if the world was about to be destroyed but could be saved by killing one innocent person? If killing one innocent to save the world is ethical, what about the whole world minus one person? Minus two? Minus two thousand? Where do you draw the line?

To avoid this whole mess, I define good to be doing what you believe is right (note that this is different from not doing what you think is wrong). With this kind of definition, being 'good' becomes very possible.

I was originally had an extensive argument of ethics, but it turned into a 2 page essay that was a tangent to this thread at best, so I deleted most of it. But there we are.