Ethical Issues

[0ne]

• What is conscience and what is its connection to consciousness?
• Specifically, does either listening to it or disregarding it affect the quality of consciousness?
• Should you just steal and lie to become successful?

[Spiral]

On 2017-03-27 at 8:41 PM, 0ne said:

• Should you just steal and lie to become successful?

No. You hurt yourself by doing that, not to mention others

Edited March 29, 2017 by Spiral

[0ne]

@Spiral How? Can't only the ego be hurt?

[Spiral]

15 hours ago, 0ne said:

@Spiral How? Can't only the ego be hurt?

What do you mean by successful? spiritually? financially? fame?

Regardless No, egoistically(i.e. with a strong ego) people try to achieve success, through for example stealing and lying.

While selfless people don't care much for individual success but instead focus on others or collective success.      

[0ne]

@Spiral By success I mean achieving a goal you have set. For example, if your goal is not to starve, does it matter whether you steal food or earn for it other than what your conscience tells you?

[Spiral]

2 hours ago, 0ne said:

@Spiral By success I mean achieving a goal you have set. For example, if your goal is not to starve, does it matter whether you steal food or earn for it other than what your conscience tells you?

Let's put i this way, if we ignore the physical/psychological aspects of starvation and assume that you do not have a mental illness. Going from a lawful citizen to one that steals and cheats the system to get food, will effect you negatively from a long term perceptive in regards to your happiness and ability to connect with other people.

One main reason behind this is your conscience, it's very likely to cause a negative spiral, especially if you don't have to steal food to survive.  

Humans are not designed to be unethical,that being said it's really adaptable, so it will effect multiple areas of you brain mostly related to rewards, empathy and empowering your ego.It can also slowly promote sadist behavior, drug use,  aggregation etc.

I would recommend at least trying to follow laws and being kind when possible, especially if you want to have insights into consciousness and enlightenment.

Have a look into karma and see how that works.

 

[Kloof]

I'm interested in ethical issues too. It seems like throughout the day, I'm presented with multiple opportunities to make more ethical decisions.

Do I get the cheap eggs? Do I get the cage free eggs? Do I skip eggs entirely because those poor chickens are exploited? Okay, I'll pass on the eggs today in exchange for some karma points... Now I'm looking for a shirt, and they've got these cheaply produced ones from China. Were these workers exploited? I don't know, maybe? Maybe I should get an organic fair trade t-shirt? But $40 for a shirt? I could get the cheap $10 shirt and donate $30 to charity for that price. I'll just get the $10 shirt. I'm at the register and they ask me if I'll purchase an Eco-bag to reduce the use of plastic bags. I remember that I already have three Eco-bags at home that I've forgotten yet again. Oh well, it's just a dollar, I'll get another Eco-bag, I guess. Or is that more wasteful?

Making ethical decisions is hard. :-/

I became vegetarian 8 years ago because of the unethical treatment of farm animals, especially in factory farms. People often ask me why I'm vegetarian, and then proceed to agree with my cause. "Oh, yeah, it's so sad the way farm animals are treated. I hate it. But meat is so good, I can't NOT eat meat." And then they devour a delicious steak in front of my eyes and I wonder, am I earning karma points for this?? I want to eat steak, too. Why does eating abused animals have to effect my conscience, but other people can not care? If I could go back to not caring, would I want to?

[0ne]

@Kloof  I'm glad you understand.

For me, it's this dilemma: "How can I know if karma even exists? But I can't just hope it doesn't, what if it does?

What am I supposed to do then? What is right?"