Waarom luistert een ongelovige naar zijn geweten?

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:03 schreef Alicey het volgende:

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Daarom dus. Gebruik het feit dat iets "gewoon" is dan ook niet als argument.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:04 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

Een veredelde stereotoren dus.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:03 schreef Alicey het volgende:

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Daarom dus. Gebruik het feit dat iets "gewoon" is dan ook niet als argument.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:06 schreef SicSicSics het volgende:

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Omdat je netjes bent doe je zoiets niet!

En het was meer een toevoeging die niets toevoegd dan een heel argument! Maar ik zal de volgende keer gewoon oppassen als ik het woordje gewoon weer eens dreig te gebruiken!

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:04 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

Onzinnig uitgangspunt aangezien het blijkbaar niet gebeurd is. Zo wel dan ben ik dood: case closed. Zo niet: Blijven streven naar het maximale en dus een echte relatie opbouwen en daarnaast massaal vreemdgaan.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:08 schreef Alicey het volgende:

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Een van de vragen is dus "Waarom zijn we netjes?". Het wordt hier natuurlijk allemaal op de spits gedreven, maar ik vind het zelf wel interessant om na te gaan waarom we netjes zijn, terwijl het individueel niet altijd voordelig hoeft te zijn.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 11:58 schreef Alicey het volgende:

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Waarom is dat gewoon? Er mag best wel eens stil gestaan worden bij de vraag waarom iets "gewoon" is, want veel dingen die gewoon zijn waren dat vroeger niet..

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Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:08 schreef Alicey het volgende:

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Een van de vragen is dus "Waarom zijn we netjes?". Het wordt hier natuurlijk allemaal op de spits gedreven, maar ik vind het zelf wel interessant om na te gaan waarom we netjes zijn, terwijl het individueel niet altijd voordelig hoeft te zijn.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:16 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

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Hier heb je op zich wel een punt. Misschien is het ook een vorm van associatie die je krijgt als je mensen ziet lijden. Een soort van verplaatsing in de ander die je doet denken "wat als ik ooit...". Hogere intelligentie die moet zorgen dat je op de lange duur gelukkig blijft en dus begint te vuren door deze associatie. Allemaal doomscenario's die afgespeeld worden in je hoofd zodat je erop bedacht bent?

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As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way, than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulness of the conception.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:17 schreef NightH4wk het volgende:
Dunno precies het antwoord, maar het klinkt wel lekker hoe ze erover schrijven.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:20 schreef RetepV het volgende:
Blijkbaar zijn jullie nog te jong om in te zien dat je normen en waarden voornamelijk door je ouders zijn aangeleerd?

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:20 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

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Op de een of andere manier wordt er een stofje in me hersens aangemaakt die mij kut laat voelen als ik geen centjes naar afrika stuur en dus is dat de reden. Waarom dit zo is weet ik dus niet.
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Zoiets is al mogelijk maar bijna niemand doet het. Het argument dat de wereld dan een zooitje zou worden vind ik klets want niet iedereen gaat het doen. Wel ben ik benieuwd waarom anderen er eigenlijk voor kiezen om het niet te doen.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:25 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

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Ja omdat je dan een goed persoon bent voor je gevoel en op die manier boven de rest staat. Een mens is niet echt sociaal geschapen, eerder slim geschapen en realiseert dat het beter is om af en toe samen te werken. Mensen kunnen ver vooruit denken en daarom eten ze bv weinig vet. Immers zijn ze bang om in de toekomst dik te worden. Een hond is dom en kan veel minder ver vooruit kijken en eet dus vet simpelweg omdat het lekker is. Door deze gave smeden wij af en toe, voor het oog (!), sociale banden. Wil niet zeggen dat je niet 100% egoïstisch bent.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:31 schreef livEliveD het volgende:

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Omdat je veel omgaat met je ouders en ze vertrouwd is dit vaak het geval. Het zou echter beter zijn als je zou zeggen: Normen en waarden komen voort uit de omgeving.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 12:27 schreef Black_Tulip het volgende:

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Dat is het geweten Geweldig stuk trouwens. Ik denk dat de waardering die uit dat stuk spreekt over het geweten gelijk ook een reden is waarom de mens het de moeite waard vindt ernaar te luisteren.

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It is the same case with the greater exertions of public spirit. When a young officer exposes his life to acquire some inconsiderable addition to the dominions of his sovereign, it is not because the acquisition of the new territory is, to himself, an object more desireable than the preservation of his own life. To him his own life is of infinitely more value than the conquest of a whole kingdom for the state which he serves. But when he compares those two objects with one another, he does not view them in the light in which they naturally appear to himself, but in that in which they appear to the nation he fights for. To them the success of the war is of the highest importance; the life of a private person of scarce any consequence. When he puts himself in their situation, he immediately feels that he cannot be too prodigal of his blood, if, by shedding it, he can promote so valuable a purpose. In thus thwarting, from a sense of duty and propriety, the strongest of all natural propensities, consists the heroism of his conduct. There is many an honest Englishman, who, in his private station, would be more seriously disturbed by the loss of a guinea, than by the national loss of Minorca, who yet, had it been in his power to defend that fortress, would have sacrificed his life a thousand times rather than, through his fault, have let it fall into the hands of the enemy. When the first Brutus led forth his own sons to a capital punishment, because they had conspired against the rising liberty of Rome, he sacrificed what, if he had consulted his own breast only, would appear to be the stronger to the weaker affection. Brutus ought naturally to have felt much more for the death of his own sons, than for all that probably Rome could have suffered from the want of so great an example. But he viewed them, not with the eyes of a father, but with those of a Roman citizen. He entered so thoroughly into the sentiments of this last character, that he paid no regard to that tie, by which he himself was connected with them; and to a Roman citizen, the sons even of Brutus seemed contemptible, when put into the balance with the smallest interest of Rome. In these and in all other cases of this kind, our admiration is not so much founded upon the utility, as upon the unexpected, and on that account the great, the noble, and exalted propriety of such actions. This utility, when we come to view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly, a new beauty, and upon that account still further recommends them to our approbation. This beauty, however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation, and is by no means the quality which first recommends such actions to the natural sentiments of the bulk of mankind.