Recently the subject of morals came up during a conversation with a friend. He took the position that as long as you are not hurting anyone else you are behaving in a moral way. This seems to be the position of many people today, even Christians. If we use this idea as our standard we will take the wrong path in my opinion. If a person chooses to sit in front of his television each night and drink until he is senseless, it could be argued that he is only hurting himself. If a person needs money and decides to engage in prostitution, who is being harmed? Money has changed hands, the customer is happy and all is well. The answer of course is that we do not belong to ourselves, but to the Lord. When we harm ourselves we are offending God. If parents suffer when their children are harmed, imagine the offense that you have committed against the Lord when you harm yourself, because we are HIS children.
Stephen Cooper
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« View All ThreadsI completely agree with what you are saying. Man does not exist for himself and our chief goal in life must never be our own happiness. To your point, it is impossible to not affect another person. No man is an island is a saying that I think fits in really well with the topic. If not hurting anyone else is your standard for morality then I think you are more obligated to a higher ethical code than is normal. Using your example, thinking about prostitution, one can almost never be sure that they are not hurting someone. If not the girl then her parents. Peter Singer at Princeton makes a similar argument and expands on it saying that ones goal in life, in morality should be cause the least amount of pain possible. To illustrate his views I'll give you an example from his teachings.
One should never cause pain to an animal and animals should be prioritized by their ability to comprehend and experience pain. Therefore it is less of an immoral offense to harm a fish as it is to harm a dolphin. I agree with what you have whole heartedly, just wanted to add more. Please excuse spelling errors.
Billy Fenyes