It is important to study morality so that we an become aware of the moral decisions we make and how they affect us and those around us; find the underlying beliefs and values that inform these choices; find moral issues in movies, literature, music, news and recognize the complexity of these issues; recognize what we can morally do better; and recognize how immoral ideas can become part of society and social injustice. We are always making decisions and these decisions affect us and shape who we are. By studying morality, we can first recognize just how many of these decisions we actually make, and then gain further insight as to why we made them and how they affected us. It gets at the core underlying beliefs that we have and these are what we base all of our decisions on, whether we realize it or not. Our moral lives are incredibly complex, but we often tend to rationalize things and oversimplify them. By looking at examples in literature, movies, music, and the news, we can analyze the situations and see just how complex they are. This can help prepare us for the time when we have to make our own decisions. Probably the most important part is to see how we can improve our morality here and now. We should be always striving to become better people and by studying our morality and its state, we can improve it. Finally, morality has seemed to slip into something that is not very important in our society today. Society seems to emphasize immoral values such as sex, drug use, and many other issues and these values are spread and advertised by all kinds of media. By studying morality, we can become aware of these problems in our society and try to fix them.

Cite a song that has a strong moral message that affects you even today.

"Collie Man" by Slightly Stoopid is a song about how the road in life is rough and hard, but we can get through it with the help of our friends, and also if we have a good belief system. There are men who live life for money and material things, but these men live alone, according to the song. These men will get lost and stubble on life's rocky road. But those who have friends and live good moral lives can get through the hard times. Click here for the lyrics.

This is a very complex question with a very complex answer, but I think there are a few central reasons. One is that their conscience has been ill informed. Sometime in their life, they were taught something that was bad, but were told it was good. They are going off their own conscience, but since it is not well informed, they end up acting immorally. Another reason is they only think about themselves and dont think about the longer term consequences or how their decisions will affect others. Sometimes, people act because they want something right then. They want a good feeling or anything and they dont want to wait for it. So they do whatever it is but fail to look down the road at the possible consequences of their actions; how it could come back to hurt them and how it couold hurt others. In the Enron case, those men were not thinking about others at all. All they wanted was to get rich and get rich quick. One man wanted to retire by the time he was thirty. THIRTY! They had no consideration about the people who what they were doing would harm. I do bad things. I make bad decisions and rash decisions. I act before I know all the facts and don't look at consequences down the road.

One value I have picked up is energy. Before, when I would interact with people, I would be rather boring and not very fun to be around. Since I started hanging out with my group of friends I have now, I have become much more confident in myself and I think I am much more fun to be around. I talk to people and mess around with them. Much more exciting and fun than the old stand there and not really say anything.

picture from this site

This picture reminds of why study morality because there are some many paths to take and it can be very confusing. By studying morality, we can help ourselves make sure we take the right path.

---

 

How is my morality doing now? Am I actively trying to improve my morality by examining myself and how I act?

---

 

To be a moral person, I will take Buddha's advice and start with finding out who I am through observation of myself. I need to get insight about myself through questioning what my beliefs and values are. Then I will recognize what it is I need to do to and what I need to change about myself to be a moral person.

back to tom's morality homepage