Empathy And Reflection Can Blur The Lines Between Right And Wrong
But not completely
In response to the prompt by Joseph Lieungh — “At the level of humanness, we see right and wrong as guide markers. At what point or level do we no longer see right and wrong?”
Parents teach their children to differentiate between right and wrong behaviour or the good and the bad. They have to. But as children grow, they define what is wrong or right behaviour. They explain — either through normal discussion or through a heated argument — why something that their parents may have labelled as wrong is actually right according to them.
It is when we reflect and unravel the possible experiences, social and cultural background, beliefs and more that may have influenced an individual and led to a certain action, thought or behaviour, we realise that the responses and traits are simply a culmination of those elements. And so, considering the infinite permutations possible in the world, labelling something as right or wrong will be unjust.
Empathy plays a major role in freeing our mind of such labels and accepting the differences.
However, a question arises — there are some things that are clearly wrong. The behaviour is not justified even when considering the back story. What then? Are they simply experiences to learn from?
