Which one outweighs the other Ethically?

I think the question is, will my future self, in 30 years, look back and scream, or will he be content. If your ideal-self is not in line with how you actually are, and those people are criticizing you for those traits which you don't really think you should be doing either, then you better change them.

Reply to aporiap

So will the man who is in discontentment, whom has changed in that 30 years, be the same person who did those traits in the last 30 years?

The interesting part is will that transition of 30 years change that man entirely and perhaps not be held responsible for his past traits. If he is content for inhumane actions and immoral traits, wherein the people who criticizes him are not, is that ethically moral? is that, good?

Reply to SethRy

I don't think you can get a definite answer. It's just a balance of probabilities. If lots of people around you are telling you that your personality traits are flawed and that they will not bring you happiness in the long term, then they're probably right. We're all human beings, including your critics, and so we all have similar stimuli for happiness.

But...

We also live in a diverse world, and not every human is the same, so your personal happiness may well derive from behaviours which would (eventually) make others miserable.

You just have to gamble on how likely it is that these people know more than you do about long-term happiness.

Reply to Isaac

Thank you so much. That has brought me closer to a conclusion. The only thing I still want to know, is that should one necessarily be moral and the other be immoral? or one be moral and the other be less moral? or maybe both decisions does not conform to a set of principles?

I am really sorry if I am so fussy about this, it has really bothered me for the past weeks.

Reply to SethRy

Well, you will have to decide that for yourself. 'Moral' and 'immoral' are just words. Whether an action is one or the other is simply a matter of determining a common usage which successfully communicates, it's no different to determining if a stone you found is rightly a "pebble" or a "rock".

What matters is whether it's going to make you happy in the long run. You've got three main approaches to this. You can try and calculate all the pros and cons you can forsee (consequential ism) and weigh your options that way, or you can trust the decision of others who have been through the same choices, or you can go with your gut instinct.

Personally, the first is absolutely fraught with potential for error given the complexity of the world, and so ends up little better than a complete guess. The second is flawed because it ignores the diversity in humanity and the scope for improvement. So I go with the third, with the caveat that I keep a 'weather eye' on any evidence which might overwhelmingly contradict my instincts, there's no sense being stubborn.

Reply to SethRy

So will the man who is in discontentment, whom has changed in that 30 years, be the same person who did those traits in the last 30 years?

The interesting part is will that transition of 30 years change that man entirely and perhaps not be held responsible for his past traits. If he is content for inhumane actions and immoral traits, wherein the people who criticizes him are not, is that ethically moral? is that, good?

Well, because he has to live with those memories, even if we perceive him as a different person, he still is held accountable by his own psychology- his punishment is the resultant guilt and regret.

Regarding the second point, I think it's clear ethics is in part a normative practice. We all have at least some basic, shared implicit interests which are typically protected under a social contract. I'm thoroughly convinced by the Rawlsian approach to this and think you can, in fact, arrive at a convergence in norms by virtue of these shared common interests. If you break one of these norms or live in a way counter them, even if it doesn't cause you strife or you don't have a problem with it, what you're doing would be an issue and you should change.

Reply to aporiap

We all have at least some basic, shared implicit interests which are typically protected under a collaboratively constructed social contract.

Please do say I am wrong if I am. Isn't a set of laws and principles agreed upon people, morality despite motivation? and ethics being still a moral point of view, but not with certain dogmas and laws but free thinking and rational reasoning.

If you break one of these norms or live in a way counter them, even if it doesn't cause you strife or you don't have a problem with it, what you're doing would be an issue and you should change.

That matches entirely with morality and not ethics, but if reason is motivated with good purposes, would that negative action as you say a 'norm' be ethically correct but we could agree as, immoral?

First, you can't automatically assume that criticism of others has any merit. You have to evaluate it for yourself. That's the case regardless of how much agreement the criticism has. And it's the case regardless of your past evaluations of the same source.

If you feel the criticism has merit, you can take it into consideration, and you can try to adjust to it. If it involves making changes in yourself, it's extremely important that you've evaluated the criticism first, in relation to your dispositions, preferences, etc., so that you don't wind up making moves away from existential authenticity.

If you feel that the criticism doesn't have merit, then you need to balance the benefits versus liabilities of bucking it/just ignoring it versus appearing to acquiesce, appearing to adjust to it. In some situations, you'll feel it's to your benefit on balance to appear to make adjustments in response to criticism.

Reply to SethRy Well, I find it useful to distinguish between what is “ethical” and what is “moral”. Moral is my personal take on what is “right” and Ethics is about what people as a whole view as “right”. I would listen, and do, to critique about my behaviour, but I certainly wouldn’t take what some random people say about me as “correct” and the “best way to live” MY life.

Now I’ll look at the “answer” ...

Quoting SethRy

You have two options, (hearing a third one would be great) To change these attributes and presumably, become the best version of yourself. Or, remain with the same set of these disliked attributes.

Excuse the cliched example, but suppose I live in Germany during the third Reich. And a group of people - the Nazi Party - find my dislike of Hitler, and fondness for Jews deeply flawed and toxic.

Their opinions matter alright, and I am in danger and under strong pressure to conform. But that doesn't make them morally right. Sometimes it is right to oppose society, and defy the critics. And sometimes society has it right. But I suspect that most people are natural conformists, so if something urges you towards resisting 'the group' then it is worth taking such an urge towards separation seriously.

Quoting SethRy

Imagine this. A group of people, who don't necessarily know each other, have found some of your personal attributes deeply flawed and toxic.

Here's a quote from Emerson's Self-Reliance. I try to use quotes from S-R at least twice a week:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Reply to Terrapin Station

First, you can't automatically assume that criticism of others has any merit.

So the evaluation of morality or, criticism having any merit, depends on your ethical perspective?

These toxic attributes I mentioned, can either be accidental or essential. Comparatively, accidental attributes would not necessarily affect existential authenticity as essential attributes do. Suppose you're addicted to drugs, your mother would probably ask you to change as it is immoral; by government laws, and unethical; just by your mother's perspective. lessening your drug use would still make you a drug addict, but removing it entirely changes your identity, you're not essentially, a drug addict.

Suppose your drug addiction was developed by peer pressure, ethically; peers would look at as ethically right most probably because by hedonist motivations, and not morality.

Quoting SethRy

So the evaluation of morality or, criticism having any merit, depends on your ethical perspective?

It has merit if you agree with it. That doesn't have anything to do with ethics. They might be talking shit, or trolling, or expecting others to conform to their personal tastes (that you don't share), or any number of possibilities.

Reply to I like sushi

I would listen, and do, to critique about my behaviour, but I certainly wouldn’t take what some random people say about me as “correct” and the “best way to live” MY life.

That is considerably, the most passionate answer. As opinions from other people do not really matter, not because it's your life, but because you feel you got it together. Would that be an unethical thing to do? as, like you said:

I like sushi :
Ethics is about what people as a whole view as “right”

That is only but of, a branch of the whole ethics rudiment. It is only between consequentialism; pros and cons are measured to determine what is right, and utilitarianism, wherein what is right is distinguished by the amount of people an action makes happy.

So your decision, toxic attributes (We all have some of those) must be taken into consideration but not some arbitrary audience on my 'correct' way of living life. Rejecting utilitarianism, according to you, ethics is about what most people think is 'right' so you living your life as you want it to, is unethical?

Reply to SethRy Not “unethical” exactly. My moral view is both determined and determinate in terms of ethics.

Note: I was clear about distinguishing the “moral” from “ethics”. That doesn’t mean I see these as being completely separate.

Reply to I like sushi

Quoting I like sushi

Not “unethical” exactly. My moral view is both determined and determinate in terms of ethics.

I apologise, I don't understand. Determined meaning permanent dogmas that can't be contradicted?

I merely just extrapolated the distinction of morality and ethics, and partly to see your conclusion, which was unclear. Do you conclude that one is good and the other be bad? or maybe something else? The whole point of my question was really to merge metaphysical principles, to ethics, and how by doing so (in relating to your decision) disrupt your pursuit of happiness, the hedonist view of meaning.

Will changing your essential attributes affect your existential authenticity at the same time your happiness? The answer I was hoping to acquire was something with a set of rules, like how the size of something that's deemed flawed or toxic affect your ethical life.

Reply to SethRy My fault. I was trying to say something in too short a form.

I meant my “personal ethic” (what I call morality) is necessarily part of the “group ethic”. I wasn’t making a rigid black and white differentiation, only stating that my views are obviously determined by the society I grow up in, yet my views are still partly independent - I am not going to agree without everyone if I think otherwise, yet I may alter my outward disposition to fit in and avoid such conflict of opinion where I deem appropriate.

If a great many people insist I am “toxic” or “wrong” then I will have to establish what it is they see I’m doing that is considered “toxic” or “wrong”. I cannot just blindly agree with them if I want to keep moral integrity and if forced should argue my position to the best of my ability to reveal better my or thier faulty positioning.

As for changing attributes, it depends what you mean by this. Their ae some “attributes” about ourselves that we cannot change. What bothers me about the group ethic and the individual moral is the inclination to weigh abstract concepts by quantitfied opinion. The group ethic is an extension of innate empathy through theory of mind. As social creatures we must negotiate in order to live side-by-side. We must compromise. Given that we cannot establish a set law for every single nuanced situation we hold to some basic legal framework, but we certainly don’t view this as being infallible. It may be unethical to steal in order to feed your child, but I’d argue that it woudl be immoral to simply allow your child to die fo starvation. Sometimes the moral choice requires one to break the law and go against the social conventions - such actions yaken in which you’re landed in jail are the true moral chioices taken with individual conviction. Maybe someone slaughters your family and you kill them after they have “served their sentence” because they’ve told you they intend to kill again.

In the abive sense we’re looking at doing what is considered right from an individual moral position regardless of the price you’ll pay. The “ethical” view, as I frame it (group), is essential for social cohesion yet it is at its heart “immoral”.

As for happiness, or pursuit of, I don’t really think it is realistic to have a life without compromise that stans any chance of “happiness” (meaning, exploration and growth). To be clear I am not saying the moral position is one of bloody-mindedness, nor that ethics is a set of unwavering rules - they fortify each other.

I will make a thread some time soon about The Trolley Problem and the topic of Hypotheticsl Questions and their use in a moralistic and ethical sense. I can go a lot deeper into this interesting topic there.

Reply to I like sushi

I would gladly participate into that discussion. It gets complex by the time where you know who the people are on the railroad, how personal motivations affect your utilitarian views.

Thank you so much for your answer.