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Marcus Tullius Cicero - What Is Morally Wrong

What Is Morally Wrong

Please consider the following quote and place your thoughts about it within your reply:

"So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Wrong Morally What Cicero Tullius Marcus

That is true I think, but the immediate gain is what many people focus on when not acting morally. They tend to be blind in this area or force themselves to not see. These quotes are also along the lines of the above quote.

said Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.

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The Jewish Talmud, in Shabbat 31a, says,

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Muslim Prophet Muhammad said,

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Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) was recorded in the Udana-Varga as saying,

Marcus Tullius Cicero - What Is Morally Wrong Health & Special Psychology

Sadly, I don't think that poetic justice exists as much in this world as we would like it to. I am sure there are plenty of unethical scientific studies that have given the world positive things. I am sure that stolen money has gone on to do good things. I am sure that children that were the products of adultery or rape have gone on to create good in the world. The world has nowt to do with fairness.

Wrong Morally What Cicero Tullius Marcus

I think the quoted axiom is a laudable, high-minded but naive and unrealistic assertion or belief. You can use your own personal categorization of "advantageous" and I guess in some way, whatever comes from doing something morally wrong might not make it in, in some symbolic way, but the fact is, morally wrong things DO give advantage - that's why people DO them. There is no real argument against this. It doesn't mean you have to approve of it or emulate it, it just means you can be pragmatic and acknowledge reality.

Wrong Morally What Cicero Tullius Marcus

For me Marcus Tullius Cicero was probably saying this against Gaius Julius Caesar whom he did not favor. It was possibly to show his ways so the people could elect in a better form of governance.

Marcus Tullius Cicero - What Is Morally Wrong

Name: Denise
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Comments: "morally wrong" is doing harm to others,taking advantage of their trust or dependance. It´s acting inconsiderate, ignoring other people´s needs, hurting their self-esteem. Sadly, you can´t lead an authentic life when it´s your wish to avoid doing so entirely.
The same thing that makes you feel great usually makes someone else feel sad as a side-affect. The question is, what level of doing harm to others you will personally tolerate, for your own conscience´s sake. Wholesome trees have grown from unsavoury seeds, no doubt. But that´s a statement for the tree´s right to exist, not for the ill-gotten seed.

Marcus Tullius Cicero What Morally Wrong

"A man who has in mind an apparent advantage and promptly proceeds to dissociate this from the question of what is right shows himself to be mistaken and immoral. Such a standpoint is the parent of assassinations, poisonings, forged wills, thefts, malversations of public money, and the ruinous exploitation of provincials and Roman citizens alike. Another result is passionate desire - desire for excessive wealth, for unendurable tyranny, and ultimately for the despotic seizure of free states. These desires are the most horrible and repulsive things imaginable. The perverted intelligences of men who are animated by such feelings are competent to understand the material rewards, but not the penalties. I do not mean penalties established by law, for these they often escape. I mean the most terrible of all punishments: their own degradation."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Marcus Tullius Cicero What Morally Wrong Psychology Special & Health

I think it is not possible to judge these sentences taking them outside of their context. Cicero, like most Romans, was not a philosopher but a rhetoric. Philosophy was an art in ancient Greece. Romans always looked at it with interest but without taking it too seriously. Roman society was more oriented on practical knowledge and Cicero's writings were always written to obtain a result. Let's not forget that he worked as a lawyer, at times, and as the public accuse for the Roman Senate in case of important trials. The forementioned words have to be seen as a way of capturing the favor of the audience in order to get the verdict he wanted in a particular situation and not as expression of an abstract reasonment or assertion.