Finally some use for Philosophy Club!

Morality is one touchy subject among philosophers. You have those who believe in consequentialism, which divides right from wrong based on the consequences of an action. To put it simply: Do the ends justify the means? The other school of thought was called Deontology, which classifies right or wrong based solely on the act, and so motives and end result don't really matter.

Personally I am a consequentialist, because sometimes doing what is right requires one to do things that could be considered immoral, but that doesn't mean that one shouldn't do them under any circumstances, because the alternative is often as bad as or even worse than the act itself. However I do think there is some ambiguity simply with saying that, "the ends justify the means." For one, it's entirely dependent upon the person who is judging, because someone judging themselves could get great satisfaction from kicking puppies in the face, but to another person it wouldn't be justified at all. The other problem is that everything has an end and a means, and so one end wouldn't have happened if there wasn't some sort of justification for it happening. I think the sponsor of Philosophy club put it best by saying that a better question to ask would be: Do these ends justify these means? which basically asks whether the consequences of my action are good enough to warrant my action in the first place. If they do, I believe that the act is moral. Looking at it this way, it would seem that since good and evil all depend on these ever-changing factors, there can't be a complete definition of good and evil.

Now here is where I shift gears: Does anyone really go through all the pros and cons of an action in their head before making a judgement? Not that I've ever heard of. As individual thinkers, we tend to have some kind of judgement as soon as we hear of or witness an act. Our sense of morality comes inherently with how the world has shapes us. Because of this, I think that, at least for me, there is a clear cut definition of good and evil because of my clear cut ability to recognize what I believe to be wrong or right without having to organize every single means and every single end to weight out the morality of every single action, even though the process may be slightly abstract.