on marlity

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity” - Andre Gide

I've recently been obsessed with truth and lies, hypocrisy and indecency. It's interesting that all my life I thought that questions of science and economics are the only real deep ones worth pondering but I've neglected such basic ones about the human being and the society.

Why everyone seems to be living a double life and is happy with it? What if I chose to be like them? What if I gave up my freedom and became a slave in a world of paradoxes?

I find myself asking "does ethics have a place in my world-view?" and the answer is of course yes. I don't believe that ethics come from religion or parents or anywhere. Absolute morality preached by religion and taught by parents doesn't make sense to me. But I do believe in ethics based on reasoning, secular moral philosophy and legal theory. Therefore,I believe that each of us understands the meaning of right and wrong and understand that telling a lie is immoral. It is also immoral to cheat,steal,break promises,be cruel or kill. That is why I can't be happy and do any of these at the same time.

The beauty of secular ethics is in that you don't need fear of hell or watchful eyes of parents to enforce it. It's automatically with you and urges you to self-discipline. In other words, unlike what we have been taught, you shouldn't be moral because you are afraid to be punished. But you should hold values that have been proven to be right "over historical time through a consensus of reasoning, of sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy" as Richard Dawkins puts it. These are old and modern values that we need to hold to be functioning members of society who deserve respect.