Be honest... ethics
Virtue. Virtue, virtue, virtue.
It is right to be a good person, and make the decisions that a good person would make. Don't blindly follow act Utilitarianism, don't blindly follow Kant (although if you are going to blindly follow a normative ethic, then Mill's Utilitarianism is as good as any IMO), don't blindly follow your holy book, or the law of the land, or whatever serves you best. Build your character, strengthen your qualities, and you will naturally begin to make appropriate decisions. Sometimes that looks like a utilitarian decision, sometimes it looks like a principled one.
If there is no harm how can it be wrong?
Me too. The only problem is knowing how much harm/good something does...some decisions, like insulting people, are obviously wrong, and some, like donating to charity, are obviously right. But then there are the iffy ones, including...
*Nonviolently breaking the law for the sake of your beliefs.
*Making decisions for the sake of the environment...what's worth it, and what's not? Obviously, it's not good to live off of bottled water or drive a car that gets 15 mpg, but is it good to own a hybrid even though they're not as safe (when you have a family of five)? Or giving up paper books, even though using a Kindle all the time isn't very good for you because you're absorbed in technology.
There's three categories of ethical theory. It might be better to explain those.
Consequentialism - The morality of an action is generally defined by the outcome it produces. Utilitarian view that the ends always justify the means.
Deontology - The morality of an action is generally defined by what adheres to the general rules or laws that identify the best course of action (often relating to most probable outcome). Rule-based view that tries to identify general good behavior and follow it. Most religions follow this type of theory.
Virtue Ethics - The morality of an action is generally defined by the motivations or intentions behind it in the person, rather than actions themselves. This emphasizes having good moral character rather than adherence to rules or good consequences.
Sometimes people sort of mix and match aspects of these, but all ethical theories ultimately seem to fall under the category of one of the three overall.
Personally I'm a virtue ethicist, and wrote my Philosophy degree's thesis outlining my personal virtue ethics theory. In my opinion virtue ethics is the most complex and difficult category of theory to develop and refine, but with enough work put into it, seems to have the least potential logical vulnerabilities in the end.
OliveOilMom
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I think it's all situational. If you lie to someone to stop them from blowing up a building and killing people, then in that case lying is fine. If you lie to them to cause them to do it, it's wrong. If somebody breaks into my house with a gun and I shoot him to save me and my family that's fine but if I shoot him because he was drunk and wandered into the wrong house and was unarmed and harmless, it's wrong.
It really depends on lots of things.
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