My Five Wills/Code of Ethics

[Angrboda]

4) I will repay justice rather than mercy.

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
Abraham Lincoln

5) I will love only those who deserve it.

How does one become deserving of love?

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Also, do any of you have your own little code to live by, or do you just play it by ear?

I am a Taoist and Hindu, though the former influences my ethics more than the latter.


In general, I practice virtue based ethics, rather than deontological or consequentialist ethics. And lately, I incorporate bits and pieces from my ideas about cognitive science.

Virtue ethics emphasizes the role of one's character and the virtues that one's character embodies for determining or evaluating ethical behavior. Virtue ethics is one of the three major approaches to normative ethics, often contrasted to deontology which emphasizes duty to rules and consequentialism which derives rightness or wrongness from the outcome of the act itself.

The difference between these three approaches to morality tends to lie more in the way of how moral dilemmas are approached, rather than in the moral conclusions reached. For example, a consequentialist may argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences produced by lying — though a consequentialist may allow that certain foreseeable consequences might make lying acceptable. A deontologist might argue that lying is always wrong, regardless of any potential "good" that might come from lying. A virtue ethicist, however, would focus less on lying in any particular instance and instead consider what a decision to tell a lie or not tell a lie said about one's character and moral behavior.

I'm also strongly influenced by Greek philosophy — the Stoics, Epicureans, Cynics, Skeptics, and pre-Socratics.

Though, since ethics is outside my purview, I spend relatively little time on the subject aside from my religious practices.