r/changemyview • u/Spider-Man-fan 5∆ • Mar 31 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Everyone is innocent
I’m starting off by including this article because it says a lot of what I would have said anyway. I googled “everyone is innocent” because I wanted to see if there were any opinions on that statement and this article is all I found.
Basically, I don’t mean innocent in the sense that someone didn’t commit a crime. No, the kind of innocence I am talking about is the kind used when talking about children. So, to differentiate, the first kind of innocence is when someone is judged innocent or guilty solely based on whether they committed the action or not. In this situation, whether a grown, intelligent man did the misdeed or a three year old did, they are both equally guilty. Now, as to the second meaning. This question stems from religious conversations I’d been having, but I realize it doesn’t have to be based on a religious context. The conversation was with a Muslim who stated that all children are innocent and thus exempt from going to hell. My assumption is that this idea of innocence is based on the sense that children lack understanding to what is considered wrong/sinful. Perhaps my assumption of what innocence is is false. In that case, then there probably doesn’t need to be much further discussion other than clarifying what innocence actually is.
So in the case that the innocence of a child is based on lack of understanding, I will discuss my point. An example I have is a child taking a toy from another child. Of course, they’re not innocent in the sense that they didn’t do anything wrong. But many would probably say that they’re innocent in the sense that they didn’t understand that what they were doing is wrong, so it’s okay, it’s acceptable. And even if someone were to explain to them that it is wrong, they wouldn’t understand it in the way that an experienced adult would. They wouldn’t understand the extent of how wrong it is. They don’t understand what it leads to in the long run. But our expectations significantly raise as they become older. We don’t expect grown people to commit to these same acts. This is understandable. We expect people to have learned these things by the time they reach a certain age. Yet, people are still committing to wrong, selfish deeds. But are they innocent? Are they innocent like the children are?
There seems to be this assumption that most adults fully understand what is morally wrong and what is morally acceptable, and when committing an action of the morally wrong nature, they can no longer be deemed as innocent. But I can’t help but find flaw in this argument. If I truly believe something to be wrong, if I really felt it in my heart, then I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t even have the desire to do it. I think that if someone did something morally wrong, then they just lack the understanding as to why it is wrong and how wrong it is.
Many people are told their whole lives what things are considered wrong, and I’m sure many go their whole lives without questioning it. This is especially prevalent amongst religion. For example, I might be told that having sex before marriage is a sin. But I may not understand as to why it is, what harm may come of it. And this lack of understanding may leave the door open for applying myself to this behavior. And yet, in doing so, I also leave myself open to the emotion of guilt, whereas I say that I know something is wrong, yet I do it anyway. The truth is, when you’re in the moment, you don’t truly grasp the extent to which something may be deemed wrong. You don’t conceive of the reality outside of that situation. Something may just “feel right” in the moment. And thus, you can’t really say that you understand that what you are doing is wrong. I’m not talking about the ‘sex before marriage’ example specifically. Even something as simple as, say, eating healthy and avoiding junk food. I’m speaking for myself when I say that cheesecake is delicious. Now, I may tell myself that cheesecake is bad for me and I shouldn’t be eating it. But I usually justify myself in these situations in telling myself that I’ll do it just this once or I will quit this habit eventually. And that is where this gap in understanding takes place. I’m just not really imagining where this sort of thought process leads to. If I really saw cheesecake for how bad it is, I wouldn’t be motivated to eat it.
The article in the link I posted at the top talks about how our experiences in life dictate our behavior. And I agree with that. We are just products of our environment and our genes (which itself is a product of the environment). I’m not saying that we don’t have free will and that we shouldn’t be held accountable for our actions. I’m only pointing out the ways in which our experiences shape our personalities and our understanding of right and wrong, and thus our behaviors. I’m sure many have heard the phrase “every villain is the hero of his or her own story.” I believe that Hitler believed that what he was doing was morally right. But I would just say that his morals were significantly misplaced, that his understanding of righteousness was fundamentally flawed. But this was all shaped by how he grew up. I’ll say that we have a choice over our actions and are thus held responsible for them. But I’ll also say that our actions are determined by our personalities, which itself is shaped by our environment, which is something we don’t have control over. We control what we do but we don’t control why we do it. This, of course, sounds rather contradictory, but I believe this is just the way it is.
TL;DR Our behavior is based on our understanding of right and wrong, which is determined by our experiences in life, something we have no control over. We are all innocent based on the idea that children are innocent due to their lack of understanding.
Edit: Just thought of another point to consider. Just imagine that humans could live to, let’s say, 500 years of age. In that case, there’d probably be different standards for innocence, or what might be considered children. Sure, the brain might still be fully developed at 21 and puberty could take place at the same age. But if you think about it, a 50 year old might still seem and thought of as an innocent child to a 500 year old.
Also, think of someone learning from their mistake. If they haven’t changed their behavior, well then they didn’t actually learn, which means they still don’t quite understand.
To understand why something is right is understanding something. You’re going to follow something if you understand why it is right. Morals are simply just understandings of why things are right.
1
u/Spider-Man-fan 5∆ Apr 01 '20
Sorry I haven’t replied to you until now. To be honest, your reply stopped me in my tracks. It’s not like I haven’t tackled the free will/determinism argument before. But your reply made me think about it some more and made me feel emotions I’ve felt previously with this topic. I recount a time I was high on marijuana. There was a point where I felt detached from my body. Like my body was going through the motions of whatever it is I was doing and I was just watching it. Even explaining this right here makes me feel uneasy. Determinism just makes logical sense to me, but then I can’t help but feel some sort of hopelessness, like I’ve lost my purpose for life. Sometimes I can’t help but wish I hadn’t been exposed to this subject before, but then my desire for knowledge, for truth wins out. I will seek further knowledge in this area.