Morality is one of the most complex questions facing mankind. Deciding what is and isn’t moral, what morality entails, and how we should live out our lives has plagued us for centuries and doesn’t seem to be close to being universally solved any time soon. However, most people seek to answer this question for themselves in some way shape or form, whether it be based on actual moral theories or just on what sounds right to them. Drawing from multiple philosophers, in my own opinion, an act is right if it promotes happiness and wrong if it causes others harm. I have always had a mindset similar to this, but after learning about multiple normative ethical theories, I finally have an actual argument and support for why I think this is the right
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Obviously causing others unwanted harm is wrong, but what about causing yourself personal harm. To that I would say it depends on the situation. Going back to the earlier example, getting high (or just smoking in general) is bad for your health. Cigarettes are an easy target because it is basically universal knowledge that smoking kills. Along with the long term health effects on the smoker themselves, second-hand smoke is a major threat to all those around the smoker. Now, smoking around children and pets is immoral for a number of reasons. 1) You are intentionally putting them in harm’s way but 2) they have not really consented to being around the toxic smoke. It is the consent that really makes this all important. Hurting others is bad because they usually do not wish that pain upon themselves, but there are plenty of situations where consent is not an issues. Professional fighting is a good example for this. Under most circumstances it would be immoral to hit someone, but in an intentional environment fighting suddenly becomes ok because both parties are aware of the risks but choose to go through with the fight anyways. The same principle applies to personal harm. Smoking kills, but because the party knows of the risks and is ok with whatever they are, they have not done anything immoral. What they are doing is bad for them (for a variety of reasons) but each individual is allowed to do whatever they want to themselves and still be in the right. Morality is all about consent; if you have it you are good to
Obviously causing others unwanted harm is wrong, but what about causing yourself personal harm. To that I would say it depends on the situation. Going back to the earlier example, getting high (or just smoking in general) is bad for your health. Cigarettes are an easy target because it is basically universal knowledge that smoking kills. Along with the long term health effects on the smoker themselves, second-hand smoke is a major threat to all those around the smoker. Now, smoking around children and pets is immoral for a number of reasons. 1) You are intentionally putting them in harm’s way but 2) they have not really consented to being around the toxic smoke. It is the consent that really makes this all important. Hurting others is bad because they usually do not wish that pain upon themselves, but there are plenty of situations where consent is not an issues. Professional fighting is a good example for this. Under most circumstances it would be immoral to hit someone, but in an intentional environment fighting suddenly becomes ok because both parties are aware of the risks but choose to go through with the fight anyways. The same principle applies to personal harm. Smoking kills, but because the party knows of the risks and is ok with whatever they are, they have not done anything immoral. What they are doing is bad for them (for a variety of reasons) but each individual is allowed to do whatever they want to themselves and still be in the right. Morality is all about consent; if you have it you are good to