How Do We Know the Right Thing to Do?

Everyone of us has our own set of ethical and moral principles. Our own set of ethics and moral standards are things that we think are right and a whole group of things that we consider right but which may not be to the moral standards of other people. So there is a kind of ethical pluralism, where different sets of moral principles and ethical standards are advocated and some people's ethical views are what they believe to be right but not necessarily what the majority of other people believe to be right. This is something like the difference between conservative political views and progressive political views.


Of course, there are times when some of the moralities clash with the realities of the real world. When we are unjustly abused by another human being or when we see other forms of exploitation in the world, it is right for us to speak out and complain about these injustices. We also have to look out for ourselves and defend our rights and dignity whenever we encounter these kinds of situations. And it is only when we do these things that we can show others that we care and that we value their lives. We can then have the kind of ethical and moral positions that will help us to build a just and peaceful society where everyone has access to the same basic rights and respects the rights of others to do the same. But how can we know what is right for us and how do we know what is morally right?

The answer lies in having a sense of perspective. A good starting point is having a view about what is right for each individual person. What things are right for me? What things are wrong with me?

A starting point for having a right moral view is grounded in reality. We have to know what things are right for us. We also need to know what are wrong and how to act so as to avoid getting into those wrongs. This is a way of grounding moral conduct in reality and making sure that we are doing the right thing. It is also a way of grounding justice, truth and knowledge in reality.

Now it is true that a starting point is grounded in reality. We all know there is truth and there are lying and cheating and all kinds of morally wrong things that people do. But we also know there is a rightness in some things - that is what grounding moral conduct is about. If there is a rightness, there is a duty to behave right. There is a sense of obligation that comes with knowing the right thing and being obligated to do it.

Now to ground morality in reality requires that we know what is wrong and that we know what is right. But there are problems here. The problem is that we normally only see what is right or bad when there is some wrong doing happening. So if there are wrong things happening, then there is no reason to be moral or upright. In fact, there is a strong case for saying that the world would be a better place if wrong things only happened occasionally and there were no socially correct norms at all. We might be wrong about that, but it is still more accurate than pretending to know that everything is right and the moral goodness is real.

And even if the world were a perfect place, there would still be a core of rightness and importance of rightness. This means that there would be some overriding moral principles that govern our actions and impulses. These principles would be something like: treat people well, offer them rights, make the world a better place, and so on.


In this way, grounding moral goodness and knowledge or truth involves knowing and believing certain things. Now a lot of people think they know these things already - they are intuitively right and therefore feel good about themselves. And there is nothing wrong with that - intuitively right thing to do is still a moral truth. It just has to be the right thing to do for the right person. And in the case of how to know the right thing to do, this may be the only moral principle that is needed.