Humans are complicated. Since there are so many variables involved, things are oftentimes not clear-cut.
The most prominent example would be good and evil. What about the grey areas? Most ethical issues are difficult to categorise into either one, if possible at all.
However, we often like to separate things into two polar opposites for convenience. In Secondary level Chemistry we are taught that three distinct types of bonds: ionic, covalent and metallic. But in tertiary education, we are taught that they are just the tips of three triangles, thus they are not distinct but a three-ended spectrum. For convenience, students are taught a simplified concept then the concept is built up.
But again, since everything can be considered a spectrum to some extent (if you understand, pardon the pun), that consideration can be abused. For example, I once heard a speaker talking about how everyone is crazy. Of course this was shocking, but once he explained that everyone is crazy to different degree, you understand that he is talking about sane-insane spectrum. Everyone is placed between the two ends and if you take the perspective from the insane end of course everyone is insane, right? So his statement was justified, but for what purpose? The only purpose is to make people realise that things lie in spectra but the talk that time had no such philosophical context. <*Sigh*> Context is all, Margaret Atwood says.
So I already give you two ends of a spectrum: one end is the ignorance that things are spectra and the other end is the full realisation that everything is a spectrum and overuse of this realisation.
So? Pick your place in that spectrum. Don't forget the advice of the wise - everything in moderation.
The most prominent example would be good and evil. What about the grey areas? Most ethical issues are difficult to categorise into either one, if possible at all.
However, we often like to separate things into two polar opposites for convenience. In Secondary level Chemistry we are taught that three distinct types of bonds: ionic, covalent and metallic. But in tertiary education, we are taught that they are just the tips of three triangles, thus they are not distinct but a three-ended spectrum. For convenience, students are taught a simplified concept then the concept is built up.
But again, since everything can be considered a spectrum to some extent (if you understand, pardon the pun), that consideration can be abused. For example, I once heard a speaker talking about how everyone is crazy. Of course this was shocking, but once he explained that everyone is crazy to different degree, you understand that he is talking about sane-insane spectrum. Everyone is placed between the two ends and if you take the perspective from the insane end of course everyone is insane, right? So his statement was justified, but for what purpose? The only purpose is to make people realise that things lie in spectra but the talk that time had no such philosophical context. <*Sigh*> Context is all, Margaret Atwood says.
So I already give you two ends of a spectrum: one end is the ignorance that things are spectra and the other end is the full realisation that everything is a spectrum and overuse of this realisation.
So? Pick your place in that spectrum. Don't forget the advice of the wise - everything in moderation.
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