should ''shoulds'' be tied to

by phil on Saturday Aug 2, 2003 7:15 PM
shoulds, external

should "shoulds" be tied to what's "right"? I think there can be a distinction. Assuming Kobe's guilty, for example, I don't think he should've assaulted the girl for a number of reasons:
- The girl suffers
- It's illegal and he could suffer jail time
- It tarnishes his reputation

However, if you were to ask me whether what he did was right or wrong, I would say, I don't know, or that I'm neutral on that. He had sexual urges and possibly she had characteristics that made her try to curry Kobe's attention, and these traits are all within us to drive us toward doing things that, under different lights, we would consider positive. Kobe's sexual drive is good because that's how we get babies and that's how we get good basketball players. And if women didn't need sex or need attention, there would be a lot less relationships...

Anyway, the big question is, can you have a morality that separates right and wrong from should and shouldn't?