Why do what's "right"?

[Huck Mucus]

I've never given 100% to anything and I'm thinking about giving it a try. However, every time I think I'm ready to make a move, I argue against it. I thought I'd come here and pose some questions the answers to which might move me off dead center. If anyone knows of a good book which addresses these things, I'd like to read it. Thanks.

If I conserve a gallon of water, doesn't that just encourage them (people, population growth, land development, etc.)? We know it won't go to reserved water rights for fish, animals, etc. so . . . if I have a water right, why not waste it?

Likewise with gasoline: If I conserve a gallon of gas, doesn't that just increase supply, thus reducing price and encouraging Rush Limbaugh to laugh all the way down the road in his Hummer?

I know improving the life of the poverty-stricken, along with education, is supposed to reduce their procreation. However, if the environmental footprint of a better-off person is so much larger than many poverty-stricken people combined, where is the net gain in shipping my money to Africa to improve life?

In short, doesn't helping people just encourage them, thus threatening them long term? Can't working against the perceived interests of people actually inure to their benefit? On Scalia's concentric circles of care, can't caring for those closer in actually threaten necessities which lie further out, thus threatening the center and those really close in?

Just curious.

[Impenitent]

teach a man to cut bait and starve to save the planet

fishy business...

-Imp

[mickthinks]

If I conserve a gallon of water ... If I conserve a gallon of gas ... doesn't that just ... encourage them?

No, otherwise no boycott campaign would ever have been effective. Of course, if you are the only one conserving, there will be no appreciable effect on a global scale, but provided your conservation is part of a concerted action on a large enough scale, then it will have the desired impact.

[Breath]

I've never given 100% to anything and I'm thinking about giving it a try. However, every time I think I'm ready to make a move, I argue against it. I thought I'd come here and pose some questions the answers to which might move me off dead center. If anyone knows of a good book which addresses these things, I'd like to read it. Thanks.

If I conserve a gallon of water, doesn't that just encourage them (people, population growth, land development, etc.)? We know it won't go to reserved water rights for fish, animals, etc. so . . . if I have a water right, why not waste it?

Likewise with gasoline: If I conserve a gallon of gas, doesn't that just increase supply, thus reducing price and encouraging Rush Limbaugh to laugh all the way down the road in his Hummer?

I know improving the life of the poverty-stricken, along with education, is supposed to reduce their procreation. However, if the environmental footprint of a better-off person is so much larger than many poverty-stricken people combined, where is the net gain in shipping my money to Africa to improve life?

In short, doesn't helping people just encourage them, thus threatening them long term? Can't working against the perceived interests of people actually inure to their benefit? On Scalia's concentric circles of care, can't caring for those closer in actually threaten necessities which lie further out, thus threatening the center and those really close in?

Just curious.

You always do what you believe to be right. You never ever go against your own values. That others may not agree with your values isn't relevant.

Your question could be rephrased as "why go along with a current trend"?

Whether you do or don't will be explained by the opening gambit "you always do what you believe to be right. You never ever go against your own values".

Breath

[Seizing]

My view on the right thing can very well first and foremost be subjective to your desire of beautification, but there's also a better way of looking at it; doing good things shall suffice!
It's because the right thing may be beyond the capabilities of most people, so we have to take the view of talents manifesting many corners into the entire package, a multidimensional construct that can reach another perspective of perfection, not by getting everything 100%-right, but rather by having every number from 1 to 100.