Disney grandniece backs Meryl Streep on Walt's racism and sexism

[Zorra]

37. Is social pressure a valid excuse for doing something unethical?

"But we didn't know" is generally a bullshit justification people use for nasty hate beliefs and support for their own nasty actions that they really know are wrong, but they just need to continue doing for some type of reward. Like economic, ego, or power reward.

I understand that morality and ethics are relative; a sociopath may see no harm in murdering someone else for a cigarette. So we have established general ethical guidelines for our behavior in order to be able to function as social unit. These guideline do not appear to me to include justifying harming others because of individual beliefs based in superstition, hate, bigotry, or for personal reward.

I'm sure all the slave holding founding fathers knew slavery was a monstrous evil, but they did not free their slaves because they needed slaves to profit so they could continue their lifestyle. So they developed bogus justifications in order to hide from themselves the fact that they were just being weak hypocritical punks who did not practice what they preached. I'm sure all those Nazis who murdered the Jews, etc, up close and personal really knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they continued to do so because they received some type of reward for it.

"We didn't know" or "the devil made us do it" are feeble excuses for unethical behavior.

I don't really know anything, but I personally believe that some type of reward is the basis of motivation for all human action. I may be wrong, but there is a whole lot of evidence that points to this as probable.