I think everyone goes through periods of that kind of soul-searching. For me, my view of morality is grounded in empathy, in the golden rule or reciprocity: I try as much as possible to put myself in others' shoes. It's not always accurate because I don't have full access to anyone else's experiences or thoughts, but at least if I have this as my foundation, I am flexible about it. When new information comes to me about how my view might be inaccurate or harmful to others, I try to re-evaluate my position and modify it to encompass a larger and more diverse perspective. It's an ongoing thing. Most important, IMO, is to keep learning & stay humble and not start thinking we know everything about everything and have nothing new to learn.
It is important to face criticism even when it hurts. It's supposed to hurt a little, otherwise it's not really 'criticism'. Even in the most hurtful criticism, often there's something we need to learn, some kind of blind spot being pointed out to us. Many people criticize not to improve others but to make themselves feel superior to others. It takes a certain amount of thick skin + experience + a detachment from your own ego, to really be able to learn from criticism. As much as possible, when criticizing others, it's a good idea to argue about ideas or actions instead of attacking the person. Unless of course a person is really there just to hurt others & has no empathy themselves.
Ideas are fine-tuned when confronted with criticism. I have learned so much about myself and my thoughts have been clarified to me via those who've criticized them. Sometimes, it IS important to let go of old thoughts and beliefs. There's no shame in learning, growing as a person. Other times, the ideas need tweaking but are basically sound.
Yep you used it correctly in most places
It's = "It is" (It's cold outside)
Its = possessive (Read its ingredients)
Empathy does sound like a good basis for morality, however I'm not positive that I experience "true" empathy. I believe I'm probably a psychopath, although female psychopathy is nothing like male psychopathy which is why it is so incredibly under-diagnosed. I think female psychopathy is actually more prevalent than male psychopathy. But female psychopaths are almost never violent, which leads to the under-diagnosis.
Here's my hypothesis as to why: female mammals have a separate instinct, a "maternal instinct", that keeps them from committing violent acts even though they feel no empathy, which is why they are so rarely diagnosed as psychopaths. Even when women do harm others, especially their children, the reason is very rarely psychopathy; it is usually another disease, such as post-partum depression. I believe that female psychopaths usually retain this separate maternal instinct. I think that this separation between an instinct to care for your children and empathy makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. We were mammals before we were social animals. There have been mammals for about 215 million years, but we have only lived in social groups for about 52 million years.
As soon as we developed a need to feed our young, we needed an instinct to make sure we'd do that. Those early mammals that didn't feed and care for their young didn't have offspring that survived into the next generation, so this instinct would have developed quickly and spread rapidly in the population. But mammalian males didn't usually need to care for their offspring, so they wouldn't have needed this instinct. When we started living in groups about 52 million years ago, we would have needed to develop the instincts that rule our social interactions, including empathy.
If these two instincts did in fact evolve separately, it would make sense that one could be broken in an individual and it would not automatically cause the other to malfunction, because there'd be no reason for them to be connected either in the brain or genetically, even though they perform similar functions. So this would help explain why female psychopaths are so rarely violent criminals: they still feel the need to care for others, although this is not caused by feeling empathy for others.
Topic: Klingschor: I've been radicalised