Perhaps this is an ethics discussion after all....? I guess maybe that was what I was hinting at.

An example: We know it is wrong to hit someone else. How do we know it is wrong to hit someone else?

Then: Someone does something foolish or inconsiderate or downright nasty; someone affected by this action, hits the first someone. Is the second someone still wrong, given the provocation? (sometimes hitting someone is almost a reflex reaction, or appears to be with some people - I have never done it, but) What about the first someone? Surely he wasn't right to do what he did? but would it make him less wrong if he were being unintentionally provoking?

and two wrongs don't make a right, so perhaps both are out to lunch - the provoker and the provokee.

But how do we know, for example, when we read a newspaper article about something, that a certain action was "wrong" as opposed to "right"? Kingston, where I live, is somewhat known as a prison town - there being something like seven or so penitentiaries and correctional facilities in the area. There has been a lot of hullabaloo recently about corruption among the guards at one of the institutions (or maybe all of them - one wearies of keeping track of this kind o' thing). One story I heard recently was that one guard made a homemade weapon by sharpening the end of a broomstick and wrapping duct tape around the other end; he then hid this in a convict's cell, ordered a search, "found" the weapon and had the convict put in solitary confinement.

How do we know this action of the guard's wasn't right? What tells us it wasn't?

Similarly, what tells us it wasn't right that the guard who saw this happen, didn't report it at the time?

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.