So this is a topic I've had some wheelings and dealings with. Karma is one of those issues I discuss as though there was an objective principle existing in the world that seeks to maintain a balance between opposing forces.
I'm probably mostly incorrect when I speak that way. Why only mostly though?
Karma, the idea that if you do something good, good will happen to you, and if you do something bad, bad will happen to you (oversimplification of the day) has no comparable strict rules or laws in nature. You can choose to murder someone and still be completely happy in your life. You can also be the most pious person ever, cursed with depression and constant misfortune.
However, there is a natural force that somewhat aligns with the rules of karma- the human mind and its respective emotions.
Psychological studies show that when we do good, we feel good, and when we do bad, we feel bad.
Health and Volunteering
To get an idea for how "immoral" deeds make us feel worse, we need only look at the existence of guilt and shame. While shame can occur in the case of perceived failure, it also occurs in the case of perceived wrongdoing, along with guilt.
So, the body creates its own karmic justice. So what's the problem? As we've learned throughout the course of psychological studies over the years, the brain can be tricked into feelings things in inappropriate contexts. The brain can be gamed- exploited.
See the "Cheater's High"
We make constant rationalizations and justifications for our behavior in order to avoid (consciously or unconsciously) feeling guilt and shame, since they negatively impact our performance without really doing a whole lot to enhance our capabilities. We have an innate aversion to guilt and shame. For some people, this simply means avoiding doing things that produce those emotions. For others, it means convincing themselves that what they're doing should not elicit those particular emotions. For still others, their brain is hardwired differently such that those emotions are triggered differently, or sometimes not at all (in the case of sociopathy).
Evolutionarily, there's a good case to be made for shame and guilt benefiting humanity. Without a powerful, internal feeling compelling us to avoid certain behaviors human collaboration would likely be somewhere between impossible and counter-acted by destructive deeds. This would imply that the essence of karma is evolutionarily programmed into us as a species. Of course, everyone's a little different, and sometimes alterations occur. Moreover, it doesn't appear that this concept of karma is static. Rather, it can change over time as we learn and experience the world. Our ethical perspectives and principles are not set in stone, and indeed, they can pull a 180 in a relatively short time span, given enough pressure.
However, evolution is not perfect, it's merely a vague guideline by which the world naturally travels. As a result, it shouldn't be surprising that there are ways to fudge evolutionary benefits that are "inconvenient" towards personal gain. In this case, ethical behavior. In the micro-scale, acting outside of ethical boundaries caused immediate strife in small populations. It's hard to do something wrong and not be called out on it. Think about a family unit as an example.
However, at the macro-level, the population is simply too large to effectively police everyone, so systems are automated in an attempt to encourage self-policing. This lends itself to the ability for individuals with the knowhow to sidestep the system at multiple intervals along the way.
Undoubtedly, this type of exploitation is morally dubious, and yet humans are drawn to it like moths to a flame. If we can exploit without hurting anyone, we tend to feel significantly better for some reason. This is somewhat problematic in and of itself, because if you combine that with the knowledge that we can lie and rationalize to ourselves, then it's feasible to convince ourselves that we aren't harming anyone even when we are, which leads to reduced sense of empathy despite the pain being caused.
#complicated
Ethical notions are weird.
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Waddles
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