Is it ok to hate your parents if they did wrong to you?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Saint, Feb 11, 2015.

  1. Saint Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,752
    Is it ok to hate your parents if they did wrong to you?
    For example, irresponsible father who is a gambler or an alcoholic who never cares for you.
    Or a father who rapes his own daughter and so on.

    Is it justifiable to hate such parents?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543

    It's easy to forgive, but a darn lot harder to forget.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,985
    Sure its oK... even if it ant "justifiable"... but does it benefit you.???
     
    joepistole likes this.
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,938
    I would say it is "okay", but not advised...

    my own father was an abusive alcoholic who ruined our family by racking up almost a hundred grand in hidden credit card debt that my mom didn't find out about until the divorce proceedings were over... and they wound up falling to her to pay.

    I cannot stand the man... and want nothing to do with him. In my mind, my father was my Grandfather, as he did more to raise me than my biological father ever did.

    I don't hate him however. It isn't worth the energy to hate him. He has lost his family and all he had because he liked the bottle more... his own side of the family won't even talk to him anymore. He will die, most likely lonely and alone, and that will be the end of it. I feel sorry for him... sorry that he was too weak to accept the help we desperately tried to get him, and sorry that he felt that he had to be abusive, even when he wasn't drunk, because he was so weak that his only respite was to take it out on his wife and his children... at least until the day came that I realized I was stronger than he was.

    *shrugs* I can't say I've forgiven him... but do I hate him? No... it isn't worth my effort. He isn't worth that much attention in my mind anymore.
     
    Ophiolite and origin like this.
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Of course it's justifiable to hate such people. They're only people like any other people. There's nothing so special about them that it overrides their crimes or evils.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Justifiable? Often, yes. Is it helpful to hate such people? Often no.
     
  10. kx000 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,134
    Ideally you want to love everyone, but rape is anti-ideal. You have to kill it and retain the people you have. Forgiveness is an after thought.

    This is the situation pacifist catch shit for. Don't know what to do. Can't love them to death, maybe love them whole what they're missing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2015
  11. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,072
    I don’t see how any sane person would not have feelings of resentment towards such parents that were abusive, negligent, or absent from the child’s life.

    Whether or not it is morally justified to simply hate your abusive parent, is a subject matter that I feel would be better served as a question applied to a different scenario, or is reworded. Under my views a more appropriate variant of this question should be applied to the possible actions those children take against their parents, who have been abusive or negligent.

    As an example “Would it have been justifiable, for a 17 year old girl to murder her father, who has been sexually assaulting her since the age of 10 and violently abusing her mother since the day she was born?”

    I will not tell my own answer to that question, unless anyone explicitly requests it.
     
  12. zgmc Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    831
    Yes. It would be justifiable.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Justifiable? Well sure. But the legal system (in the USA, at least) would still regard it as homicide. Only in the case of "justifiable homicide" would she not be arrested and prosecuted, and this would probably not qualify. However, in most places in the USA, no jury would convict her.
     
  14. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,985
    It all depends on whos morals are gettin gored.!!!

    The 17 year old has a right to see it as bein morally justifiable to kill that parent... but i dont see it as morally justifiable that anyone shoud be killed.!!!

    An yes... im on pins an needles to hear you'r "own answer to that question".!!!
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    To stop an assault? Absolutely.
    If she had escaped him, and plotted to kill him, and finally did so after coming up with a good way to do it? Definitely not.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Big difference between hate, and stopping rape, and killing people. Three very different things.
     
  17. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    Hate often causes more damage to the hater than to the object of hate.
     
    sideshowbob and cluelusshusbund like this.
  18. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,072
    Yes, i would think it would be justifiable. Could she still be brought up on charges like FG described, yes. Whether or not she sees punishment would be up to the jury. I know i wouldn't rule to convict her.
     
  19. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,072
    Agreed.
     
  20. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,985
    Even if she plotted... an then killed him... i dont thank she deserves punishment for it.!!!
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    I think she does. Saying "I wasn't in danger but I was very, very angry" should not be a defense for murder.
     
  22. zgmc Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    831
    Someone who suffers years of abuse would likely always fear that their abuser
    could come back at any time.
     
  23. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    And unfortunately, it can cause severe, long-term damage to a community or an entire nation.

    The USA still has a long way to go before we recover from the damage caused by hatred of people of African ancestry by people of European ancestry--especially since there are still millions of Euro-Americans who hate Afro-Americans. For that matter, there is still immense animosity between many of the descendants of the people who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War more than a century and a half ago.

    And now that the LGBT community has gained enough respect to cautiously come out into the open, lots of "straight" people feel free to express their hatred for them.
     

Share This Page