Morality vs. Preferences

We all have our own preferences of all sorts of things in life—whether we like to wear school uniforms or not, whether we prefer to go to work in formal attire or not, or whether we think teachers should be acknowledged by parents with parents spending more money to celebrate them. However, some may be tied to moral issues, while others may be tied to a simple preference. The line between morality, legality, and preference, may be clear, and it may not. For example, one may think that forcing students to wear school uniforms is immoral as it infringes their rights to freedom of choice of clothing. However, some may argue that allowing students to wear what they want, even if what they wear is “inappropriate” is an act of schools being irresponsible to guiding students in the right direction. This is exactly where the controversy comes: what is deemed as inappropriate? Is wearing shorts that is above one’s knee inappropriate? Are crop tops or straps that are thinner than 3 fingers inappropriate? However, it is not like those types of clothing are not sufficient coverages of ones body parts, so why are they deemed inappropriate? It is dependent on the values and beliefs of one, specific to the individual, irrelevant to the boundaries of the legal or moral regulations. This scenario only applies to the affairs happening within the legalities. Personally, I believe that students should be able to choose what they wear and learn how to make sensible choices specific and relevant to the social setting they are in from a young age. This is preference, however, sometimes, when you are extremely passionate about your stance, you may want to change the beliefs and values of others so that they align with yours. This is what activism and advocacy is all about. However, this gets confused with things like whether we should allow students to wear their own clothes to school and whether climate change is something that should be acknowledged to be true. Of course, there are things that may be seen as “worth” debating and correcting, but there are also things that may not be as worthy of discussion, like changing one’s beliefs on school uniforms and about what school should be like. 

I am still struggling to figure out what is the boundary between each, and the criteria of whether someone is worthy of debating or not. Sometimes, I do my best to convince, but other times, I even think twice on whether my stance is worthy of convincing others of.