Morality?

Anthropology shows that morality first arose in our culture during a time when life expectancy was low. Every member in the community was needed for survival. Therefore, it would have been detrimental to the community to kill another member: thus, morality.

 

Any way you like. Or not at all, and still having it. I don't see how the existence of a supernatural being is connected to a justification for morality, unless you believe further premises, such as "said being explicitely outlined our moral system and also why it is justified; ie, because He Said So." Needless to say even when such a being is presumed to exist and to have said such things, this presents more problems and questions for the nature of morality; does god command it because its good or is it good because god commands it?

Depends on how you define the word. If you define it as The Ultimate System of Right and Wrong Handed Down By Our Lord, then no, morality does not exist. If you define it as "a system of theories and actions connected to how people experience ethical phenomena" then of course it exists, by our very act of discussing it we have brought it to existence.

Some kind of reasoned analysis, taking into account the conscious experience of sentient beings.

In my opinion, not in any kind of ultimate sense. A good thing "should" be done if you would want good things to be done, it's that simple.

In contexts, yes. I don't think there's such a thing as an immoral or moral action done in a vacuum. For example it's easy to say "murder is wrong", but then a lot of people who think that think the punishment should be to be killed. Also we find killing for food and defense to be fine, so the devil is in the details.

I think morality only exists in transactions or potential transactions between sentient beings. It is a mode of interaction, not an actual reality or process unto itself.

 

morality is much more simple then people who promote hierarchy try to make it, in order to do so.

it just means not screwing everything up for everybody.

and has absolutely nothing to do, with anything else.

of course it exists, and we are all perfectly capable of it.

what determines right and wrong, is the kind of world created by how people act. if its a kind of world we would want to live in or not.

all of this complicating of it, is just done by people who want some people to rule over others, just to make excuses for doing so.

of course there is something that should be done: avoid causing harm. and things that should not be: causing it. whatever you think harm is or isn't, doesn't change that.

are there any immoral actions: of course there are. those which make living impossible, difficult, or unpleasant, for anyone. unless of course, in an extreme situation, to restrain someone from doing so.

this business of trying to confuse the issue, to make people believe its not possible without some sort of hierarchy, now THAT itself IS an immoral act.

 

Unless they're Jainists, in which case squashing a bug would be a big deal. I suspect that morality is rooted in the kind of empathy and reciprocal altruism found in non-human species, refined by cultural evolution of morality memes. But for a global society of strangers, empathy and reciprocal altruism alone aren't enough, since we tend to empathize with folks who are like us or are cute, and we tend to be altruistic toward those we think will reciprocate. Early on, we developed gods as invisible "policemen at our elbow" to keep us in line as societies got bigger than the local village. But most of the religions of antiquity didn't have gods who were concerned with morality, and many of those gods were moral reprobates. The ancients, of course, had morality, and secular Greek philosophers developed systems of it that are still unrivaled. But it didn't spill over to religion. Yahweh, much disparaged for His despotic ways, was an innovation (at least by the time the Prophets got through with Him) in giving a divine underpinning to Justice. Zoroastrianism made its mark in adding an eschatological framework to the struggle between Light and Darkness, and Christianity added a personal savior god who was all about Love. At least folks in the Roman Empire seemed to think so, giving Christianity an edge over rival mystery religions. This new religion provided western civilization with a package with mass appeal that has yet to be matched by more academic secular moral philosophies. The non-theistic systems of the East suggest that it's possible to accomplish something similar without the Dude in the Sky, although at the popular level they're far more theistic than secularists would like. I'm skeptical that it's possible to develop a purely rationalistic mass-based system of morality, but I agree that human instincts of empathy and reciprocity provide a foundation to build on. Scandanavia provides some basis for optimism, but whether or not it can be universalized remains to be seen.

 

It is normal, natural, moral and healthy, to distinguish oneself by the combination of creative imagination, and generosity.

It is the absolute depth of evil and depravity,
to do so, by aggressive dominance, and the presumptive myth of degree.

This is where christianity, (and presumably islam, and possibly a few other beliefs, but those two especially), gets a great deal of what it/they, call morality, exactly backwards and wrong.

This is why, I do not see the unseen,
which are neither required to exist, nor forbidden, by any natural observation, to do so,
as a hierarchy of degree, either.

Though some may be of greater and lesser individual power, as with ourselves,
this is an accident of circumstance, not a degree of structural influence.

This not a condemnation of good fortune either.

By all means enjoy every good thing that comes your way.

But do so, in full realization and consideration,
of every thing, and in every manor, that is affected, by your doing so.

Failure of consideration, puts at risk, all around you, and often yourself as well.

It is this, which has put at risk, the future of our own species, and that of our own world.

Not by angering some unseen personality, but by the very act of our own hand, of doing so.

 

"PARENTS, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, drink, feel and
perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained and
are necessary during the first two or three decades of life for biological and social survival. Indeed,
such liberation is only possible at all because the individual starts off in an autonomous state, that is,
capable of awareness, spontaneity and intimacy, and he has some discretion as to which parts of his
parents' teachings he will accept. At certain specific moments early in life he decides how he is
going to adapt to diem. It is because his adaptation is in the nature of a series of decisions that it can
be undone, since decisions are reversible under favorable circumstances."

The antithesis of morality is enlightenment.

 

it matters what kind of a world we create for each other, because this is where we have to live. it is from this that follows, the only rational morality.

 

This could be a Hitler quote.

Saying "rational morality" is a bit Like saying "super natural" if you ask me.

You can put it together in your head, but it does not exist in reality.

 

yes, anyone can say anything, its still a matter of living in a way that would create the world you want to live in. and different people do want different things. and yes, if someone wanted to live in a world where everyone went around beating each other over the head (i like to think most people don't, but for those who do) yes it would be perfectly valid FOR THEM to live in precisely such a way. of course the rest of us would still have to restrain them, to be able to get on with what we might find more enjoyable, and perhaps they might want to reconsider, unless they found themselves actually enjoying the pain.

there are indeed limits as to how logically we can judge each other, yet this makes no less valid, i think and hope, those of us who would like to live in a world both peaceful and gratifying.
and not merely for ourselves, but for all who might wish to enjoy such a world as nearly everyone would find to be.

i see no basis for a claim that such a thing cannot nor does not "exist in reality". it is only through ignorance and indifference that we fail to live it.

 

Awareness is the ability to see things in your own way, and not the way you were taught. It transcends the classification of behavior, and it transcends morality.

Morality is not an essential component to the world you want to live in.

 

by my estimation, there are some ten percent of things that are unambiguously beneficial, and likewise of those which are equally as plainly harmful, some forty percent which are clearly neither, and another forty which are to some lesser degree both. not that my estimation has much to do with anything. i believe it likely that some things are universally beneficial and harmful, and that this is the only metric of morality, and that it has nothing to do with any religious belief nor lack of it.

 

What's more important, quality or pleasure?

 

what is quality if it is not to be enjoyed? what is pleasure, if it is not of consideration and taste?

(for that matter, what is sapience, if it is not the quality of imagination?)

 

I think morality is an essential part of the world I want to live in. Without it, we'd have a Hobbesian "war of all against all', where life is "nasty. brutish and short". I don't think that humans are naturally good or inclined to moral behavior. Evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson tells us that the human brain is split between individual-oriented and group-oriented modules, each of which contributed to the survival of our species. Morality builds on natural principles of empathy and reciprocal altruism to enhance the cooperative aspects of social existence by means of cultural evolution, including philosophy and religion. And I don't think rational morality is an oxymoron. It's a reasoned elaboration of the basic moral instincts: do unto others and love one another.
ilds on natural principles of empathy and reciprocal altruism to enhance the cooperative aspects of social existence by means of cultural evolution, including philosophy and religion. And I don't think rational morality is an oxymoron. It's a reasoned elaboration of the basic moral instincts: do unto others and love one another.

 

there is a natural morality of benefit and harm.
it has everything to do with sapient society and its effect on whatever else it touches.
granted humanity has no ascendancy over the forces of nature beyond itself or the manor in which they work.
but humanity's irresponsibility does have a negative impact on the result.

to me, that's what morality is, benefit and harm. if you want to call morality something else, or something else morality, i can only speak for myself.

 

It's telling when one creates a conception of morality so vast as to be completely irrelevant concerning personal decisions. While one with some courage would ask himself before each major acts he does, how the act will affect all that he values, a cowards asks himself, how the act will affect all of sapient existence. Not approaching omniscience the coward may then fall back on his gut instincts when acting, because he couldn't possibly be able to explicate the place his actions may have in a more universal picture. One may find his gut instincts not to be telling of some high sense of purpose or value, but near reptilian in their simplicity.

 

long story short: a statistical consensus of inconsiderateness, creates a world that is observably less then pleasant to live in.
that is the only basis required, for and by a morality that is real and natural.
whatever one wishes to take on faith, (or not) is completely optional.
THIS 'little detail' is fully observable objectively.

 

Do unto others, huh?

What if a woman kicks me in the balls?

 

@op: God doesn't exist isn't a given. To answer the thread though, morality doesn't exist imo, to suggest so means an individual moral code is universally the same which makes no sense. I can blow the brains out an intruder without question, while another person wouldn't kill that person because their moral compass won't allow for such actions against another human being. Morals are unique to the individual, and with 7BB+ people on the planet, there's no way them into a mold.

 

The OP hasn't been on the forums since 2009.... Doubt he'll get the message.