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Where does morality come from? [W:48]

I would guess from the ability to produce (and store) an excess supply of food and the ability to build a shelter. All herd animals, and most hunter gatherers, still find it more (instinctually?) efficient to leave the weak/ill behind to allow the rest of the group to continue to prosper. Once that had no real value (benefit for the group) the "moral" decision to assist the weak/ill could be considered. Individuals then could be "saved" by the group without a noticeable detrimental, or even with a positive, effect on the group (society became "moral"?).
 
Ok if there is plenty then dish it up and try quoting it in support of your unsupported opinion then.

I gave you a rhetorical question that provided substance for my argument. Morals are plastic to both the individual and the culture he lives in. I don't understand why you're taking offense to this.
 
I gave you a rhetorical question that provided substance for my argument. Morals are plastic to both the individual and the culture he lives in. I don't understand why you're taking offense to this.

Foolishness. How funny.

Take a look at my separate thread on fallacies.

Then read the wiki on it.

How funny !!
 
Well where is your evidence that morality and ethics does not come from this.

People make up different morals and ethics based on what they encounter and what they experience.

No one has the same exact ethics and morals and often a lot of morals are installed into us by either culture or traditions. For example if a city is mostly Christian they are more likely to have many Christian values even if they are not all Christian, and as well as that a lot of what you experience as a kid might change your views on what you value as important. For example if you are deprived as a child since you do not have money, you might be motivated to help that part of your community as an adult, since you know how it feels, of course you could also go the other road and reject it and deny you even come from there. However this would require you had some understanding of sociology and Psychology which is something you lack any kind of understanding from be it from books or from first hand experience so of course this is going to confuse you. Sorry if this stuff is too complicated for your mind to grasp, I suggest you either read a book or you go out and start talking to people if you really want to understand how people develop such things. An example of this is religion and well the bible but of course since you obviously dont like reading you probably would not bother with that stuff either right?

You say its stupid but you offer no alternative to what you believe Morality and Ethics are or how they develop. So really you are full of hot air. Also in Psychology different type of attachment styles are developed in young children and babies depending on how you treat them. That develops how they attach to people and this can affect if they grow up with emotional/personality disorders. Which once again shows this all goes back to understanding Psychology/Sociology and you have no understanding of that, so of course you would dismiss it as stupid, since you are simply too ignorant to understand it.

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I gave you the history. History is fact.
 
Does that mean that the history of morality only goes back a few thousand years? It seems to me that ancient man needed a code of morality as well. They no doubt had religion before there was a way to write down the precepts and history of it as well.

This part is no doubt accurate, but what does it have to do with morality? It sounds to me more like keeping the people in line and maintaining power than anything else:



I thought the commandment "to love God(s) with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself" was the "great commandment" from Christ. Is that wrong?

Well you can only guess about prehistoric ancient man. They did not write anything down.

Hammurabi wrote laws down, irrespective of where he got them from.

The Hebrews (specifically Moses and his Levite kin) wrote religion down. The Jews and their Judaism have preserved these for us. Josephus Flavius refers to some of these ancient sources as well, although not as thoroughly as the Torah itself.

These are our oldest sources.

On your separate question about the origins of Christ's teachings, if you buy a Catholic Bible it has subtitles which will refer you back into the Old Testament which is the source of most of Jesus' sayings.

I believe Jesus gets credit for a couple of original pronouncements, such as "render to Caesar" and "do unto others" but most of the rest of his works are out of the Old Testament. A good Catholic Bible will show you where to find these.
 
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I gave you the history. History is fact.

So is science, unless you are saying magic makes more sense. You also did not give anything. You just said "If you learned this in HS it must be BS, so that means anything you say is stupid". Which is not anything but a personal attack.
 
In my personal opinion, morality comes from your parents, who get their version of morality from society, church, their family, etc.
 
Is it separate from religion, as is asserted here?



Is it a part of our biology, as is asserted here?



Is it based on the commandments of God, as asserted here?



Does emotion determine what is and is not moral? To what degree is it based on culture? Is man an immoral being dependent on god to be better? How do we make moral decisions?

What do you think?

Where do the laws of universal gravitation, conservation of energy, causality, etc. come from?

It's likely the answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question on morals.
 
Is it separate from religion, as is asserted here?



Is it a part of our biology, as is asserted here?



Is it based on the commandments of God, as asserted here?



Does emotion determine what is and is not moral? To what degree is it based on culture? Is man an immoral being dependent on god to be better? How do we make moral decisions?

What do you think?

There are several moralities. The first is the moral sense. e.g. your conscience. The second kind of morality comes from society, e.g. Christian morality, and tolerance to all people. The third is reasoned social morality. In this morality people try to reason to determine which actions will benefit society and its members as a whole (politics, philosophy). Personal Reasoned Morality is what you reason is best for yourself.

Personal morality can include a lot of hedonism and selfish harm to others to benefit ourselves. But another consideration is that the happiest people are those that do good to others and have empathy, and do not have too many selfish and violent emotions. Also, it is often realized that having a lot of money does not actually bring a lot of happiness and what matters most is family, friends, and being able to live life in the moment and enjoy those simple moments, and overall be happy with a simple loving life.

So personal morality can be seen by different philosophies:
Hedonistic and materialistic vs. simple, peaceful and family oriented.
Selfish and violent vs empathetic and positive-social.
 
Foolishness. How funny.

Take a look at my separate thread on fallacies.

Then read the wiki on it.

How funny !!

I don't need much of a wiki page to tell me you don't care much for actually discussing the topic.
 
Is it separate from religion, as is asserted here?



Is it a part of our biology, as is asserted here?



Is it based on the commandments of God, as asserted here?



Does emotion determine what is and is not moral? To what degree is it based on culture? Is man an immoral being dependent on god to be better? How do we make moral decisions?

What do you think?

I think the short answer is that we don't really know very well yet. There are lots of studies that seem to show what morals are cultural and which of genetic making.
 
I don't need much of a wiki page to tell me you don't care much for actually discussing the topic.

Ok let me explain then ...

You submitted a rhetorical loaded emotional argument.

Those automatically fail in any debate.

They work fine in politics.

But not in debates.

That's why you need to review the list of fallacies if you want to try seriously debating here.

Debate does not consist of two girlies squabbling.

Debate has rules.

Logic has rules.

Evidence has rules.

You should check out these rules rather than just load up your rhetorical questions and emotional arguments.
 
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So is science, unless you are saying magic makes more sense. You also did not give anything. You just said "If you learned this in HS it must be BS, so that means anything you say is stupid". Which is not anything but a personal attack.

Junk science is not fact. Junk science is science fiction.
 
In my personal opinion, morality comes from your parents, who get their version of morality from society, church, their family, etc.

Superfly, if you had parents who were present, and if they did not neglect you, and if they had morality codes of their own, then it is perhaps intuitively obvious that they engendered their morality code into your mind, yes.

But can you see all the variables involved here?

Parents are indeed normally the first people that children meet.

Friends are second.

Teachers and priests/ministers are third and forth and at about the same time.

And it continues from there.

My father actually only taught me a very short list of things:

1 - never play with fire except for cooking food;
2 - never kill anything on God's Earth unless you plan to eat it;
3 - never hit or hurt a girl or a woman;
4 - never go anywhere without a knife;
5 - how to fish;
6 - take care of your mother and sisters while I am gone.

He then soon thereafter died. I was 9 years old. He did not have time to teach me much else. Many other kids are in those same shoes too. Life is not always Donna Reed or Father Knows Best.

My mother took us to Catholic Church after he died. Thus nuns and priests and other teachers soon took over. They were great teachers and I learned and have remember their teachings to this day.

My uncle and older cousin taught me how to hunt and shoot, and also self defense. But they did not have a very strong moral code other than to keep the law of the land.

Morality normally involves such choices as "do unto others as you would they do unto you likewise" (a more literal translation from what it really says in the original Greek).

Jesus was an unsurpassed social philosopher.

Morals are very complicated.
 
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Ok let me explain then ...

You submitted a rhetorical loaded emotional argument.

I submitted a rhetorical emotional argument because morality is in fact emotional. If morality wasn't emotional and subject to how we think or feel on subjects then I could perhaps see your point.

Those automatically fail in any debate.

Not automatically.

They work fine in politics.

But not in debates.

Context is everything.

That's why you need to review the list of fallacies if you want to try seriously debating here.

You should perhaps actually list the fallacy you think I used instead of just shouting "fallacies!" Or moreover, understand what is actually being discussed.

Debate does not consist of two girlies squabbling.

Debate has rules.

Debate has rules sure, and I feel that since you are just screaming that I am breaking those rules without any sort of substance for that claim, I think it is safe to say you are breaking one of those rules with an Ad Hom attack. Completely baseless, and useless attack on my character instead of the actual argument.

Logic has rules.

Notes for yourself I take it?

Evidence has rules.

There is no evidence for morality being anything other than subjective so...

You should check out these rules rather than just load up your rhetorical questions and emotional arguments.

Or perhaps again weigh in with something substantial instead of providing nothing at all.
 
I submitted a rhetorical emotional argument because morality is in fact emotional. If morality wasn't emotional and subject to how we think or feel on subjects then I could perhaps see your point.



Not automatically.



Context is everything.



You should perhaps actually list the fallacy you think I used instead of just shouting "fallacies!" Or moreover, understand what is actually being discussed.



Debate has rules sure, and I feel that since you are just screaming that I am breaking those rules without any sort of substance for that claim, I think it is safe to say you are breaking one of those rules with an Ad Hom attack. Completely baseless, and useless attack on my character instead of the actual argument.



Notes for yourself I take it?



There is no evidence for morality being anything other than subjective so...



Or perhaps again weigh in with something substantial instead of providing nothing at all.

Morality is subjective, since its based on each persons point of view and how they personally view and see the world.
 
I submitted a rhetorical emotional argument because morality is in fact emotional. If morality wasn't emotional and subject to how we think or feel on subjects then I could perhaps see your point.



Not automatically.



Context is everything.



You should perhaps actually list the fallacy you think I used instead of just shouting "fallacies!" Or moreover, understand what is actually being discussed.



Debate has rules sure, and I feel that since you are just screaming that I am breaking those rules without any sort of substance for that claim, I think it is safe to say you are breaking one of those rules with an Ad Hom attack. Completely baseless, and useless attack on my character instead of the actual argument.



Notes for yourself I take it?



There is no evidence for morality being anything other than subjective so...



Or perhaps again weigh in with something substantial instead of providing nothing at all.

Oh jeeze !! How hilarious.
 
Morality is subjective, since its based on each persons point of view and how they personally view and see the world.

Jesus gave one perfect moral rule for everyone on this Earth to follow -- do unto others as you would they also do unto you likewise.

Wisdom that exceed that of any other philosopher in history anywhere -- Asia, Near East, Europe, or the Americas.
 
Junk science is not fact. Junk science is science fiction.

So since you do not like the facts you simply disregard them? Is that what you are saying? I do not think its a very valid argument to say that only facts you like count.

Jesus gave one perfect moral rule for everyone on this Earth to follow -- do unto others as you would they also do unto you likewise.

Wisdom that exceed that of any other philosopher in history anywhere -- Asia, Near East, Europe, or the Americas.

So you are going to use religion to justify everything now? Are you kidding? Really? What about people that do not follow your religion? What do you think you are a god now? Your arguments are complete garbage. Your argument only counts if everyone believes in god and jesus, if not it doesn't mean crap. Which makes your post invalid.
 
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So since you do not like the facts you simply disregard them? Is that what you are saying? I do not think its a very valid argument to say that only facts you like count.



So you are going to use religion to justify everything now? Are you kidding? Really? What about people that do not follow your religion? What do you think you are a god now? Your arguments are complete garbage.

Wow that's all you know?
 
Wow that's all you know?

Yes, you are full of crap, are disregarding facts you dont like as fiction since only facts you like count in a argument, and are basing your argument on religion alone, since you know(WE ALL FOLLOW RELIGION). So you already lost your case.
 
Moderator's Warning:
Lighten up, people, or I will use by infraction-stick to start smacking people.
 
Superfly, if you had parents who were present, and if they did not neglect you, and if they had morality codes of their own, then it is perhaps intuitively obvious that they engendered their morality code into your mind, yes.

But can you see all the variables involved here?

Parents are indeed normally the first people that children meet.

Friends are second.

Teachers and priests/ministers are third and forth and at about the same time.

And it continues from there.

My father actually only taught me a very short list of things:

1 - never play with fire except for cooking food;
2 - never kill anything on God's Earth unless you plan to eat it;
3 - never hit or hurt a girl or a woman;
4 - never go anywhere without a knife;
5 - how to fish;
6 - take care of your mother and sisters while I am gone.

He then soon thereafter died. I was 9 years old. He did not have time to teach me much else. Many other kids are in those same shoes too. Life is not always Donna Reed or Father Knows Best.

My mother took us to Catholic Church after he died. Thus nuns and priests and other teachers soon took over. They were great teachers and I learned and have remember their teachings to this day.

My uncle and older cousin taught me how to hunt and shoot, and also self defense. But they did not have a very strong moral code other than to keep the law of the land.

Morality normally involves such choices as "do unto others as you would they do unto you likewise" (a more literal translation from what it really says in the original Greek).

Jesus was an unsurpassed social philosopher.

Morals are very complicated.

Did any of the people in your life - your father, your mother, friends, cousins, uncles, the nuns, the priests - did any of them tell you that it's OK to consider, and call a child a "cancer that needs to be extracted", simply because you don't agree with the way they were raised? Because if that's your version of morality, you can keep it.
 
Did any of the people in your life - your father, your mother, friends, cousins, uncles, the nuns, the priests - did any of them tell you that it's OK to consider, and call a child a "cancer that needs to be extracted", simply because you don't agree with the way they were raised? Because if that's your version of morality, you can keep it.

Yup my sister did that when she kicked out her own 18 year old daughter for causing so much discord that it was disrupting my sister's own marriage.

Definitely -- remove the cancer before it spreads.

I hope you will do so also.
 
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