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morality

What is morality/

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Henrin said:
Most people simply lack an understanding from what I have seen outside of some set understanding of code of conduct. They have little understanding of how to expand beyond it, so they stay to the same conduct rules they were taught all those years ago and do nothing but work of the base and turn around and call it their morality. That appears to be the extent of it from my experience of this learning exercise. What is your experience with it?
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Greta point. Most of our moral and religious teaching which on many ways goes hand and hand is done while we are young and so becomes a building block of who we are. These rules were taught by parents and grandparents or people we gave trust to. These building blocks are hard to overcome and so the many stay locked in place hardly ever able to alter these patterns of belief. They can't grow beyond these systems because their world may well be locked in this sphere. If the rules come via religion they remain in the faith and continue to have these laws reenforced and will not grow beyond this. Some will stick with the family belief and never try to swim upstream. I use and example of this kid who was gay and in a family that harbored ill will toward the idea of gay. The kid struggled over and over to try and figure out a way to tell family. He was so locked into the families belief system he hated himself for being gay. He went to a councilor and tried to find a way out. He could not grow beyond these family teachings and in the end commit suicide because he hated himself for being gay. He killed himself rather than disrupt the morality which was ingrained. For him there seemed to be no other way. Morals all seem to be learned and experiential within a family structure or school or church. One locked in they become hard to alter. My experience seems to match yours and this is a sad fact about human nature. Great question.

Henrin said:
To the most part it is. From my experience people confuse personal desire or need with a sense of morality. Almost all law is based on this rather confused ideal be it taxes or welfare.
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Yes much of law is based on confused thinking. Taxes welfare and so on. How much of an obligation does the state have toward any individual? It there an obligation at all? How much can the beliefs of one group override another? How many need to belong to a group before their rights influence an entire culture? Years ago I had a friend who was in a wheel chairs, She would venture out and the curbs made her travels difficult. There was a goal to make corners handicap accessible. This happened. There are 8 entries to crosswalks on ever corner. All of these were being changed to accommodate wheel chairs. Whatever the cost why all eight and not just four and cut the cost in half. No it had to be all eight. She even wondered why the wasted money and she said how many people actually use wheel chairs to get around. Society seems to use poor judgement at times. If ever corner had one port it would be fine but a law passed and so the money was spent.
Our priorities are based on some strange mix of what is law and what we call morality and kindness.
 
ecofarm said:
That's absurd; I'm not a moron. I expect certain standards. For examples: no rape or murder. I don't expect everyone to serve as a paratrooper, acquire their masters in Europe, spend years in Africa and plan to settle there, be vegan, etc etc etc

Don't put BS in my mouth. 99% of people CAN'T live as I do, they simply haven't the intellectual capacity and other blessings.
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But yet by the idea you present as morals this is exactly what you are saying and now you are retracting your earlier statement so which is it? Is it your first premise or not the second or will you now offer a third?
 
Kal'Stang said:
I'd have to disagree. The caveman for example was all about instinct, no morals what so ever. Yes morals can be, and was, the cause of many an atrocity, but it can also...and has also....created the very country that we live in. It was morality that made our founders realize that people had rights. It was morality that ended slavery despite the obvious advantage of free labor. It was morality that ended segregation. And many other things.
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The belief in "progress" or more commonly, linear time, is a direct result of the belief that monotheism was somehow a betterment vis a vis paganism..............That's what I am questioning. Maybe the human being was mistaken, maybe things only got worse...............
 
katiegrrl0 said:
But yet by the idea you present as morals this is exactly what you are saying and now you are retracting your earlier statement so which is it? Is it your first premise or not the second or will you now offer a third?
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There can be basic moral standards and individual interpretations in the implementation of those standards. Everyone knows right from wrong, yet the question is largely what one can get away with (personally and otherwise). As far as your nonsense, above, you'll have to file the false dichotomy founded in ignorantly cherry-picked absolutism elsewhere.
 
Henrin said:
I don't believe you can use those sources interchangeably. The bible is merely a work of fiction while the other describes the world around you.
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The bibles as I see them were a means of creating law which people feared. Once you had convinced them there was a god who would punish you could control. It worked so well thousands of years later people still manage to believe this. A work of fiction i do believe and have no idea why these books still even exist. I see them written as manipulations of control. Pretty well crafted by the way. hehehe
 
mpg said:
Honor killings are not punishment. Killing a rape victim is an example of an honor killing. If a woman has been soiled, she must be killed for the honor of the family.
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Because they view a soiled women as harmful to society.
 
Henrin said:
The law? This is not a matter of law. Respecting the property of someone else is a moral position and to some degree not a legal one. The question you offered perhaps on accident was if it was right for the poor man to steal. It is not.

Your position appears to be that it is right for the poor man to steal because he is need, but the fact remains need has no bearing on what he should or should not do towards others.
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Obviously your morals and other people's morals differ. You couldn't have shown my point better. Thank you.
 
Kal'Stang said:
I'd have to disagree. The caveman for example was all about instinct, no morals what so ever. Yes morals can be, and was, the cause of many an atrocity, but it can also...and has also....created the very country that we live in. It was morality that made our founders realize that people had rights. It was morality that ended slavery despite the obvious advantage of free labor. It was morality that ended segregation. And many other things.
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Philosophy did that, not morality. The original ideas didn't pop up spontaneously in the population.
 
MoSurveyor said:
Obviously your morals and other people's morals differ. You couldn't have shown my point better. Thank you.
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Your example is the exact kind of thing I was talking about earlier. Morality is not about personal need or desire, but about treatment of the parties involved. How is it that the poor man can steal, but the people he is stealing from can not steal? How is it moral for him to deprive them when its not moral for them to deprive him? There is no sense to this example you have gave.
 
MoSurveyor said:
All I said was that some morality was embodied in law and others aren't. That was a response to the OP. However, I should note that most laws are not immoral but there are exceptions.

I've now read through this thread - to this point, at least - and I've always agreed that morality is determined by society and that individuals have their own morals on top of that, some of which conflict with societal mores. For example, stealing is generally immoral to society (and almost always illegal) but many people don't see a poor, starving person stealing food or a homeless person squatting in an empty building to get out of the cold as immoral.
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Henrin said:
They don't? Why?

You appear to be doing exactly what I described above. You're confusing need with morality.

The poor man is not excluded by morality simply because he is poor and in need. The moral thing to do is help the poor man, but in turn the moral thing for the poor man to do is not to steal from everyone else to get the help he needs. Why would someone think that something is different for him?
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If we go strictly by the basis of law there is no reason why this poor person should not be found guilty of a crime. If we use the heart many would see the crime was innocent survival. Are there times when law stands back in the form of a judge to make his or her own moral judgement an show leniency in certain cases because of extenuating circumstances? Here we have another mix where a person of power capable of altering law does based on their own moral code and not the actual law which is set in stone. It is a choice between mercy and justice. This is a question which faces the courts often and judges weigh in with their own opinions.
The SCOTUS offers opinions. These opinions are based on a persons experience and learned base. We speak of conservative or liberal opinion. Are these opinions based on law and precedent or the leaning of a particular justices heart? We never know do we.
 
Henrin said:
Your example is the exact kind of thing I was talking about earlier. Morality is not about personal need or desire, but about treatment of the parties involved. How is it that the poor man can steal, but the people he is stealing from can not steal? How is it moral for him to deprive them when its not moral for them to deprive him? There is no sense to this example you have gave.
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And that is why I don't trust the people here further than I can see them..................
 
mpg said:
Who said anything about religious rules? They could both be atheists. The law loses.
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The initial post I gave was of a couple married in a church and so that is why i speak of religious rules here. It was an example based on a religious decision. Certainly there could be an atheistic position as well.
 
MoSurveyor said:
I agree that morality goes out the window for the overall population but morality certainly is pertinent to your individual social group(s). Break the morals of the group and you may get shunned.


I agree with the rest of your post.
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Sure in a social group you would be shunned and I agree.
 
Henrin said:
Your example is the exact kind of thing I was talking about earlier. Morality is not about personal need or desire, but about treatment of the parties involved. How is it that the poor man can steal, but the people he is stealing from can not steal? How is it moral for him to deprive them when its not moral for them to deprive him? There is no sense to this example you have gave.
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Sometimes individual morals do not agree with society's morals, which is exactly what I stated in the first place. Thank you for continuing to show evidence of my point.


Are you trying to argue there is no individual morality?
 
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Bonzai said:
Ideally, of course..........But none of us have ever lived in a vaccuum and the fact remains that our predecessors, whether yesterday or 2,000 years ago, opted for a manner of behaviour that made a lifestyle out of "laying their ideals on others as the ultimate answer". I guess my point is: People didn't "evolve" into moral beings-----They degenerated into a raving mob of demented sidedrooling control freaks............I'm not sure I "believe" that type of affliction can be cured, not to appear overly pessimistic...................
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The ideals of others and specific beliefs will also be pushed on others it seems the nature of humanity the beast. LOL and no it will never change.
 
MoSurveyor said:
Sometimes individual morals do not agree with society's morals, which is exactly what I stated in the first place.

Are you trying to argue there is no individual morality?
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Societies morality does not interest me and nor does individual morality. It's a matter of reason. The example you gave defies the very foundation of morality and replaces it with pity and abuse.
 
Henrin said:
Societies morality does not interest me and nor does individual morality. It's a matter of reason. The example you gave defies the very foundation of morality and replaces it with pity and abuse.
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Of course not. Because you are an agent of a higher morality. The morality of God.......................
 
Kal'Stang said:
Which is why society is about both morality and laws.
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This is why nations are about laws and not morals because individual morals vary inside a nation and the law is consistent as in the US Constitution. Morals have nothing to do with how a nation operates and law leads the way.
 
Bonzai said:
Of course not. Because you are an agent of a higher morality. The morality of God.......................
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I don't recall having a problem with gays. Perhaps because I'm consistent and god is not. ;)
 
spud_meister said:
It's wrong to harm someone. As human society has evolved, this principle has been applied to society as a whole. It's wrong to do something that harms society, and the individual who did so must be punished. And from this you derive all the morality of the world.
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No, that's how you extinguish all the morality. "Society" is not real - it is an abstraction; individuals are real - they are actual living human beings. If a society punishes an individual who did no harm to any other individual but "harmed the society" (whatever it means), we can tell right away that this society is very, very sick.
 
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