I would say that the basis for personal morality be empathy.
Looking at others and deeming if they are in pain during an event in life and how it would feel to be in their shoes for example.

Some people have empathy from birth it seems and some have to learn it.

Okay my morals come from empathy.

Kinda like saying that the world be a good place if everyone did 'this', acted like 'this', or treated others like 'this'?

I try not to lump everyone into it because morality is personal to each person. Now I know that law makers have to have something to go on to create laws based from moral codes but I still feel morality is very personal.

In my mind, do not hurt others with words or actions intentionally is the base of morality. Why, because we don't want to be hurt in the same way. So I guess it would be self preservation maybe? Or that is where empathy leads?

Law makers have to go on the majority of what is moral socially at the time unless it is a dictatorship in which it is what the dictator determines moral.

You know I don't have all the answers for everyone, just most of them for me

Of course Dragoness, I do not expect anyone to have all the answers. would we not all agree that a behavior that everyone could do that results in the betterment of humanity on a whole would be good?

I mean, right 'for me' and right 'for you' are not different. If something is right, then it is right for all and by all. It is right to feed our kids. Ya know? It is right to hold other humans in high regard.

I think morality requires the consideration of everyone. If a behavior can be mimicked by everyone on earth, and that behavior would lead to disasterous consequences, then it cannot possible be held as good/right.

Ya know?

I don't know what you mean by "reality, trust, etc." are necessary in morality. Can you elucidate and elaborate?

Morality does rise and fall with the concept of a society's conception of deity. They used to burn and hang people as witches because god sanctioned it; while we still have "witch-hunts" in the modern Western word, they are largely allegorical and have different outcomes.

In China and ancient Greece, it was moral to expose babies to the elements and allow them to die. The Greeks reasoned that if the gods wanted the baby to live, it would. In our society--though there is a horrendous amount of child abuse--leaving a child to die is an immoral act. In fact, in the US, we argue over whether it is moral to withhold life saving methods to comatose patients who cannot breathe on their own.





You basically reiterated what I said; did you not understand my point? As you say later in your post, "moral" vs "ethical" is an issue of semantics.





If you are asking me if I disapprove of religion being used to manipulate people, yes, I believe that such actions are unethical.





I am saying that the "moral" Christian Spaniards were no better than the "heathens" whom they slaughtered.





I am not trying to be difficult, but I often don't understand what you are asking. Is the question why I (personally, not speaking from a statistical point) find atheist more ethical than Christians? Or are you asking me why atheists and Christians both demonstrate a combination of ethical and unethical behaviors?





Again, you reiterate what I wrote. Was I not clear enough?





What do you mean by "good"? Do mean ethical or moral?

I do not turn the other cheek, but it depends upon the severity of the act and the person's intent. I find that people who try to suppress their anger and hurt often bottle up inside and sometimes, it explodes. I would rather dose mine out in small portions and cause less damage.

Also, note that I said "my basic survival instincts are still within me," as they are within the vast majority of people (I would say all, but that is perhaps too much of a generalization).





I talk "past" people all the time, but my empathy prompts me to take the time (at least off forums) to explain.

I largely buy into society's definition of "evil"; when I gave the example of the Aztecs, I do not call them "evil" if their intent was to save the universe. Do I advocate human sacrifice? No, but I know people are sacrificed all over the world everyday--we just call it by other names.

However, I do not term "evil" some aspects termed so by segments of the population: homosexuality is not evil; polygamous marriages are not evil if all parties consent freely; sex outside of marriage is not evil; even adultery is not evil, though if both spouses are not aware and agreeable to the act, it is unethical. As you see, these have to do with sex, which most--if not all--religions largely regulate, MOST consensual sex is no one's business but the persons involved.

I wrestle with those aspects that abhor me, is a pedophile evil or "sick"? It doesn't matter: a person who harms children should be locked away, at the least. Same for rapists.

Hitler was evil: Pol Pot was evil: Idi Amin was evil--there are more, but you should understand my point.

Morals develop out of a need to amiably interact with other agents. The more social an agent, or group of agents become, the more important shared morals become.

Its this sense of agency that leads us into defining roles in a society, its the need for amiable interactions for the continuation of the society that lead to shared morals.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_agency


Just my uneducated opinions.

i thought morals came from TV...

Morals Come from the"weaker"types of humans..lets face it morals come from what things people don't like having done to them..that's why they're are so many power struggles.... who's on top does what he wants

That's what I said, just in a lot more words. (Grin.)

I can't believe that one of my online students said that I am "terse."

Those are not manmade, yet are of moral import. Because they are of moral import, they are a necessary part of moral content. It follows that all things with/of moral content are not necessarily man made.



It does not follow from the fact that religion has historically used a deity to ground moral belief, that moral belief follows from a deity, and only a deity. Morality exists with or without a belief in 'God'. It seems you conflating religious belief with morality itself, or maybe thinking that because religion has influenced people's moral belief that it equates to it.



Without 'God' we argue morality. That contradicts the idea that morality falls with 'God'.

I suggest that before we attempt to call someone else immoral, we first understand what morality is.



Is there a difference? Can something be ethical or moral and not be good?

I'm with the guy or gal who said "practical self-interest", and I am vehemently on this person's side. I must add to this that morals are not learned, but they are inherent. It is a funny concept, how complex behaviour patterns can be passed down genetically, but they are. After all sexual attraction is passed down genetically (other than for mutants), so it is conceivable that not only the ability to secrete saliva and the ability to feel with our skin are genetically predisposed, but also very complex human and warm-blooded animal response in behaviour.

Your arguments are circular. I gave clear examples on how "morality" rises and falls with the current deity. Since deities are constructed by humans, it follows that those ideas of morality were not handed down by the deity, but what the people in charge of the deity wanted them to be. Did you not understand "a society's CONCEPT of deity" means that the deity is given the attributes that a society wants it to have, thus embodying the ethics/morals of that society?

This is why "morality" has changed. When I was a girl 50s and 60s), having a baby out of wedlock was a shameful thing; now, many women have babies out of wedlock and have no shame (nor should they). In addition, few people lived together without the "benefit" of marriage; now, it is very commonplace.

So is it moral or immoral (a word that I don't use, but I will here) to have a baby without being married? Is it immoral to live together (or have sex) without being married?

But go further back in history and you'll find common-law "marriages." Long-term but unmarried coupes in today's world would have been married by default in decades past.

If you didn't understand my stance on deity and morality, let me make it clear: no god/dess dictated morality or ethics to humans. However, humans have long made this claim; kingdoms have been ruled by it and people have died for it.

You didn't explain "reality." As for trust being "man made," distrust stems from whichever sources as does trust, eh? How do you define "man made" in relation to trust? Explain how trust factors into ethics.

As for an ethical or moral stance being something other than "good," define "good." Is that good for the populace? The individual? I will use the example of human sacrifice again: in a culture that practices it, are the ideas of the lone person standing up in protest "good" ideas or "bad" ideas?

It also depends on the person holding the "moral" control. Is homosexuality "bad"? Who decides? How can it be "good" and acceptable in one culture but "bad" in another?

And "immoral" is not a word that I used or would use.

I have heard people rail against "unjust" laws, but shouldn't laws be ethical by their nature? I have even heard people say that a law might make an action legal, but that doesn't make it right. Then how did such laws come into being? Are they good? Are they ethical? Are they bad?

Gwen,

You're equating things that cannot be equated. Morality is not moral belief. Codes of behavior are learned. That is trivially true. They are not morality.

Your simply stating that my arguments are circular does not cut it. That requires being shown. It is a necessary truth that moral belief and morality are not the same thing. Wux and Massage have addressed this in part.


Wux,

Yes I agree that practical self-interest plays a role. Just not the only role.

I could not trace anywhere where I said moral code and morality and moral belief are different from each other, but you'r right, I do agree that morals appear quiet differently, depending whether you view them or your behaviour is guided by them.

That's part of the beauty of morality, on the human level. In order for morality to do its job properly, it must make man believe that the sacrifice that morals compel us to do, is a selfless sacrifice. Morals make us believe that our moral acts are moral, and without the concept of "morality" it could not do it. First we had to develop the notion of "noble act", and then when we all bought in that it is a valuable-to-everyone and a venerable act, then we called a whole bunch of completely selfish -- albeit self-sacrificial -- behaviour the name "moral behaviour".

This is taking three things: Darwinism, rationalization of cognitive dissonance, and propaganda, and bringing them all under one roof in a most elegant and seamless way.

Gwenny, sorry, I just read your post two above mine now.

If we are to talk about morality or ethics, we must say that since there are contradictory morals, such as keeping a baby and not killing her out of wedlock, which contradicted the social morals in the 1950s and 1960s when the young mother was in her 50s ot 60s, then you talk about social expectations. Social expectations grow out of what someone else or you said, that is, the expectations a society places on its members to ensure peaceful prosperity for its ruling class. In democracies the general public is the ruling class, until a military coup takes place, and General Public takes over the leadership of the country.

But enough of puns. A girl's most pressing morals are very practical and self-serving: to propagate her genes. So it's against her own personal morals to kill her baby, born or not yet born.

There is yet a third type of morality, that of religious morality, which I believe uses one of its many factions to make men act efficiently in war. Men must war from time to time, when a living essential is not in big enough supply to support his tribe and the lives of the tribes around him. So they go into war, to decide who will take the resource that every tribe needs, but only a few can be supported by it, since the resource is so little in supply.

A human will always shy away from killing other humans. It's like that with all other vertebrate species: No matter how hungry an individual carnivore gets, it will never eat its own kind.

This is not so categorically true, and especially not for man. But it's still not easy to do for most men to kill. It is disgusting, morally abhorrant, sick, and ready to spring guilt in the killer.

So when tribe X has to war with tribe Y, an organized killing and murdering of individuals in the same species must take place. It is more efficient if a lot of individuals in one tribe can be enticed to kill members in the other tribe at once, on command, because this helps organizing the attack, and making it more efficient, leading the tribe to victory and survival.

But humans need a lot of encouragement to kill, since it is in every animal's nature to not be able to bring himself to murder.

Interestingly, in the left occipital lobe in every human's brain there is a centre which, when simulated, will give the individual "religious" or "spiritual" experiences. Sometimes it manifests as an out-of-body experience, sometimes seeing a diety appear, sometimes feeling a "presence" in the room. During the experiments the subjects are all in a sort of dream-like trance, mostly very positive and pleasurable, but they are all awake and conscious, they respond to questions and stuff they need to be conscious to do well, and they remember almost all details as they happen in reality, after the trance is over.

The funny thing is that the centre to kill and murder, the one that is active when we murder and kill, is right next to the religion centre.

This brings me to believe that men, women, a mass of people, can be excited to kill together under religious command, in unison, at the same time, without needing much time to gather up the gumption to murder the enemy.

Religion will not influence our personal morality, but it overrules our personal morality. It also overrules social morality (legal laws and social expectations) and personal morality will rule over social expectations, but never over religious command.

In our culture cannibalism is not a result of personal morals but that of social morals.

In all cultures to sacrifice our own individual lives for the safety and survival of our children, siblings, parents, etc., is there, so it's a personal moral issue to do this.

Law sometimes makes allowance, though it may be in contention with this personal moral. For instance, abetting a crime is a crime itself, and not reporting a crime, though not participating in it either, is a crime. But the law and if not the law, then the courts, will make exceptions for sons who do not report their own mothers for even a major crime, and the sons will not be charge with this crime.

Social morals will always allow cheating, which is also allowed by personal morals (to propagate one's own genes), but the religious morals will stop some very pious and really devoted individuals from ever committing adultery or pre-marital sex.

Social morals will affect people on a sliding scale: Most people do commit crimes on an everyday basis.

Religious morals, too; some people will support abortion, some not.

But personal morals are absolute: they can't be avoided, they can't be ignored by the individual, they can't be circumvented, they can't be cheated. A personal moral will always be complied with, though at times subordinated and forced to do actions that are contrary to its own commands by religion. For instance, the personal moral says "don't kill", but you kill in a war. The personal moral is not violated; instead, it is bent by the superimposed weight of the religious moral.

Some people are forced to act against their own personal morals, like the child warriors of the Saharan African countries, at its most extreme, to six-year-olds whose laziness or lack of motivation is at odds with doing their school home work, will get their guilt bother them, to differing degrees of their own moral judgement over their own selves. A kid who did not make a cube out of cardboard paper for school next day, will feel bad guilt, and those who kill their own brothers and parents, will be destroyed immediately for life; their souls leave them, they are ridden with guilt beyond acceptable levels for an individual. If they don't have the courage to kill themselves, they get completely dehedonized of pleasure and of morals. They lose their sentient statae (statuses) as beings.

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edit: my eyes are closing, I can't keep them open continually, I am so sleepy. So i can't proofread the above. Damn the torpedoes, the mistakes, the typos, the nonsenses and the anti-senses (things that I said so wrongly, that I talked against my own thesis.)

Good night, all.

From the time that we are born our parents hand us a set of rules concerning our behavior...If our parents are religious they will make sure that we have some form of religious training ourselves which revolves around "morals." Schools have their own set of rules...From an early age we are taught "right from wrong" based on the beliefs of the adults who raise us and institutions and society at large...All along the way we may question what we are taught and our programming. We might keep our questioning a secret or we might verbalize our doubts to the people around us....Some people may adopt everything at face value and never think about questioning what they are taught.

I developed sort of a "golden rule" type of philosophy which is based on empathy and respect for others...I'm not a religious person in the traditional sense so I don't have fears about "burning forever" in hell if I make mistakes and "screw up" once in awhile...I hold myself accountable for my mistakes and try to make amends and try to learn from my "errors in judgement."...I look for deeper meaning and hidden motivations concerning my behavior and other people's behavior too...

I haven't read this thread yet .... just like the question.

My thought is .... if we eliminate religious brain washing and go to primary human learning.

Morals come from trial and error in social contact.
We develop a action reaction realization that if we want others to treat us well we better treat them well. Then we set limits on it via social groupings. Families, tribes, race , species etc.

its actually natural selection in its primary form. Most species do it in some way or another. Especially social species, herds and flocks and schools etc.

morals are basic survival via thought/reason

if a person has a problem with reasoning they will have a problem with what we see as morals. Now there does seem to be a slight genetic link but that is far from worked out ... nature/nurture agruments will continue.

this is an over simplification but is my thoughts on the idea.

Alright, there have been some very good responses by everyone, and it seems that metalwing has keen predictive powers. I think there is some confusion going on in here regarding not only the kinds of morals we have, we learn, we employ, but more importantly what is or which ones are being discussed. Bushido added a very relevent aspect as well with personal agency, or self-direction - if that is easier to incorporate here.

It seems clear that all have different things that influence our ideas of what is right/wrong and good/bad. Different people in different places and during different times have different rules according to the situation(s) at hand. All of these things(particulars of the time/place) are meant to be(or act as) an influence to guide our behavior. Thus far, we have focused more upon what those things are. Let's see if we can begin to gather all of these things together in order to have a coherent understanding of morality itself.

It seems that we all agree that moral codes outlining acceptable and/or unacceptable behavior - like societal laws - are all learned and change. Such changes take place and/or differ along with time/culture. So it is clear that moral codes are relative to current thought/belief/knowledge of the time and culture. As I've already said that is trivially true. That is not to say that it is not important, rather it is to say that we all recognize that and it is not a point of contention. Massage first pointed this out in his mention of indoctrination and several others haved since confirmed the notion. I do not disagree.

What can we know about morality itself because of this?

If we equate morality to moral belief by treating those as if they are one in the same, then we arrive at the conclusion that morality is relative to, and therefore changes along with the individual particulars. If we hold that morality and moral belief are separate things, then it seems that we change our moral belief and the laws based upon those along with our knowledge of the world, while morality itself goes unchanged. Morality remains to be the thing that governs our behavior and instills within us that we should do what is right and not what is wrong.

I'll leave it here for now...