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 Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:53 pm
While I was looking for new threads or posts in the morality & ethics subforum I didn't find anything new, so I decided to post a new thread myself. The question that came to my mind was: What actually is morality? What do people consider moral or immoral? And why? Wikipedia says so much: Quote: Morality refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of good and evil —also referred to as "right or wrong", used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values —shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct morality. Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions, motivations or actions, as these have been learned, engendered, or otherwise developed within each individual. Please discuss: ~What is morality in your own definition? ~What is moral/immoral according to your beliefs/religion? ~Is morality something invented by mankind or something that has always existed? ~How important is morality?
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:06 pm
In my opinion, morality is one's personal beleif in what is right or wrong. I think that morality comes from concsious thought. As soon as someone learns to judge, thoughts about "right or wrong" tend to seep into the mind.
On the most basic level, morality is not neccesary. Nothing is important but survival. However, morality has the possibility of making life more pleasant. It complicates it, certainly, but so does anything that is not absoloutely needed.
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:31 pm
Crazy Bananna In my opinion, morality is one's personal beleif in what is right or wrong. I think that morality comes from concsious thought. As soon as someone learns to judge, thoughts about "right or wrong" tend to seep into the mind. On the most basic level, morality is not neccesary. Nothing is important but survival. However, morality has the possibility of making life more pleasant. It complicates it, certainly, but so does anything that is not absoloutely needed. I don't really agree. You say that "nothing is important but survival." Of course that is true when you have a little developped society where people have to worry about food, housing and simply not dying, but since we are a rather well developped kind of society (in my opinion), there certainely is more than "just" survival. Sure, we all need to eat, drink, have clothes to wear and a place to live, but when these basic needs are taken care of there is and should be more to worry about. Morality starts to play an important role. If there was no morality, people would be allowed to kill each other, steal from each other and do other nasty things to each other. I think (and hope) that all of you agree that killing and stealing is immoral! Without our laws and a jurisdiction it would be a lot more difficult for each one of us to live in our society. A sense of morality is the basic requirement for us to live together in peace and harmony. And do you really think that morality is subjective? Isn't there some sort of morality that applies to every person. Some sort of "common sense"?
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 5:41 pm
It's funny, but I do not really define morality other than as a social construct which pertains to the individuals or groups of origin. It is a construct in that it has no 'real' verifiable existence outside of individual human minds and cultures. While some suggest there is some universal moral standard that somehow is aside from humanity's existence, such a claim is intrinsically nonfalsifiable so not much can be said on its truth or lack thereof. At it's core, morality strikes me as a method for structualizing proper (or improper) modes of behavior in different sittuations and contexts. From there it can be used to help dictate the most adaptive course of action or to rationalize decision-making in some way.
I personally do not like to get bogged down by the term 'moral' when I approach my own beliefs. While I undoubtedly HAVE morals, I have no delusions that my approach is the 'right' way in a universal sense. My moral sense is embodied by a Code of Honor I wrote a while back which on the simplest level states: "Honor is Peace." Actions, words, ways of thinking that are peaceful or harmonious are prefered over those which produce warring conflicts or discomfort. Beyond that it gets a bit more complicated, but "peace" is my fundamental guiding concept. As such, I shy away from polarized dichitomies like "good" and "evil" because they intrinsically grate against one another and create animousity. Where I do not, you could characterize my approach as Taoist.
I already somewhat addressed the question of whether morality is invented. Yes. Invented, though, implies design and I would not say that morality was neccesarily designed in any willfully directed way. I think that morality arose because it had to arise. For those who claim that morality cannot exist without a divine force or universal moral standard, a few moments of considering the requirements of a stable societies and relationships make it evident that morality is required for basic human interactions. In order for social groups to hold together, there have to be unspoken codes and laws that facilitate order within that group. Ethics and morals, in short. The ethics and morals formulated are specified to a particular culture and context that has been tried and determined true. Later these modes might become outdated to be replaced with something else. Morality evolves much like a living organism evolves; the most adaptive ideas survive and those which are damning kill their bearers.
The last paragraph speaks to the critical importance of morality. Without some form of ethical/moral structure, there cannot be any social cohesion. There would be no civilization, no goverments, no tribes, and probably no humanity. Any living creature which is social needs some ethics. It's possible that nonhuman creatures have inbuilt ethics that prevent them from destroying themselves all the time over who gets the biggest bit of food. Cooperation is just as important (if not moreso) in survival as competition; a point that often isn't stressed enough when you're taught evolution. But... enough rambling for now. whee
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:24 am
chocfudge Crazy Bananna In my opinion, morality is one's personal beleif in what is right or wrong. I think that morality comes from concsious thought. As soon as someone learns to judge, thoughts about "right or wrong" tend to seep into the mind. On the most basic level, morality is not neccesary. Nothing is important but survival. However, morality has the possibility of making life more pleasant. It complicates it, certainly, but so does anything that is not absoloutely needed. I don't really agree. You say that "nothing is important but survival." Of course that is true when you have a little developped society where people have to worry about food, housing and simply not dying, but since we are a rather well developped kind of society (in my opinion), there certainely is more than "just" survival. Sure, we all need to eat, drink, have clothes to wear and a place to live, but when these basic needs are taken care of there is and should be more to worry about. Morality starts to play an important role. If there was no morality, people would be allowed to kill each other, steal from each other and do other nasty things to each other. I think (and hope) that all of you agree that killing and stealing is immoral! Without our laws and a jurisdiction it would be a lot more difficult for each one of us to live in our society. A sense of morality is the basic requirement for us to live together in peace and harmony. And do you really think that morality is subjective? Isn't there some sort of morality that applies to every person. Some sort of "common sense"? Yes, there's a "common sense", but not everyone abides by it. It's a simple truth that people have the capability to do what they want, and beleive what they please. It doesn't neccesarily do anyone good, but it exists. Anyways, what is your defenition of this "common sense"? I would say that it is the ability to know what decision will do the least harm to others. But where, then, does this put decisions one has to make that will hurt someone no matter what? You say that we live in a well developed society. What about wartime? What if someone attacks you with the intention of killing you? Our society is not so developed yet that these things don't happen, and when they do, your primary concern will be survival.
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Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 10:29 am
I had everything written out, but then my computer froze! I don't feel like writing everything again at the moment, but will do so in the next couple of days. Starlock It's funny, but I do not really define morality other than as a social construct which pertains to the individuals or groups of origin. It is a construct in that it has no 'real' verifiable existence outside of individual human minds and cultures. While some suggest there is some universal moral standard that somehow is aside from humanity's existence, such a claim is intrinsically nonfalsifiable so not much can be said on its truth or lack thereof. At it's core, morality strikes me as a method for structualizing proper (or improper) modes of behavior in different sittuations and contexts. From there it can be used to help dictate the most adaptive course of action or to rationalize decision-making in some way. I personally do not like to get bogged down by the term 'moral' when I approach my own beliefs. While I undoubtedly HAVE morals, I have no delusions that my approach is the 'right' way in a universal sense. My moral sense is embodied by a Code of Honor I wrote a while back which on the simplest level states: "Honor is Peace." Actions, words, ways of thinking that are peaceful or harmonious are prefered over those which produce warring conflicts or discomfort. Beyond that it gets a bit more complicated, but "peace" is my fundamental guiding concept. As such, I shy away from polarized dichitomies like "good" and "evil" because they intrinsically grate against one another and create animousity. Where I do not, you could characterize my approach as Taoist. I already somewhat addressed the question of whether morality is invented. Yes. Invented, though, implies design and I would not say that morality was neccesarily designed in any willfully directed way. I think that morality arose because it had to arise. For those who claim that morality cannot exist without a divine force or universal moral standard, a few moments of considering the requirements of a stable societies and relationships make it evident that morality is required for basic human interactions. In order for social groups to hold together, there have to be unspoken codes and laws that facilitate order within that group. Ethics and morals, in short. The ethics and morals formulated are specified to a particular culture and context that has been tried and determined true. Later these modes might become outdated to be replaced with something else. Morality evolves much like a living organism evolves; the most adaptive ideas survive and those which are damning kill their bearers. The last paragraph speaks to the critical importance of morality. Without some form of ethical/moral structure, there cannot be any social cohesion. There would be no civilization, no goverments, no tribes, and probably no humanity. Any living creature which is social needs some ethics. It's possible that nonhuman creatures have inbuilt ethics that prevent them from destroying themselves all the time over who gets the biggest bit of food. Cooperation is just as important (if not moreso) in survival as competition; a point that often isn't stressed enough when you're taught evolution. But... enough rambling for now. whee
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Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:33 pm
Oy, that sucks. I've had that happen on rare occasions before, but only when I've had the misfortune of using a PC instead of a Mac. I've never had browser problems in Mac OS X. whee
A common standard was braught up here, or a "common sense" and that might be an interesting concept to probe further as there are those who argue for some sort of baseline moral standard. If you do compare moral codes across human cultures, there does appear to be a general 'moral consensus' of what is and is not acceptable behavior.
Do not kill people
Do not steal people's stuff
Do not be a slut or adulterous
These are some basic things required for people to just get along in a society. We care first and foremost about our own mortality, then our belongings (that are required in many ways to sustain our lives) and then reproductive rules (as reproduction is also an important resource). Granted that's a pretty impersonal way of looking at it. In some ways though I wonder if the most common sense consensus is both unspoken and also not really tied to any sort of survivalistic sense.
We want to be happy and live good, productive lives. Live and let live, but when others livlihoods impedes upon your own, historically it has been seen as acceptable to squelch out that impediment.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 3:10 am
Morality... my definition of morality at 4 AM...
What would be immoral is something I think somebody finds very wrong and that they would never do, because it's just THAT bad (wearing pink and red can be immoral for a fashion guru)
As you can tell from my example, there is a huge range of what is immoral and what isn't. Some people find that sleeping around is immoral, and abortion is immoral. Where as some people just thing that being judgemental is immoral. Hmm... xd anyway.
So I just think that moral values are just expectations we set for ourselves and the world around us.
What a demeaning definition for a word taken as seriously as "moral"...
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Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:26 pm
My definition of morality is 'that which promotes Ma'at, or universal order and peace.' Immorality is refered to as 'isfet', that which promotes chaos as well as unforgivable evils, such as rape, murder and child molesting.
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