Morals

[NoMore]

Is there really such a thing as morality or is it just some kind of human manifestation to create a false sense of order?

[mikelepore]

I consider morality to be a description of something occurring within a speaker's or writer's own state of mind. Since I'm the person who is now writing this, and my state of mind exists, therefore morality exists.

[mel]

Is there really such a thing as morality or is it just some kind of human manifestation to create a false sense of order?

That really depends on what you mean by "morality". People in a society generally have an understanding that some things are "okay" and other things are not, and things that are not are either frowned upon, highly stigmatized, or criminalized. There is no objective framework for deciding this, and there is no strict material basis for a society's ethical and moral opinions, but overall the basics have served us pretty well insofar as we've been able to keep to them.

Even the biblical moral rules were tremendously beneficial in their time, as many of the things which were determined "unclean" could have been very very very dangerous before a lot of contemporary advances in technology and our improved understanding of things like bacteria, germs, disease, etc. Generally the moral rules of a society are an attempt to preserve the lives and well being of the people in that society. If you can control the morality, you can control the society. Politicians who exploit the religious right for political gain understand this.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Is there really such a thing as morality or is it just some kind of human manifestation to create a false sense of order?

Morality is what "should" or "shouldn't" be done by people. It's difficult to know whether it's subjective, objective, or nonexistent. It seems like it exists in some form.

How is a communist society to resolve disputes without some sort of methodology for dealing with subjective or objective moral interests? I'd like to think that certain moral interests are objectively universal, such as freedom, therefore people will be likely to support those.

[NoMore]

So could it be that morals are just personal preferences that are based on precedents set by the effects of certain events that have occurred in a person's or a group of peoples lives?

[the last donut of the night]

I believe that morals do exist. Every society has basic beliefs which place taboos on murder, theft, lying, disrespect, etc. Why it is like that? I don't know. But what matters is that these general principles are universal to our species and we have seen this throughout history (the 10 commandments, or Buddhist teaching, or Jainist principles, etc). However, if we begin to see morality as something relative, we make a bad, bad turn for the worse. The main principle of relativism is that what's good for that person may not be good for that one. If I were to think so, then by my standards, murder of newborn babies would be fine. So we must acknowledge basic morals as constant and unchanging.

[mel]

I believe that morals do exist. Every society has basic beliefs which place taboos on murder, theft, lying, disrespect, etc. Why it is like that? I don't know. But what matters is that these general principles are universal to our species and we have seen this throughout history (the 10 commandments, or Buddhist teaching, or Jainist principles, etc). However, if we begin to see morality as something relative, we make a bad, bad turn for the worse. The main principle of relativism is that what's good for that person may not be good for that one. If I were to think so, then by my standards, murder of newborn babies would be fine. So we must acknowledge basic morals as constant and unchanging.

Of course they exist, but not as something objective to be discovered or something innate and unchangeable, but as something culturally relative that each society enforces and changes and grows with. The fact that certain things have been nearly universally accepted just goes to show that those are the strongest of human ethical rules.

[Pogue]

I consider morality to be a description of something occurring within a speaker's or writer's own state of mind. Since I'm the person who is now writing this, and my state of mind exists, therefore morality exists.

interesting philosophy.

[heylelshalem]

of course morality is relative. It evolves and changes with each societys set of rules. Of which borrows from the source of moral code: usually the predominant religious meme of the reason. Its all basically about common sense and respecting other individuals rights...
but it can also be used as a tool of control by the powers that be. I wish it were as simple as "god says thats bad-dont do it"..but its not. And it seems that there are always exceptions to the rule. as for me the only moral code i follow is the golden rule: do as thou wilt harm none. Basically watch your ass as far as hedonistic behaviors and be aware of how your actions can have repercussions, and be good to other be as you would want them to be good to you.

[Jack]

If there are morals, they're quite flexible.

For instance:

When I have food than robbery=bad

When I don't, robbery=nessacary

[LOLseph Stalin]

I say there is morals in society and that they must be degrading pretty badly if value is placed on people's lives due to how much material things they own and how much colored paper with determined values they have.

[fiddlesticks]

Morality is defined by the one who speaks (or types) the word. Generally, morality is what is considered ok behavior by society, but what is moral to you may differ from what is moral to society.

Morality exists, but it changes as fast as the times do. People in 100 B.C. never had to decide if abortion was moral or not because it wasn't a very common thing to happen, and I don't even want to know what kind of stuff is going to argued as moral or immoral thousands of years from now. It's pretty complicated.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Fuck morals. Morality is individualistic and just a way for an individual or group to lay the blame for society's problems on other people rather than looking at the systematic and structural reasons for problems.

Bourgeois morals: "If you didn't drink/get divorced/get bad grades, you wouldn't be poor".

Christian Morals: "If gays weren't so open in our society, there'd be less social problems"

Environmentalist Morals: "If you had a smaller carbon footprint then environmental problems would be fixed".

[mel]

Fuck morals. Morality is individualistic and just a way for an individual or group to lay the blame for society's problems on other people rather than looking at the systematic and structural reasons for problems.

Bourgeois morals: "If you didn't drink/get divorced/get bad grades, you wouldn't be poor".

Christian Morals: "If gays weren't so open in our society, there'd be less social problems"

Environmentalist Morals: "If you had a smaller carbon footprint then environmental problems would be fixed".

How marvelously reductionist of you.

[A Chemist]

An action or thought can be said to be moral if it contributes to the greater good of mankind, either as its main objective or as a side-effect. Or, in other words: "how many people are going to benefit from this in the long run?".

Of course attempting to foresee the long term consequences of our actions and judge them against that very simple principle is a formidable task even for the finest thinkers, hence the USSR...

[mel]

An action or thought can be said to be moral if it contributes to the greater good of mankind, either as its main objective or as a side-effect. Or, in other words: "how many people are going to benefit from this in the long run?".

Of course attempting to foresee the long term consequences of our actions and judge them against that very simple principle is a formidable task even for the finest thinkers, hence the USSR...

You've already identified one problem with consequentialism/utilitarianism. There are others and ultimately, I think humans should stop attempting to find a prescriptive framework to justify their moral decisions and simply recognize that they are consistently evolving, vary from person to person, and are ultimately as much a product of society as they are a determinating factor in society. Relativism is only a bad thing if you ascribe undue value to "strictly defined", "objective" and "universal".

[Nwoye]

I've recently been intrigued by the position that ethical assertions (X is wrong) do not actually represent propositions, and therefore cannot be true or false. The general conception of something being true is whether or not it accurately describes some feature of the real world. If I say, "the car is red", that statement is true if and only if the car which I am referring to is in fact red, or what we consider red. However, if I say "you should not murder" murder will still exist. In response, we don't say, "oh okay, murder exists, therefore murder other people" we accuse that act of being unethical. So in this way, ethical arguments don't function like traditional descriptive language, and as such cannot be true or false, like traditional descriptive language.

[NecroCommie]

There are no ultimate morals whatsoever. It's all made up by man to bring some kind of sense to our actions, and on the other hand to manipulate the masses.

[Jimmie Higgins]

How marvelously reductionist of you.Is that a disagreement or a complement to my flippentness?

I have no problems with a personal code or having principles, but morals serve a different social function. It is based on supposed universal values applies equally to everyone (in theory). It is "non-class" in nature so "stealing" is bad even if you steal food to feed your family, but exploitation even if it causes families to starve is "moral" because being a profitable entrepreneur is considered to be a virtue in our society.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

There is supposed to be a difference between what someone calls moral and what something that is moral actually "is." It's like a chair. What a chair is my vary, but it's ultimately something used for the function of sitting. It's defined by usage.

Morality is an open question in that it's defined by usage. We find out what is bad and good through action, obtaining new facts, experiences, et cetera. It's an incredibly complex topic.

However, we do seem to make gains. Racism is illegitimate might be a moral "fact." It might not be, either. They idea is that morality is a function of what promotes the good. How this function works is a learning process.

[mel]

Is that a disagreement or a complement to my flippentness?

I have no problems with a personal code or having principles, but morals serve a different social function. It is based on supposed universal values applies equally to everyone (in theory). It is "non-class" in nature so "stealing" is bad even if you steal food to feed your family, but exploitation even if it causes families to starve is "moral" because being a profitable entrepreneur is considered to be a virtue in our society.

You're extending certain specific "personal codes and principles" to apply to all ethical and moral standards and frameworks. Personally I don't think it's quite as easy as "fuck morals", there are always going to be things which society as a whole values (human society will always value human life, though the degree to which they value it will necessarily vary), so there will always be ethical and moral rules against non-state murder.

Those ethical rules, codified into law, eventually weave themselves into the fabric of the public will, things like slavery ("as such", because we need to distinguish between slavery and wage-slavery) have become detestable in the minds of society, but this was not so at the point at which it was abolished (in the US at least). The law preceded the societal opinion on the abolition of slavery.

Society is as much a shaper of morals as it is shaped by them, and overall society has been progressive on this front (each iteration of societal morality has tended towards greater freedoms for a greater number of people [in that society], a greater amount of autonomy, higher standards of living, and longer lives). Of course, there will be exceptions, but I suspect they are few. We should not by any stretch of the imagination be "tossing out" all of the greater moral goods that society has discovered, but perhaps tweak the application of them in order to maximize the values which they represent. Rules against theft are as such not because there is something wrong in the value (people should be able to retain the value of their labor) but in the application (capitalist appropriation of surplus value actively works against this, which creates the need to steal the product of other peoples' labor). The problem with the death penalty is not a problem in the value (people should be protected from individuals who are a danger to society) but in the application (the death penalty opens up abuse by the government and does not deter violent crime, more humane solutions would reduce the number of violent criminals by attacking the problem at its source). Capitalism is not a result of poor moral values, but of poor application of those values, in such a way that they are not maximized. Even the example you gave of the entrepreneur being valued by society is an example of a poor application (an entrepreneur is successful because of theft, ruthlessness, greed, and legal skill) of a value that (hard work/innovation should be rewarded) is entirely valid and finds its best expression in a free society.

There is very little wrong with the values that underly most moral convictions, but the chosen applications of those moral values tend not to actually maximize their expression in society, and the reward system of the society that exists does not actually reward the values that people have, which is why capitalists spend a lot of money convincing people that it adequately rewards hard work, perseverance, and generosity and not greed, ruthlessness and hoarding.

[Ultra_Cheese]

If I were to think so, then by my standards, murder of newborn babies would be fine. So we must acknowledge basic morals as constant and unchanging.
I'm not sure if I understand your argument. You say that without consideration for morality, we would act immorally. But why do the implications of morality matter after we make the realisation that morality is falsely invented?

[Marxist Madman]

Morality it tough--> it has been used to advance human existence in not completely destroying each other; yet they have been used to brainwash masses of people into doing what the current leader calls 'moral' such as invading another country to "save" its citizens.

[samizdat]

I think morals in its simplest form is a way of relating to ones surroundings. "Morals" exist whether "good" or "bad" while ethics is a derivitive what beliefs individuals apply in actual practice.