A question about morality.

Well, since no one's offered a follow-up yet, I guess I'll get the ball rolling. Although I think this is going to be a "slow" topic until everyone gets back to work on Monday.

I don't think it's an either/or question, as the poll suggests. I think the answer is somewhere in between. We all get "morality lessons", if you will, from our society. The could come from the overall culture, our religion, or parents, etc. But I believe each person has their own internal compass to guide them and help them decide what is right.

To use an obvious hot-button issue these days ... gay marriage. My religion (were I to practice) teaches that homosexuality is immoral. Is it really? Or is it just the religion's leaders imposing their moral view? That's what's up to me to decide.

The biggest problem with "morality" is when someone, be it an individual or a group, tries to impose their morality upon others. I'm not talking about open debate ... I'm talking about the "I'm right, you're wrong" kind of imposition. To use a ludicrous example, telling me I'm immoral because I wear sneakers is probably not the best way to open the debate.

 

I agree that there should be some middle ground between the two.

If morality is relative, then I am free to do as I like and believe and by golly I don't care even if I am wrong (in your eyes). As far as I am concerned, everything I do is OK - for example, gay bashing, pornagraphy, abuse of any kind, etc. IF YOU TAKE IT TO THE EXTREME, this could be where all the sicko's live and like it.

If morality is a standard, now we have all the organized groups telling us (if we could ever get them to agree) how we should live our lives, what to believe, etc to the nth degree. The rules manual would be enormous.

There needs to be a middle ground somewhere.

 

"Morality" is an extremely subjective concept, shaped by personal experience, society, family, and maybe some inherent qualities of the individual.

Is it "moral" to steal food from a grocery store when your kids are starving?

Is it "moral" to put someone in prison for doing the above?

Is it "moral" to hang someone for doing the above, as was common in England at one time?

Is it "moral" to shoot someone for stealing your TV set?

Is it "moral" to execute a murderer after he has been captured and locked up where he cannot do it again?

Please do not set off on the tangent of answering the above rhetorical questions. I think we can agree that sincere people will give different answers to these and other similar querstions about morality. My point is, who decides what is moral and what is not? And my answer to that question, is that it is a subjective decision that each individual makes based on the entire range of experience and upbringing. (Saying that god decides solves nothing, because people then disagree on what god has decreed. Even Bible literalists disagree, and plenty of people do not regard the Bible as the word of god. So all you've done is transfer the question from "Who decides what is moral?" to "Who decides what god has decreed?")

Sexual morality is an especially divisive issue, because different religions, and different denominations within the same religion have different views toward sex. Some believe that it is "immoral" for two people of the same gender to have sex, while others believe that as long as nobody is being coerced or is under-age, that consentual sex cannot be "immoral."

Every human being has a powerful sense of right and wrong, but honest people cannot agree on what constitutes right and wrong. I believe that war is always wrong. The OP believes it is not only permissible, but under certain conditions, necessary. We are both honest, sincere people. The conclusion I come to is that morality is subjective.

I didn't vote in the poll because "Both of the above" was not offered as a choice.

 

Very well said, Daniel. You always provide very thoughtful answers to difficult questions and give me things to think about. What's more, you manage to do it without being inflammatory. I appreciate that. Thanks.

 

I also agree that it's somewhere in between.

There's no absolute standard of morality that can be applied in a black/white manner. I think most people in my 'culture' will agree that "Thou shalt not kill", but they'd also agree that self-defense justifies a killing.

Personally, I'm against killing human beings, and that tends to tilt me to being against war, but I won't say that World War II was unjustified.

I try to guide my own actions with a "personal compass". But some of my actions are REactions that aren't always consistent with my own personal morality or a 'standard'.

 

A classic justification of moral relativism is this: If it is categorically immoral to tell lies, then in Nazi-controlled Europe the families who hid and protected Jews were acting immorally. Clearly that isn't correct.

I think the highest morality is the "golden rule," which exists in some form in all religions. Everything else is cultural.

 

Morality and ethics are dictated by the culture in which you live. This is not a worldwide norm but regional.

Integrity would be individually based.

 

Another vote for both. At one point, Society had no problems with slavery; it was prefectly morally OK. Then some individuals decided it wasn't moral. Eventually, enough people turned to that way of thinking that now slavery is considered by society to be morally abhorrant.

 

i also think both apply, and you can't really do a one-or-the-other poll.

why? because individuals can be stupid and, for example, think it's ok to kill someone else. in that case we need broader society to impart the idea that killing someone else is bad.

however, individuals in large (or even small) groups also can be stupid. the best case i can think of is slavery, as stev0 mentioned above. in that case, there are a whole lot of individuals (namely the slaves and anyone else against slavery) whose morals it went strongly against and they stood up and made a change in society. what about some of the really extremist groups- like that group that camps outside military funerals with big signs about how god hates soldiers?

it's really a two way street. society affects individuals, and individuals affect society. it's kind of like the nature-nurture debate i guess, in that both play their own role, but the interactions between them also have a huge effect on the general outcome.

 

I think society has always been split on the question of slavery. Of course, most slaves have always been against it. But even among non-slaves there has always been opposition. Note that at the Continental Congress, allowing slavery in roughly half the new country was a compromise between those who wanted slavery in the whole country, and those who wanted it abolished in the whole country.

"Society" is rarely in agreement internally.

When the modern slave trade began, to secure labor for the plantations of the West Indies, and later the American mainland, there were voices speaking out against it from the start.

 

Problem is...who is defining "morality. In my book, morality is an absolute standard as is defined in the Bible. Now, with due deference to Daniel's points, just because you had a good reason to do something does not change its objective morality. Just its subjective public condemnation.

Law is that was as well. Many people violate a "law", but are either punished very lightly or found not guilty based on their intent and the reasons the law was broken. The law is still an absolute standard.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Nov 4 2006, 05:02 PM) [snapback]343938[/snapback]</div>

Let's consider slavery again: During the days of American slavery, there were Bible-believing Christians who insisted that the Bible says slavery is right and proper, and there were other Bible-believing Christians who insisted that the Bible condemns slavery.

Who decides what side the Bible actually comes down on on an issue like this?

Take another issue: Lending money at interest. In Shakespeare's day, Christians were forbidden from lending money at interest. Today they do it all the time and consider it proper. Both views were based on readings of the Bible.

Back in the days when monarchy was the rule, Christians almost universally insisted that the monarch derived his power from god, and cited the Bible in defense of that position, but today most American Christians insist that legitimate power derives only from a democratic choice by the people. I don't know if they cite the Bible for this view, but they certainly reject the old view that the Bible demands allegience to the king. St. Paul commands Christians to obey their government, but the United States was founded in a revolution against the king, and few Chrisatians today cling to the Biblical view that Americans were wrong to overthrow their divinely-ordained government.

Who decides what the Bible commands on any given issue?

Answer: You make up your own mind, just as everyone else does, with or without reference to the Bible or other religious scripture or philosophical tract.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 4 2006, 07:10 PM) [snapback]343921[/snapback]</div>

Ahh, the same could be said on the political bases, Lib vs conserv....
Slaves: now their called farm workers, who work at or below minimum wage & live in substandard housing on property and their doing working jobs we as US citizens are too good for.. :huh: :mellow:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Nov 5 2006, 02:01 PM) [snapback]344230[/snapback]</div>

Commonly called "wage slavery," has some things in common with chattel slavery, but is less violent in many respects:

The wage slave who leaves his job is not hunted down with dogs and then whipped. But his chances of finding a better job are slim.

The wages and working conditions for farm workers are a national shame, but chattel slavery was a far worse national shame.