Moral compass

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Some people call me a bad influence even though I have no criminal history. What I know is that I can give good advice. But sometimes it is bad advice. I may think that my moral compass is broken, because although I know the laws and the rules, I will sometimes ignore then for reasons of selfpreservation. I have some idols who were moralistic and ethical while few are unethical and may be regarded as bad people (like Uwe Boll, just joking).

Do you even believe there is such a thing as morals? How would you estimate yourself regarding a moral compass?

I believe there is such a (obviously abstract) thing as morals, but I also believe that moral systems are entirely constructed, rather arbitrary, and not absolutely necessary. I consider morality to be the study and practice of the deployment of power that no one should have in the first place. The elimination of all artificially-created systems of unequal power would eliminate the overwhelming majority of conflicts of interest, and so there would no longer be any application for morality. The remaining conflicts of interest would be as they are for other animals: matters of pure survival, and, therefore, amoral.

My "moral compass" (I actually prefer not to refer to my values in terms of morals because of the connection between morals and hierarchy that I mentioned in the previous paragraph) is oriented around survival, but it is not quite as self-centered and short-sighted as the dog-eat-dog "survival of the fittest" concepts often evoked by the term "survival." My concept of survival is based on an understanding of the interconnectedness of living organisms and the centrality of a healthy environment, and so I tend to oppose measures that are designed to benefit humans, but are environmentally harmful or detrimental to other organisms.

One example is the level of antibiotics usage in the U.S., which has come back to haunt us in the form of resistant bacteria. Perhaps an ecosystem-centric medical model could have prevented this state of affairs, illuminating the fact that a threat to the survival of disease-causing bacteria has implications for those with whom they share an ecosystem (humans).

i believe we form our conscience in early childhood, as soon as we realize we are human and others are like us. we don't like to be hurt. others also likely don't like to be hurt. we decide not to hurt them. i consider monkeys, apes, whales, dolphins, and elephants to be much like us. things can go wrong with this conscience formation if a child doesn't bond with other humans.

I have few morals, myself.

I think that I simply prefer machines to people, and have small regard for the human race.

Nietzsche wrote a lot about morals and how they are different depending upon social status, then went on to describe society without morals and even came up with the notion of superman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_ ... _in_morals

Back to reality, we live in societies and common morals have been translated into laws so we need to abide my the moral code else we fall foul of it. These morals can still be broken if its proven that you were breaking them in defence of something.


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I've been told I have good morals. Or that I have a "lot of integrity" to be more specific. But I'm not entirely sure I understand the concept. So I pretty much go by what people that know me the best have to say about my character when it comes to stuff like that.

I studied Kohlberg's theory of moral development a little, last year. Here's a link to some information about it: http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/kohlberg01bk.htm

I think that different people have different morals...I've been told that I have good morals and that I treat people well. I often act in ways that I think will benefit me and/or my loved ones.