Is morality an all or nothing affair?

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Micromorality
I am out of the Great Game of life. I am autistic. I live in a particular condition, peculiar, not uncommon, but which is called a disorder (1 per cent of the population at large, according to the British official statistics). I cannot interact with Other, because, as they call the disorder, I am “mind blind”. This solid fact keeps me out of large slices of moral life. This happens also with many other conditions, some genetic, some nurtural . A schizophrenic (again officially 1 %) is not considered penally responsible. This does not means that I am completely severed of morality. I could say that I live in a world of micromorality, or reduced morality: I can help sometimes a person in need, abstain from acts of cruelty, protect my own dog or cat. Non much more than this. I would call this a form of micromorality. For obvious reasons I use my life case. But how much for similar reasons people partake of a full moral life? Morality is like wealth, is distributed unequally among humans. One reason of this is that moral life is made of knowledge and understanding of a world of infinite complexity. The world of modern division of labor. A soldier who kills within his “rules of engagement” doesn’t have to know his victim. His victim is only a target.
Of course I conform to stated rules, but is thes morality?

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Read about Kohlberg's levels of moral development-I'm having trouble posting a link. The basic premise is people make the "moral" choice for different reasons according to their stage of development.

Even with aspergers, one can choose ones actions. It is the choosing and the choices that are evidence of moral standing.

Of course, noone much cares any more. Post modern morality looks like: If you're winning, you're a winner - if you're losing, you're a loser.

How interesting. I am now thinking about what are the moral choices my nonverbal, MR, OCD, bipolar, autistic daughter has.

If I don't stand for something

I will fall for anything

Petard: Constantly

I just touched on this in my latest blog post.

I believe that natural law is written into the hearts of all men. Every civilization, every culture, every time and place has a certain set of rules that are absolute, and we can see their consistency. Natural law is followed by the birds and beasts, the fish and plants... it is like calculus or music. It pervades all of creation. So all of us have morality written into our being and to choose to go against this nature is wrong for anyone in any time or place.

Above that, man has the intellectual ability and the moral responsibility to be ethical as well. We are able to reason and with that ability we are able to make choices based on ethics, and thus able to do right and wrong. Those people who are unable to reason or use higher functioning have some or all of their culpability diminished so that they aren't responsible for wrongdoing.

Where does Asperger's place my husband on that scale? In which areas might his culpability be reduced and how much is it reduced? I wouldn't know where to start in answering such a question.

This poses an interesting question in deed. I believe I have rather high Moral standards although thats just me and they are mine. So does that mean that I just live by my own Moral standards and not everyone elses. Where do you draw the line between what is Morally right and wrong, good or bad?

My best guess and its only a guess, is that if you try to be good and not harm anyone on purpose. Gee this gets more confusing with the words on purpose. What if you accidently hurt someone and then appologise, does that mean that you did wrong?

Also some people including myself are extremely just, and treat everyone with kind hearted respect except for themselves. They themselves get a real beating from themselves, is that Morally correct?

Sorry for posing more questions than answers. I always find it hard to judge whats wrong or right and what should be accepted as Moral within reason.

I find this very interesting... I am morally compelled to help out everyone, always. Even if that help seems insignificant, or I don't want to. I cannot do anything that I can reason is in any way immoral. I cannot leave anything dirtier then it was when I got to it. If I wash my hands in a public bathroom using a sink, I feel morally obligated to wipe that sink down with paper towels afterwards. If I do not, I will think about that sink for the rest of the day.

I think your main problem here is that you think morality is only about your interactions with other people.

Morality is the study of action. "What should I do?" And it pertains to ALL aspects of life.

As for judging a particular action as moral or not. Depends on your morality. I am a Rational Egoist. What I would just as good and proper would differ GREATLY from an altruist for instance.

So there is no such real thing as a "reduced morality." Morality pertains to EVERY choice you can possibly make. Whether you are conciously directing those choices or not is another matter. And whether you hold yourself to a strict code or not is another matter too. For the decision to follow a morality is a moral choice in itself.

There is a great weakening of morality in modern societies. The bond between feeling, passion, instinct and rules and their enforcement is thinner and thinner. Bureaucratized and formalistic application of law and order is the decay of the ethos and the sliding into some form of incomprehensible kafkaesque rule of the apparatus. I don't know if something that can be called "justice" is ever existed but certainly it doesn't exist now. One reason is in the complexity of economic organization, division of labor, globalization, which antedates what now we call with that word. The Mediterranean was already a global economy with the Greeks, the Phoenicians etc.

There is a further problem: the inevitability of a gray area between the so called legality and so called illegality. I believe there will never be a state that abolishes corruption and mafias, Yakuza, triads and underground traffics run by mobsters. People who live in areas dominated by mafias live in their own ethos, as it has been popularized in the mafia movies.

Private morality only still may survive, having its roots in evolutionary behavior.

Morality is a human construct. It doesn't come from the book of fairy tales. It doesn't come from some supposed divine providence. Societies decide for themselves what they believe is the correct way for people to live and interact. That's why morality is always changing to meet the better idea. It's a fluid, dynamic and utterly subjective malleable construct.

I agree... Morality is a human construct, up to a degree. Basic morality (i.e. don't kill your neighbor) is probably programmed into us on an instinctual level, but society has many rules that go beyond "don't harm others". For instance, our society frowns on cheating in a relationship. However, does cheating directly harm your partner? In what way is it immoral? A possible answer may be that it is a breach of contract (why is lieing immoral, if it does not directly harm another person?). However (assuming lieing is considered immoral, and it's been agreed upon that you won't cheat), let's say that you are in a relationship where your partner considers something cheating that your don't (i.e. porn or cybering or something). Would it be immoral to "cheat" by their definitions? Would it be immoral for them to impose their definitions on you? Our society (and many, if not every, other) also considers many things that we have no control over as being immoral, such as finding "underage" people attractive, regardless of whether the minor is physically sexually mature. As an example of renslaer's "fluid, dynamic and utterly subjective malleable construct", this is something that has arisen within approxiametly the last 100 years (ironically, with a loosening of many of sexual morals).