High morals and no morals. I don't buy into it.

Post Reply New Topic

I'll say one of the most important things here right off the bat. Moral values are subjective. Different people have different standards and their own ideas of what is right and wrong. This seems to be yet another thing society (referring to America in this case) fails to understand. Often if you don't have the same moral values as someone else, you're told you have no morals. I don't buy into that. People also like to say they have high morals, implying that their morals are “better” then other people's. I don't buy into that either. Just because more people believe it doesn't make it “better”, even if it does make it more “normal” and acceptable. Right and wrong are not fixed in stone and have changed over time, even among religious people, even if their holy texts didn't change. Just because I don't follow any of the major religions doesn't mean I have no morals. Not much more I can think to say on the subject till any replies come in.

I would disagree with you that morals are COMPLETELY subjective. There are rational/non-religious foundations for most morality (golden rule, don't murder, lie, steal, cheat, etc..) I would say, that morality is provisional. That is, mostly true most of the time. A good book on this subject is "The Science of Good and Evil" by Dr. Michael Shermer.

Morality is a useful social tool no matter where it comes from. Whether or not morality is subjective does not hide the fact that we need some moral basis for a lawful society. Laws are based on moral judgements like laws governing slavery, violence and other aspects of society. The system of democracy is largely a product of moral judgement in and of itself, after all, a society with different morals might have preferred a caste system or dictatorship. The economic system of capitalism also brings with it some moral baggage as we can see from the views of communist detractors. Because of the difficulty that different moral systems have with each other each moral group will usually have its own views of a perfect society and push to create it and because of their belief that their own morality is correct they have problems getting along. In a society where coercion is not used to maintain order encouragement is used. The person who says that you are not moral is trying to get you to fall in line with their morality because they see you as being wrong. The fact that you are commenting on their position being illogical means that you disagree with that person's moral assessment, likely to some morality of your own claiming promoting tolerance. The influence of morality on society and its prevalence is something that is noted in a test I will put the address of below.

http://www.moral-politics.com/

I like this test and it pretty much addresses how morality affects one's political views which although I am digressing a bit to put it here, it really does illustrate something that few people really give thought about.

Morality is herd instinct in the individual. Enough said.

That's a quote from Nietzsche, I believe.

Morality, as is generally prescribed in the United States, is based on intolerance and paranoia. There are people whom are seen as genuinely inferior, e.g. gays, by the moral establishment.

Most morality speak comes straight from the Republican-dominated establishment, whose agenda is filled with paranoid and self-centered ideations. They shouldn't even speak of morality, to be honest, because to them morality is defined by intolerance, e.g. either you fall in line with what I say, or you get the hell away from me. In other words, it is utter hypocrisy.

- Ray M -

Man, I thought the '60's were over.. whatever you smoke, I don't want any.

In simple terms yes, this is true. However it is a bit of an evolutionary anomoly in humans though. Since the human brain is based in primate nerophysiology, cooperative behavior is difficult to hardwire into a brain designed for competitive/purely hierachal behavior. In simple terms we were'nt made to be cooperative hunters.

There are more simple ways to put that without using such complex terms, but I will answer anyway. Most humans are sheep. We are in fact meant to work like a wolf pack; independent when useful, pack-like when necessary. However, we did not have massive strength or claws or the ability to change colour. Thus, when some giant predator came along to an individual, he became a snack. This, however, was not particularly evolutionary sound, being eaten and all. So humans developed a herd instinct in order to protect themselves. This was a perfectly logical evolutionary step in order to survive. However, something went wrong. Fire, spears, agriculture. We were outgrowing our primative need for group dynamics, but keeping it for an added bonus. So the evolutionary tie ins were slowly disappating, but we still liked our nice little group thing. But then nature got even. With new advances, groups got lazy. The new group dynamic dulled the human mind. In another massive feat by nature, animals did not lose the wiring for not attacking things in groups. As such, humans never left the group dynamic despite it clearly outgrowing its uses and becoming more of a sinful recreation.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" - Moses (ca. 1525-1405 BCE) in the Torah, Leviticus

"What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others." -Confucius (ca. 551–479 BCE)

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man." - Hillel (ca. 50 BCE-10 CE)

"Do to others as you would have them do to you." - Jesus (ca. 5 BCE—33 CE) in the Gospels,Luke 6:31;Luke 10:27 (affirming of Moses);Matthew 7:12

This seems a universal, rather than subjective precept, to me.

Well, some would think so but the fact that some societies have been built upon war and slavery seems to suggest otherwise. The philosophies behind war and slavery run counter to those expressed in your quotes yet they are prevalent in many cultures throughout history. Of course, you can treat your solution as objectively true and you probably benefit from doing so as it is probably a decent part of your world view, however, other beliefs have and do exist and they question the golden rule seeking justification in things like self-interest, divine right, etc.

That may be true, but that would mean that all economic structures are doomed to failure. It's more or less a role of chaos theory, which stipulates that order can be derived from chaos. So, a group of people can and should define their own viable structures that work best for them. All economic organizations are forced upon the population.

Maybe that's why corporations find it so hard to motivate their workers. Corporations are simply little communist enterprises, with a dictator at the top running the show. It's just that a person is free in a capitalist society to firm his / her communist enterprise. Most workers therefore are reduced to the status of sheep. It's quite easy to understand why the United States, which presents its status as the most evolved capitalist system and forces it upon others through force ... It's easy to understand why in the US that there are so many people willing to commit mass murder and then kill themselves. Life just isn't worth living ...

- Ray M -

I think there's a few inaccuracies here. Primates DO NOT work like a wolf pack. That's the problem. Primates are social animals for the sole reason of mutual defense. They are primarily grazing vegitarians who, like sheep don't need to work together to obtain food. Therefore, they tend to be highly individualistic and only concerned with thier own status within the group. All primate societies are highly political and totaly cuthroat. There's no reason not to betray a fellow group member, because you don't need that person to survive. Now this sort of society I would'nt call "Evil" because there's no conflict of interest here. Everyone is in it for themselves and that's mutually understood and practiced by everyone.
Now rewind history 6 million years ago when the first Homonids appeared. The African continent began to dry up making food scarce for primates. Our ancestors left the safety of the forrests and began to search for food in the open plains. They scavenged carcasses and began to hunt. This is when a fundamental behavior conflict occured. Homonids were attempting complex cooperative hunting strategies with a brain that for millions of years had evolved to do much the opposite. Evolution equiped homonids to compete against eachother for dominance. The environment changed requiring them to do the opposite. evolution did'nt have enough time to catch up. This is the source of "Good" and "Evil" in humanity. A conflict between two opposing evolutinary drives without the proper millions of years to achieve an ideal method to ballance them out.
Contrast this to Wolves who have always existed as cooperative groop hunters. Wolves still compete for dominance in the pack, but evolution has had plenty of time to evolve the appropriate behaviors to adress both individual and group evolutionary needs.

All systems are doomed to failure. We can figure that out from the history of civilizations, they are born, they grow, they peak, and then they weaken and collapse. However, I really don't get how chaos mathematics really has to do with the rise and fall of these systems, we usually do not have chaotic equations that we can perfectly predict for as long as the system exists because of the difficulty in getting all of the variables precise. The idea that all economic systems are forced upon the population is sort of questionable, self-selected communes have existed in the past and to some extent still exist as the Amish aren't exactly capitalists. The claim of force seems overstated as if a majority of people we staunch communists they could shift the system towards more statist control.

I don't think that worker motivation has anything to do with force. I think it has more to do with bad motivation techniques. Workers are not forced to work for any one company and because of this companies have to compete for labor. People have to work but that exists in any system, it does not say who they will work for as they could work for themselves, or they could work for any company that would hire them which might vary from very nice jobs to horrible ones. Workers are better than sheep because they do have power to decide where they want to work, only the lowest of workers have little choice, most people if they have experience and ability have much more freedom with their lives. Also, I do not know where you got this idea that Americans were on average suicidal/homicidal. Most Americans are neither suicidal nor homicidal and most even love this country which as you say forces the system upon them. Life in America is worth living for most people and that is why they live, and raise families and continue this cycle. In fact, life in America can't be horrible if people are willing to come to America and suffer lives worse than the average person just to have what we do.

Our frontal-lobes are designed for co-operative/creative behaviour.
Check: http://www.neilslade.com
You can consciously 'turn on' your co-operative frontal lobes instead of using your competitive reptile-brain. And yes... it works, and no it's not hokus-pokus

Morality is an illusion.
There is no right.
There is no wrong.

You can only do what *you* think is right, whatever anybody else thinks is their problem.
Murder can sometimes be necessary ('right') if it is used to protect others (i.e. murder a ruthless dictator to save the people), so you can not make a fixed Morality that states that 'murder is wrong' because everything allways depends on the circumstances. And there is only one person to judge you and that is *you*.

The people considering themselves to be the most Moral, are the ones causing the most wars and death and despair and mayhem and unhappiness (i.e. the christians and the muslims). The pro-lifers and the homo-phobes are a good example, what business is it of theirs what other people do in their bedroom or with their bodies? Stop imposing Morality and being reptillian and start enjoying a peacefull life...

Since there is no morality, I think it's right for me to kill you for being a sophist, a nhilist and a relativist. What are your thoughts on this??

How is it that you belive there is no right or wrong, but you believe it's wrong to own a gun?? A bit of a contradiction is'nt it??