Can a person go against his or her morals?

Yes, easily...

I would argue that a person's "morals" are only an overarching theme in his or her actions, not what the person plans on doing. Obviously, if I hit you in the face, at that moment, I didn't think it was the wrong decision. If morals are in your intentions and plans, then they can change every single instant of every day, and are therefore meaningless. If your morals are your actions themselves, then you can't actually do something that wasn't "right" at the time.

No, you could have done it, knowing at the time it was wrong.

How? Do you think "right" is not always in your best interest? If it isn't, why is it right? If it is, why do you do something that's not in your best interest?

Because the ego is not always in control, sometimes emotion is, sometimes the unconscous is, sometimes we are plain out of control.

But where do my emotions end and my ego begin? How can you define really being in control? I say "calm" itself is an emotion.

Do you think morality is always in your own best interest? Then you might want to work up a definition.

This whole idea is based off of the assumption that there is no set in stone "right and wrong." I'm asking if, when someone might say they hold "morals" that are not selfish, if they make a selfish decision, are their morals really morals at all?

You don't know when your emotions (anger/happyness/love) cause you to do things that you otherwise would not???? Yes you do.

For everything I do, I can think of a biological drive that it is trying to fulfill. What's the difference between that and emotion? Being "emotional" is only different from "rational" thought because we can identify a difference between that and the way we normally think. Does that make it less right?

for me being in control means both having awareness and having the ability to alter our behaviour. When we are on biological drives or trying to fill emotional or spiritual needs we very often are not aware of what we are doing, and even when we are we often don't know in real time why we did it. It is only long after, when we get enough distance from our old selves, that we understand. I am mystified as to why you think that you know everything about yourself and why you do what you do....are you very young per chance?? Somethings one can only understand after they have done some living. For instance that what we want and try to get is often not good for us, and that we humans are very bad about predicting what will make us happy.

We may be bad at predicting, but amending our ways doesn't change what we thought at the time. And I think we are always just fulfilling biological drives, whether we think we're above it or not.

Morality is an understanding and acceptance of what is correct. It is not a programmed imperative, and therefore a person can easily (and often does) act in a way that in contradictory to his or her "morals."

This is why God created Guilt.

I believe there are a very few who are enlightened enough to unfailingly abide by their morals, but this is not, at all, the norm.

Most of us will act immorally (as respects our accepted morals) and we will, to one degree or another, self-punish ourselves (Here again Guilt).

Some of us have no acceptance of morality and are capable of acting in any way at all. Such folks are called sociopaths. Their understanding of morality is limited to recognizing, mimicking and exploiting the morals of their prey.

Morality is subject to debate, and need not be absolute, but it must be present throughout a given society.

Society requires rules that are based on a sense of righteousness.

Silly ass arbitrary rules may be OK for a captive populace, but not for a free society.

What might be righteous may differ, in some small degree, from one peoples to another, but they all, to survive and thrive, must dominate the choices of their members.

So you think a person's personal morals can only be a slight divergence from socially accepted "universal" morals?

God did not create Guilt-- before the Serpent came to give Adam and Eve the fruit of the tree of knowledge, there was no guilt.

The Serpent gave us the gift of guilt.

Yes.


Yes.

Not at all.

I think a person's morals can be anything, but if they more than "slightly" differ from those accepted by their society they will, eventually be ostracized or maginalized.

I don't believe in the myths of Genesis.

Do you?

Okay. I understand.

But I don't think we feel guilt because we went against our morals of that moment. I think we feel guilt because we have changed our morals since, and would not act the same way again. Sometimes, it happens instantly after you act. Sometimes guilt doesn't set in for a long time. I think it's not until someone truly decides (or "realizes") what they did was wrong that they feel guilt.