Morals

@cyprose,

In your experiment I would think they would be very different 'morally'.

We learn to be morally upright from our parents and social circle - clearly that's passed from generation to generation.

Even 'primal' humans in small social groups put their survival at risk if they didn't cooperate, which meant following a set of rules (aka morals). How well those rules suited survival and how well they were followed played a part in determining whether individuals survived to propagate, which in turn led to the survival of the 'the rules'.

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

In your experiment I would think they would be very different 'morally'.

We learn to be morally upright from our parents and social circle - clearly that's passed from generation to generation.

Even 'primal' humans in small social groups put their survival at risk if they didn't cooperate, which meant following a set of rules (aka morals). How well those rules suited survival and how well they were followed played a part in determining whether individuals survived to propagate, which in turn led to the survival of the 'the rules'.

Yes, most of what you say is correct, but ultimately, morals are based upon the instinct to bond, the human version of inprinting, and the earliest organized societies are matralinear, from which we get our sense of the natural, and nation coming from Natal/navel, our connection to mother...

What culture gives us is the means to think and talk about ethics/morality in the abstract, but that does not mean morals can be taught as physics, through abstraction... Morals can only be learned as reality which society then modifies through culture... Immorality as a form of morality can be learned in the abstract, and that is what is learned by the abstraction of morals...That is, without a sense of morality no person can learn to be immoral...

If this seems difficult to grasp, then let me suggest that people behave morally out of emotion, out of irrationality because morality demands a sacrifice for community, usually of self... To abstract is to rationalize, and what is rational in the matter of morals is always rational from a certain point of view, the self, the very thing one must put on the line to be moral, the absence of which makes all reason meaningless...

For example: it is often moral and reasonable from the point of view of society that people should sacrifice their lives for the good of society, but since our lives are a predicate for all individual reason, this morality cannot possibly be reasonable... It is not reasonable to die like men, but to run like chickens...The most reasonable of men are have the wish bones of yard birds...Courage is a virtue, and all virtue is moral, but never reasonable... Reason is always turned against morality and for this reason all injustice, the most common immorality is always justified... People do not beat babies to death without cause... They do not start wars nor drop bombs without cause... People are good without reason, but never are they evil...

1 Reply

@Fido,

I can't accept the proposal you seem to be making; that morality is absolute and unchanging. Apologies if I've misinterpreted what you meant.

I guess phrases like

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most reasonable of men are have the wish bones of yard birds

are allusions that mean nothing to me so I failed to grasp your point.

Just because you have morals and a morality doesn't mean you adhere to it unthinkingly. Thus the guilt industries. You can know that something is wrong and still do it.

I could show you to very moral men from very different cultures and both would have some 'rules' that would appall the other. Does that make either less moral?

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

I can't accept the proposal you seem to be making; that morality is absolute and unchanging. Apologies if I've misinterpreted what you meant.

I guess phrases like
Quote:
most reasonable of men are have the wish bones of yard birds
are allusions that mean nothing to me so I failed to grasp your point.

Just because you have morals and a morality doesn't mean you adhere to it unthinkingly. Thus the guilt industries. You can know that something is wrong and still do it.

I could show you to very moral men from very different cultures and both would have some 'rules' that would appall the other. Does that make either less moral?

I want people to think about their morality, and teach by example...

What don't you know about the phrase quoted??? Never have yard bird soup??? Or is that cannibalism to you???

Few moral behaviors would appal any moral people... Let me suggest that both Arab and Jews are acting entirely morally... Only if one abstracts a morality and then tries t o apply it to all of humanity does what Arab does to Jew seem immoral... The fact is that morality like table manors is what divides people even while it unites a people to their own...

1 Reply

@Fido,

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Never have yard bird soup

Never even heard of it.

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few moral behaviors would appal any moral people.

Even if you were right (and you're not) a few would be enough to prove my point.

As for your cannibalism jibe.... I hesitate to say it but 'Eating **** would be cannibalism for you'

PS cannibalism is moral in some cultures. Cultures that have been around longer than yours and mine.

1 Reply

@hingehead,

Quote:

Quote:
hingehead wrote:

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Never have yard bird soup

Never even heard of it.
Foghorn Leghorn ring a bell... What sort of bird do you raise in your yard???

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few moral behaviors would appal any moral people.

Even if you were right (and you're not) a few would be enough to prove my point.
I have never heard of a society that did not accept the right of self defense and revenge... What they do they expect, and while they may consider their enemies animals they do not consider them immoral, but outside the range and protection of their morality...

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As for your cannibalism jibe.... I hesitate to say it but 'Eating **** would be cannibalism for you'

PS cannibalism is moral in some cultures. Cultures that have been around longer than yours and mine.

Quite correct... Cannibalism only became immoral when slavery made cannibalism seem a waste of community resources... You should have stopped where you hesitated,

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@Fido,

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stopped where you hesitated,

I concur, but I find it hard to leave a straight line alone.

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Cannibalism only became immoral when slavery made cannibalism seem a waste of community resources.

But cannibalism still exists and is considered moral in some societies. And does that mean if you ban slavery cannibalism returns?
Anyway, with that simplistic causal aside I think you are saying that morality is not absolute and will change under different circumstances - whew.

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@Fido,

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I have never heard of a society that did not accept the right of self defense and revenge

I do know of one really 'out there' group that talk a lot about 'turning the other cheek' and 'forgiving those who tresspass against you'.

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@Fido,

Right, we've established that a yard bird is a chicken so going back to the allusion that escaped me:

Quote:

The most reasonable of men are have the wish bones of yard birds

Men don't have wish bones. Biology 101.

1 Reply

@Fido,

Sorry Fido - I'm tired but many of your thoughts are less than clear in meaning to me - but I am a stupid foreigner.

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they may consider their enemies animals they do not consider them immoral,

So animals are moral?

Regardless, I'm pretty sure that one of war time propaganda's chief aims is to convince the general populace that the enemy is indeed immoral if not inhuman - posters of nazi stormtroopers with babies on the bayonets etc.

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@hingehead,

Aah,but from where could this moral values be learnt from?
Could our ancestors have learnt it From God himself?
We can't just develop rules,it must have all started somewhere.
If not for religion most of us will be "immoral",we won't be like today...think about it,where did all those rules start? It couldn't have been programmed within us could it?

Also comes the question,is man good? Or do we just act that way for we are imposed to by certain forces such as the law.
Natives,do they have conscience?
Conscience stem from our morality .

1 Reply

@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Right, we've established that a yard bird is a chicken so going back to the allusion that escaped me:

Quote:
The most reasonable of men are have the wish bones of yard birds

Men don't have wish bones. Biology 101.

Their wishbones are their backbones... They wish they had courage, but so far as individual survival goes, they have something better: Intelligence enough to let, and inspire others to fight in their place... Morals has more to do with social survival.. Morals are contrary to reason...

1 Reply

@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Sorry Fido - I'm tired but many of your thoughts are less than clear in meaning to me - but I am a stupid foreigner.

Quote:
they may consider their enemies animals they do not consider them immoral,

So animals are moral?

Regardless, I'm pretty sure that one of war time propaganda's chief aims is to convince the general populace that the enemy is indeed immoral if not inhuman - posters of nazi stormtroopers with babies on the bayonets etc.

If animals could conceive of morality they could well be considered more moral than ourselves since they only rarely kill their own...We make a habit of it... Of course, in doing so we first objectify them,,, We make them less than human to justify our actions.

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@cyprose,

"Morality", as "good (or bad)", "virtue/vice", and such, require a frame of reference. "Butcher of one group is the valiant hero of another" so to speak. "Dancing is immoral" relative to a group which so believes... Proverbially, "anarchy and chaos" are "good" too, albeit in hell... Point is, "relative to something".

"Higher guidance" if I read you correctly, "God". Simply put, prophets claiming to have had such higher revelations, are one source of "morals". But even so, the "revealed morals" are again relative to the revealing higher being... and some people might even argue such "morals" also vary with the prophet's ability to fully understand without adding personal embellishments to fill some gaps.

In this sense, a man raised in a human society and another raised by pack of wolves in the wild (for example), the two would likely possess "morals", just that, former individual's morals would revolve around the human tribe in question, latter individual's around the wolf pack's. Which is not to say yet another human tribe half a world away would raise a third individual with morals resembling aforementioned two, simply because the third set would likely revolve around other realities not necessarily relevant to either first human group or the wolves.

1 Reply

@cyprose,

I've already explained how I believe morals 'evolve'. If God gave them to us why did he give different groups such different sets of rules? And why did he do it all so long ago with no updates? Why did he give us rules that are clearly ridiculous? Don't eat pig, menstruating women must give burnt offerings to the local priest, et freakin' al.

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Also comes the question,is man good? Or do we just act that way for we are imposed to by certain forces such as the law.

Pointless question. Good, like morality, is subjective. In your world view God is one of those 'imposing' forces. Are we less good because he imposes on us?

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Natives,do they have conscience?

If you have to ask that, I have grave doubts about your humanity.

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Conscience stem from our morality .

Conceivably, but both are abstract concepts.

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@Fido,

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Their wishbones are their backbones... They wish they had courage

The furcula ("little fork" in Latin) is a forked bone found in birds and thecodonts, formed by the fusion of the two clavicles. In birds, its function is the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. Wikipedia.

Like I said, an obscure allusion based on a lack of anatomy knowledge.

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Intelligence enough to let, and inspire others to fight in their place... Morals has more to do with social survival.. Morals are contrary to reason...

I almost began agreeing with you but I don't find you express yourself clearly so I doubt my own assumptions. So hear was what I was thinking.
How can all of us let someone else fight in our place?
What did you mean by 'morals has more to do with social survival'? What is social survival? If it's the survival of the society then I tend to agree.

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Morals are contrary to reason...

They can be, but don't have to be, and all had a reason for becoming a moral in the first place, they only seem unreasonable as the environment in which they operate changes.

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@AlwaysCurious,

Thanks AC, for writing something that makes sense.

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Quote:
Their wishbones are their backbones... They wish they had courage

The furcula ("little fork" in Latin) is a forked bone found in birds and thecodonts, formed by the fusion of the two clavicles. In birds, its function is the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. Wikipedia.

Like I said, an obscure allusion based on a lack of anatomy knowledge.

Quote:
Intelligence enough to let, and inspire others to fight in their place... Morals has more to do with social survival.. Morals are contrary to reason...

I almost began agreeing with you but I don't find you express yourself clearly so I doubt my own assumptions. So hear was what I was thinking.
How can all of us let someone else fight in our place?
What did you mean by 'morals has more to do with social survival'? What is social survival? If it's the survival of the society then I tend to agree.

Quote:
Morals are contrary to reason...

They can be, but don't have to be, and all had a reason for becoming a moral in the first place, they only seem unreasonable as the environment in which they operate changes.

Don't get too serious about it head... It is just a poor metaphore to broke to pay the bills...
Morals evolve... What is moral always leads to the health of the community, which is a knowledge passed by culture through myths, but it is learned through trial and error, but through culture is not forgotten... One person in one life time cannot learn all that is good for their health, and good for society, but the good of the nation, ones own people is the primary aim of morality... Immorality puts a person outside of society, literally makes them an outlaw... No one is more a member of society than they accept the morals of society... If they accept only a little they are only a little bit a member, and trust me on this: we are a demoralized people with a poor grasp of morals even as abstraction, and we have many who look at the whole of society like so many cattle... They just live here, and never belong...

I am not saying that people cannot understand the point of morals, and why people are moral... Since there is not a logic to it morals cannot be taught...You can understand why people some times lay down their lives for their friends, but that some one should do it can never be logically expressed... Such behavior while understood after the fact can never be made into an imperative such that it will not be avoided... Why one did such and such is never an argument for another doing the same when to do so robs one whole being of meaning...Morals are entirely practical, having a practical value and meaning to people on the spot, and no theoretical value what ever...

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@Fido,

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It is just a poor metaphore to broke to pay the bills...

I'm just going into paypal now to make a little deposit in its Swiss bank account....

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