@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:
No Fido, the discussion is not about the definition of the word. The interesting discussion is about whether there is a universal morality that stems from some absolute truth that is apart from our individual or cultural understanding of right or wrong.
I see no evidence that there is anything in any understanding of morality that isn't a creation of human minds, and I see a lot conflict even among human minds.
This is why I believe that morality is a human construct the same way that religion is a human construct. Human societies have developed an understanding of a god or a group of gods. Many societies believe that their God is the one true God. But there is no external subjective way to determine who is true. This does not make the study of religion uninteresting.
Nor is the study of morality uninteresting.
Morals/Ethic was a lot easier for people to understand when people lived in small groups surrounded by enemies... Then, it was much easier to see who were ones friends, and who were enemies who usually did not rise to the status of human beings... For example, the Lacota people never called themselves the Sioux... That name was given to them by their enemies and meant: Snake!!! Only among ones own people did anyone have rights, but it was also a presumption that ones community had rights over the individual, and this responsibility, group responsibility was general... Everyone knew, that if they screwed up, it would be the whole community that paid for it; so people, otherwise free within their community were always constrained without, and that is the Basis of Ethics considered as Character because no ethical person would bring dishonor upon their own people...
We have the example of Socrates accepting the death penalty from his own people rather than dishonor in some place where he would have no rights... We have the example in the Orestia, of Orestes killing his mother who killed Agamemnon; and as outrageous as this may seem, He was the only one who could do so, and as the marriage of Electra to a commoner shows, until the family had taken care of Clytemnestra, they were dishonored, and no so much by the death, but the circumstances of the death, in the city which cursed them all, and in the temple for which the god demanded vengeance..
Among the American Indians it is reported that If some one did a deed worthy of death, and no compromise could be arranged, that no one but their own family would deal the death blow, and for anyone else to kill them demanded blood vengeance... On the other hand, out of moral concern for the honor of their people, captives would allow themselves to be cut up, burned, and pretty much eaten before their eyes for the simple reason that to show themselves weak invited their enemy to do their worst to their own communities... So, the ones tortured might complain against fate, they encouraged their enemies to stand bravely before the vengeance that was certain...
People bond with those who hold them dear, and they make common cause against the enemies of their friends... Today, the line between friends and others, between community and those without is blurred... It is for this very reason that in a later age Athens made high Drama out of the actions or Orestes... Their morality had slipped to the point where they could not grasp his actions... There are many reminders of the past in Athenian Homocide law... There is a hint in the practice of Attica, to take the bodies of executed murderers to the state line, and throw them bodily over it... The practice of driving out some innocent for a number of years if no crimes had occured as a scapegoat, simply to show the gods that one individual, cursed with the sins of the community would not be accepted... But the relation of man to god was only one aspect of morals, a reflection of the relationship of community to community...
People needed their honor, and the defense of ones honor is an obligation... If there is one common law of morality it is that blood is thicker than water... The idea of individuals having individual rights was foreign to primitive peoples... As Socrates showed by his honorable death; the relationship of individual with community was absolute... He got his life from them and owed them his life if it became necessary... Honor was the common currency of all people... No person with honor would allow himself to be triffled with... And a group defense was offered... If you killed one of them, restitution had to be made, and if in no other fashion, with another life... Among the Anglo Saxons, if a killing in self defense demanded restitution... The survivors of one killed among the Arabs say: Our blood has been shed... Vengeance is the obligation of ones community, and ultimately of ones family... Honor, inside, and outside of ones community is what each individual owes his community...
You see, it is the break down of communities through the actions of law with the aim of building a larger community in the nation state that leaves so many asking what morality is... Primarily, Ethics applies to ones behavior with ones own ethnic group. ones natural community... Everyone else would be fair game if they did not have communities to back them up...Law, breaking everyone up into so many individuals demoralizes them in the process... If there is not group responsibility or obligation, then there is no individual morality... People were once free only in their communities... No they soon escape their communities to know the limits of freedom... Why not??? No one will come back on their people and demand satisfaction... Everyone is on their own, and so, always on their guard...
