Morals are relative, fact or just more bias?

If you could prove that, Ray, you would become famous among social cultural anthropologists.

lol. Here's the thing: Most cultures(at least the major ones) have the principle: no killing people. Sure, there are those that perform sacrifices or treat certain groups differently, but that's because they're making 'exceptions.' I know homosexuality is going to be thrown out here, but I don't regard it as a moral issue but a social bias one.

I might even argue that even certain individuals who end the life of another are making immoral 'exceptions'. They do not want to die, thus asserting that "a person must not be killed", but when they're ending the life of another person they're falsely treating the being as not a person, thus they are committing an immoral act no matter how much they treat the person as an exception.

JL,

Ray's posts have helped me think of a response to your question. I believe there are acts that are repulsive to most people, regardless of their culture or legal system. It is always possible to find exceptions or to construct a hypothetical situation that would justify an evil act.

Instead of saying there are absolute moral values, I do believe that some moral values are at least "universal".

Wandel, I would agree that there are universal, or near universal moral rules, but that this reflects pragmatic considerations rather than universal spiritual dispositions. I would guess (notice I did not say insist since I know of no survey, even the anthropological Human Relations Area File of George Murdock, that has demonstrated such a univerisalization. Nevertheless, it does seem that all or most societies would have rules proscribing killing, stealing, taking one's neighbor's wife or wives, etc. Such rules might be functional prerequisites for the survival of any society. This is a pragmatic principle, not a spiritual one. This is supported by the fact that societies that condemn killing, confine that proscription to one's group, not to neighboring groups.

JL,

You are probably more pragmatic than I am. But outside of the spiritual, the fact that most people would have the same "visceral" reaction to some acts indicates a commonality among human beings.

I would hope so, but the history of man (and a cross-cultural scan of his varied behaviors in the present) would indicate that he is not as alwlays as sensitive to human suffering as we are. And that might be an expression of moral relativism.
I agree with you that visceral reactions are more important than rules in signallling our moral stature. I cannot resist involving myself when I see someone being beaten or otherwise abused, not because I follow certain rules, but because I see it as "ugly"; I feel it as something that must be corrected. Maybe we are now talking about something on the edge of morality, which is properly discussed as a matter of social rules. I don't know off hand.

Nobody

I don't think that we can observe moral rules that are universal - excepting perhaps those who deal with the survival of the specie.
Moral values are related to the forces and interests that act within a society. Moral values change from society to society, from historic period to another.
But there always common patterns. Greeks buried their deads, hindus burned them, and, according to Herodotus, some nomade tribes eat their deceased relatives. In all this cases we see the respect, the values and rituals that express the same moral rule: honour the deads.
So, the conclusion to me is that Man is a moral creature.

Morals are rules ingrained into our minds, through out centuries, of right and wrong. We have to learn morals in order to follow them - do you think a two year old would really have a problem killing his neighbor's cat, had his parents not punished him afterwards?

That right there answers the question.

Without morals, speficially those introduced by religions, think about what would or would not be acceptable. Had Christianity never been thought up, homosexuality wouldn't be a sin. Abortion would have no enemies.

We doomed ourselves with written language. Once we began to understand our intelligence, we started to use it to our disadvantages. Humans are, and shall always be, nothing but another species of animals. Decades of moral practice, such as the ability not to kill your spouse when you're hungry, has taught us this. We see ourselves different from a deadly tiger. However, we still kill our own, as well as those lesser than us, for the sake of mere killing. Where do we differ? Morals are not fundamental, and if never taught them at a young age (cause-and-effect punishment that all of us have experienced as children), we wouldn't even know of their existance. Morals are guidelines put into play to try to differinciate us from other animals. They are not natural, and if they weren't taught down through the ages, we'd never feel obligated to follow them.

Now, whether morals are beneficial or not, is a different story. I'll save it :wink:

Val, I know you're referring to Jl, but what do you think about my argument? I've stated my position in that morals are universal, and the only thing that seperates different culture's morals are exceptions. Now I meant standard morality, such as it's being wrong to kill, it's wrong to harm people, it's wrong to violate people, etc.



I disagree. We did make mistakes, and some people are still making mistakes, but we are making less and we could not have been brought together closer without written language. It is a necessity.



Biological anatomy wise yes, we are anatomically part of the kingdom animalia, but I disagree that we are nothing but animals.

Ray

My answer to Nobody had to do with your position. I don't accept there are moral values that are universal - I mean, the same everywhere and everytime. But I accept that the moral necessity is universal.
As I said, we can observe patterns in the different values along History. The problem of killing, is a special case, has to do with the survival of the group. No tribe, no society would survive if there where no rules against killing. Moral values are factors that help to keep the balance among different interests (and, in general they reflect the global interest of the most powerful fraction of the society: as you see, in here, I almost agree with Karl Marx). But moral values are also fondamental to express the identity of the group, society.
Rape, for example, is not a concept with real meaning in tribes where women are nothing but property of men.

Val, I did say that moral codes may be a functional prerequisite for the survival of societies, but I agree with Sanctuary that if we are not socialized, taught morals and rewarded and punished with respect to our moral/immoral behavior, we would not be, as individuals, moral beings. I AM uneasy with this conclusion, however, because I would like to think that we have--generally speaking--evolved to the point that we NEED, as individuals (not just as societies), to "sublimate" or "transform" our animal urges to more "spiritually meaningful" morals, aesthetic experience, and emotional closeness with others.

-edited 2/3/05

Nobody

I didn't like Sanctuary post. If we were not socialized we wouldn't have any moral. Nor language. We would be animals. Do you considerer, like Sanctuary, that would be a liberation?

Val,

You completely mistook my post, but thanks anyway

When I give my personal views on how morals effect us? I didn't. You don't know if I think it's a good image or not, to imagine us without morals. Please, don't assume :wink: I've yet to state my opinion on the matter.

Sanctuary,

Then, I'm sorry.

Not a problem - let's have cookies

Val, please reconsider my post. I was not disagreeing with you.

Nobody

Man is a social entity. His experience is amog things, but starts with education since he is born. Education to walk, to speak, than language.
I don't understand the last part of your post. Are you suggesting a new kind of moral? If this is the case, I would be delighted to read it.

Val, I agree that we are social cultural animals. Without a community to socialize and enculturate us we would probably die (feral children, I've read, do not live very long. They even have a neurological need for the kind of symbolic/linguistic stimulation provided only by humans--so much for Lord Greystoke). The last part of my post expressed an idealistic hope that as 'evolved" beings we animals not only need to be domesticated in order to live and to live in societies, we also have developed (at least most of us have developed) a "spiritual" propensity or need for the "finer" things of life, i.e., romantic love and not just recreational sex, aethestic and not just functional things, philosophy and not just everyday utilitarianism, heroic aspirations and not just safe conformity, etc.

Morals do not exist, in the sense of a physical existance. You can't point at one and go, there's a moral. Morals are ideas which exist in the minds of people.

If some external force (e.g. God) possessed a code of morality which they applied onto other creatures it seems awfully suspicious that humans received it and other creatures did not.

The simplest explanation is that morals are a human invention which aside from some simularities caused by our genetics and memetic convergent evolution varies from person to person.

That explanation is simple, clear and logical. Any other explanation begs many questions, (whether or not it performs the "begging-the-question" falacy, it's been way too long since I've read about logic and I can't remember what that refers to anymore) and requires convoluted explanations with many unproven assumptions involved.

Hence I accept the simplest explanation. Occam's razor.

How much do morals vary from person to person? Is the reason for the variance tied to specific cultures or social units? Is it possible that there are more similarities than differences among all cultures or societies?