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Let me begin.

Morality is one of those things that is talked about over and over and over, but does anyone address what morality ACTUALLY is?

Quite simply, morality is deciding what is right and wrong.

But how do we acquire this? Is it a divine gift? Something inborn through our own experiences? Taught by someone?

The answer is a combination of the last two. Society dictates right and wrong to us.

Yes, to us.

An interesting thing to think about is this. Imagine you were born in a society of cannibals. Everyday you ate some poor soul who wandered too close to your people's village. Would you consider cannibalism to be wrong? No, you wouldn't, because it is all you have ever known and you can't imagine how it would be anyway else. What if this sort of thing is happening right now? What if someone is slowly pushing our morals down the drain? (*cough* stupid liberals *cough*)

We could be in a spiral towards rampant barbarism and not even see it happening!


Post your thoughts.

Its what society has determined, with the aid of government, of what is acceptable to have a functioning society.
Doubtful, we are heading the other way actually.

[center]Fack society. They don't tell me anything, I decide what's right and what's wrong on my own... Maybe that's why I do so much 'bad' stuff?
Anyway... There are actually different sets of morality... Take strick Christial morality... does ALL of what it says fall into your set of morals? I doubt it. People mostly decide these things on their own, but alot of it is imprinted onto them by society.[/center]

Problem is, who's the supreme arbiter of what's "moral" or not?

Me

Religion.

Our country states to keep Religion and State seperate...

Then why in the hell are we making it illegal for homosexuals to get married?

Because it is against religion. Thus, State and Religion are not seperate......

Religion for me doesn't decide what is right and what is wrong. I don't give a blam what religion thinks. I make decisions of morality on my own. No one tells me what to think, they can only try to persuade me by offering me the facts.

Also I guess environment/society plays a part in it too. For example say you grew up in a world where you could kill anyone you wanted to, and there were mass deaths all the time. You would get used to it and think there's nothing wrong with it.

I am a bit too tired to argue this right now. I know that some of you will try to bring out a small technicality, blow it way out of proportion, and base your entire argument off of a relatively small and trivial point.

Morality is based off of everything that affects a person, and the effects of what affected that person. Good morals try to spread "good" feelings, or those that are pleasing (speaking generally here), and those that aren't detrimental to a person's health, physical, mental, or psychological, among other things. Bad morals might be selfish, that fail to take into account what will affect other people, or they're even purposefully sinister.

What is good and what is bad is defined by the English language (in this case). What is right and what is wrong is defined by the people.

That's about all I can pull together at this time.

To me, morals are "rules" that we, as human beings, have made up, to "guide" people along the path of the "right"

Demaris has a good point about the cannabalism. But, concider this:
Everyone knows killing someone else is wrong. We know this because we ourselves dont want to die. So why bring that feeling to another?
Its all about taking into account what we would and wouldn't want done to us.

Although... Our conscience has a big role in this too. Sometimes we know whats right and wrong even though they dont abide to what we would do to others or our society's rules.

Morals can differ from culture to culture also, as we can see because I couldn't eat anyone unless completely nessisary, and the cannibals do it all the time.

I suppose its a mix of things; society, conscience, and self-appreciation (doing to others what you would want to be done to you).
You were taught to eat human (society) but you know you shouldn't kill someone (self-appreciation) unless you're going to eat it, unless they raped and murdered your sister (concience).

To me, morals are what you know as right and wrong. I suppose there are general morals like, "Don't kill people".

What makes me laugh is the idea that we are somehow getting worse. Have you forgotten about slavery? The Indians? All the religious crusades? WWII? Or any war for that matter.

Seems like people only think things are getting worse because we pretended everything was OK in the 1950s, and now we're only getting more honest and aware about our dishonesties.

Ya but what you forget is that we have Slavery of aliens, failed terraformation, WWIII, WWVI (lets face it nothing bad comes in and odd number [excluding 13]) the complete and total destruction of the Earth, slavery of the Iraquis (war on "terror") and of course Armageddon.... We sure are getting better, only good things I see in the future are cures for diseases and (hopefully) StarCraft 2

Good point, brotha.

Yea good point, I like how he can predict the future. I'm sure it's all going to happen.

It started with these biological truths, Morality:

Man shoves his into his loving girl, you get a baby and your race survives.

So from there that man, being very uncivilized, (At least to us) would be following the core "coding" so to say of our human nature, to reporduce, continue the human race, and to avoid becoming extinct. From there, we built up.

But now, because of the 4+ Billion peeps (Give of take a billion) those biological needs aren't as strong, except maybe the urge to reproduce...

Again, I ask, who is the supreme arbitrator on morality?
Morals are like any other kind of opinion; there is no "right" or "wrong".

if you would like to know where we get our sence of morals read <a style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=24&k=lord%20of" onmouseover="window.status='lord of'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">lord of</a> the flies are we born evil or is it society's fault that we end up that way

By the way the surpreme arbitrator is the majority of ppl on earth that your actions affect no one cares if u do something considered wrong if you do not get caught or there is no result

Morals are a set of beliefs affected by you and the others around you. Like each person is different so are each set of morals.
Like EzDay281 said, there is no right or wrong.

Either that or everything is right, or everything is wrong, but no one would agree about that, so then there must right and wrong, but no one would agree upon what's right and what isn't therefore my conclusion is
people like to argue

They are not arguments they are heated discussions but there is no way everything is one sided

I doubt that there isn't at least one disagreement, which would be a small argument, in any discussion, or else it would be a very boring discussion. All people would do is agree with every opinion someone posted, which definitely doesn't happen.

If anyone remembers, we've had some morality discussions in this thread. Here's what I had to say on the matter:


I think it holds true in this context, as well.

Morality is determined by the social dogma of the time period. The social dogma is determined on what is the legal stance on what's right or wrong. That in it's place is determined by the laws of the United States. Ultimately the laws are based upon the religion (Don't even argue) of Christianity.

Don't even argue? How about, "Don't act like you know everything." Our current American laws are secular and humanistic, much to the chagrin of the religious right. Are you saying that there was no law before Christianity was around? What about Hammurabi's Code? What about every civilization that existed before Christianity? In America, it is not illegal to defy most of the Ten Commandments. Let's go over them all and see how much the Bible has actually contributed to our laws.

I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
1. It's not illegal to believe in other gods.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
2. I guess all of those artists are out of luck.

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
3. Not illegal.

IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
4. Not a law.

V. Honour thy father and thy mother.
5. This is in no way a law.

VI. Thou shalt not kill.
6. This is a law, but only in some situations. For instance, it's not illegal to kill in self-defense, nor is it illegal for American soldiers to kill their targets, nor is it illegal to execute criminals in some states. Hell, this law hasn't even been enforced that much in the last few hundred years. It used to be legal to kill someone for trespassing on your property, even if they had committed no other offense.

VII. hou shalt not commit adultery.
7. Not illegal in the slightest.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Definitely illegal. So far you're two for eight.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
9. It is illegal to lie unless one is under oath, but elsewhere it's pretty much accepted as part of life.

X. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's.
10. Perhaps the most ridiculous of all of the commandments, this one actually contradicts our economy's reason for growth. If it was illegal to covet, well, capitalism would not exist.

So there you have it. About three (I'm being generous) out of the ten are represented in our legal system. But guess what - those three have been illegal in many societies far before Christianity was ever around. Now, if you're going to add any of those crazy laws in Leviticus to our American justice system, you'd have to be some hardcore fundamentalist Christian. But I doubt you'd go that far.

Well, there's my evidence refuting your argument. Not that you had backed it up in the first place, but I like to be thorough.

How about this and this? Do they help put it in a humorous perspective for you?

This could be a fun debate if someone wants to start a topic for it.