Due to popular demand (using both of those words in the loosest sense possible), tonight I am going to post a little bit about morality.
Typically, morality is envisioned as our sense of right and wrong. That is all well and good, but -what- is morality? Why is there a right and a wrong? Is there an absolute right and wrong? These are all very good questions, but tonight I don't intend to answer them. That is a far more ambitious goal than I am capable of accomplishing right now. Instead I will do the next best thing and attempt to offer pieces of my thoughts, and you'll have to settle for that.
So why is there a right and a wrong? Morality is certainly not the only source of "right" and "wrong" that we deal with. I certainly know it's wrong to touch a hot stove, and that it's right to sleep 9 hours per night, but these are amoral decisions (Note: amoral, not immoral). Morality describes a specific type of right and wrong choices we can make. Decisions we describe as having moral content tend to be related to how we relate to other people. Is it okay to steal that apple from the store? Is it wrong to punch that dude that laughed when you tripped walking up the stairs? There are some exceptions to this broad guideline, but for the most part it works as a first approximation.
So why do we have a special name for right and wrong decisions for when they relate to other people? I will postulate that there two basic reasons:
1) These types of right or wrong decisions are much more difficult than other typical "Should I have hot dogs or spaghetti for supper tonight?" decisions. They can be very abstract, have multiple layers and hidden factors, and sometimes have no real answer. It makes good sense to
give something so different its own name.
2) More importantly, these moral decisions are important because they are necessary to satisfy basic human needs. As social creatures, how we relate to other human beings is essential to our success and happiness. Our social needs cannot be replaced with other things. If I'm feeling lonely, no number of gummi worms I eat will make me feel less lonely. It is therefore terribly important that we internalize a number of rules for how best to achieve a satisfying social life.
The major consequence of not behaving by a group's moral code is being ostracized by the group. Much like our rules about "Things we should eat" is our interalized list of rules to correctly satisfy our hunger, a moral code can be thought of as a sort of internalized list of rules to correctly satisfy our social needs.
So what is the origin of morality? A common claim is faith/religion/God/god/gods, but this sort of claim is patently false. What is considered moral behavior has changed greatly through the years. To claim to have the universally correct sense of morality is arrogant in the extreme. The argument can be made that each civilization's sense of morality has bits and pieces of the correct universal moral code, but that the remainder may be corrupted. This is suspicious in the extreme, and reeks of ad hoc reasoning.
The truth is that most of the basic rules of morality stay the same between civilizations: "Don't kill people" (the definition of people is always important, of course), "Don't steal from people", etc. The remainder of the rules tend to be highly specific to the culture, "Don't walk on top of the Great Sacred Symbol in the entrance of the Holy Gathering Spot", "Don't blaspheme", rules about manners, etc.
The "basic rules" of morality tend to be similiar because they are based on my favorite moral axiom, the golden rule. "Treat others as you would like to be treated". Such a basic concept, but the vast majority of basic morals we hold can be boiled down to this. As a lover of mathematics and physics (and sometimes computer science), any sort of large complex system that can be expressed in a small compact form is very appealing.
I live by and believe in the golden rule. The majority of the rest I just don't buy. Societal rules about proper sexual conduct, rules about proper topics of discussion, any sort of rule that attempts to control independent thought and restrict personal freedom for no reason are rules that I cannot justify. Some of the more harmless ones I choose to obey for convenience's sake(Profanity is bad, mmkay), but there are many I refuse to obey.
This is how I developed my own set of morals. It would be naive to say it was completely objectively determined, but my set of morals are certainly not the ones I was raised with and I certainly have put a lot of effort in them. I would like to remain optimistic that by careful examination it is possible to discover flaws in your own sense of right and wrong and correct them. I do remain pessimistic that the vast majority of people do not take the time and effort to do this, instead accepting the hodge-podge of moral values they have been exposed to and automatically internalized without question.
I apologize for the rambling direction this post ended up taking, but I can't bear to remove any of the points because I think they are all important. So enjoy it as-is, no refunds.
