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Is there a **UNIVERSAL** morality?

I feel I am more moral without the idea that all I need to do to be forgiven is ask for it and accept the invisible sky deity into my heart... I mean, you rape some one, ask forgiveness, upon death you go to paradise, rinse and repeat with all the heinous crimes imaginable.

Without religion I think we're more moral because what we do now, in this moment, that is it, period. There's no forgiveness for committing crimes that would make hell seem like a blessing to the victims if they themselves went there upon death. For me it is:

What we do NOW propagates through cause and effect into the future indefinitely and that means we need to do the very best we can now for those like us that come later.

I know there's the saying only religion makes good people do bad things but more simply religion is a "get out of jail free card", you even get religious folk supporting the 'converted criminal'; Hail Jebus that C. Manson repented, he go'eth to heaben!!!

Typos were intentional because typing this out skewed my view of believers even more so to a level of utter disrespect toward them and I apologize because I am usually level headed and understand the limit of human intelligence...

But the main point is, if all you ever have to do is repent, then why aren't the religious slaughtering everyone that is not them?

Perhaps this is more philosophically psychological, what really does prevent the believers from slaughtering the non-believers? obviously extremist say "nothing, we kill in the name of our gourd" but the everyday devout ones, are they really so different from us???

This turned into more of a pondering if; is morality something that can be innate, or is it a special cocktail of mankind's design no different from religion itself? What is, if it exists, the simplest form of what we know of as morality?

Non-human entities will willing/knowingly sacrifice the elderly to save the group where as homo sapien sapien(us), on average, see no difference in the value of the old versus the young, life is life, let's all sing kumbaya.

Is there a UNIVERSAL morality?

DreadlySmart 5 Jan 20
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13 comments

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0

It's innate. We know because other animals have empathy and a sense of fairness, both required for any workable system of morality. There was an experiment with monkeys. A monkey alone will accept either cucumber or grapes as a treat, even though they always prefer grapes when given a choice. However in pairs of monkeys if a monkey sees the other monkey get grapes and you give it cucumbers, you better duck because that monkey will throw those vegetables at your head.

1

I hate to say this but history tells us that morality is very much a shifting sand. What is morally abohant in one generation can be perfectly acceptable to an other and vice versa. Take for example language. You may use the " F " word quite freely now. I even heard it used in the new star trek netflix production. However it is not acceptable to use the " N " word. The age of consent can vary from generation or even US states. I was shocked to discover that my maternal grandmother was married at 12! Slavery was perfectly moral 200 years ago, homosexuality is still seen by some as immoral but the tide is turning. Yet in ancient Greece or Rome it assumed that you were at least bi. In Spata it was compulsory. Yet when Oscar Wilde was sentenced the judge said that it was the worst case he had ever tried and his previous case had been a child murderer. Who knows maybe future generations will look at us as inhumane bastards for eating meat or owning pets?

0

No, there's no universal morality.

Also, that value of life argument will only hold true for so long. Once the decision changes from should we let this person live or die' to 'should we let this person live or that person live' we'll be no different than any other animal.

0

Life based universal morality fits the dichotomy of man being good and altruistic or bad and self serving. I prefer the former and consider the darker side of humanity to be learned behavior. Religion is not morality, nor is it a good basis for morality. Obedience to a deity or unquestioned faith in a spiritual movement seem to shade things and allow for immoral behavior in the name of the subject religion.

1

Do no harm. Period.

0

No. Morality is relative.

0

I don't believe there is a universal morality. If the majority of our population were serial killers and they made the rules, then it would be "normal". It's whatever the majority is that takes precedence. It's possible there is a society our there in this universe or the next where murdering people is legal etc. This kind of goes back to evolution. Evolution doesn't care about morality. If Hitler would have succeeded then he would have constructed a society in which each new generation was taught to believe what he believed. Soon, they would have outnumbered those that opposed those beliefs and thinking otherwise would be looked down upon as being immoral. Laws they could make would be in favor of them and disfavor others. Why? Because they are the majority rule and the "norm". Just look at different societies in our own world. In Saudi Arabia it's normal to chop off the hands of thieves or honor kill women who are raped or kill gay people or chop off the heads of non-believers etc etc etc. We don't have the same morals in the U.S. for the most part. There is no universal morality.

Evolution can't "care" about anything but to say that there are no evolutionary pressures on morality would be wrong. Evolution brought us morals because we have evolved empathy, a basic sense of fairness, perspective taking, etc. If it were merely a human invention then why do dolphins, elephants and the great apes have morals? Of courae individuals are not always moral, some of them very immoral but that doesn't prove morality is relative or not universal.

@Solidarity What you said doesn't prove that it is.

@Piece2YourPuzzle it proves that morality is not entirely learned. We have moral instincts and those instincts are similar in different cultures and even different species.

@Solidarity ...but they are also dissimilar. That's also provided for by evolution in both genetics and conditioning. That's pretty much proof of morality not being universal.

"There is no universal morality." I agree that there is no universal matter to morality, but I think humans have a sense of duty to some socially constructed mode of conduct. A sense of duty which is common throughout humanity regardless of any particular social construction. Socrates in Plato's Gorgias says he must stay in tune with himself, regardless of what the masses say... the form of morality is a good conscience. It is doing what we think we ought to do which is universal.

0

Yes to there "being" a universal morality. The one basic tenet: Do nothing that destroys or severely damages individuals. The real bottom line, anything that de/limits potential reproduction. Otherwise, the remainder (vast majority) of morality, ethics are culture/cultural... patterns of learned behavior. Nurture, not nature.

1

I think there is a universal morality, but like a Wikipedia page, it is written and rewritten based on what the current captors of moral attention see as being appropriate. Morality is a rather primitive concept, in lieu of a more empirical system of understanding human behavior, we have developed a system based on the idea that each person has the ability to manage their "morals", and can be born as "morally good, or evil". this was relevant in the initial age of the war on drugs, where the main source of reasoning towards addiction to a substance was morality. it wasn't a problem that you used a drug, but the addiction to it that made you immoral. in the modern age we now know through testing, that genetics and environment play a large factor in the development of addictive behaviors.

Love your words. Thank you.

2

The higher primates including man have mirror neurons in our brains that mean we experience an attenuated version of what we see. Easiest example of that is watch a bunch of men when they see someone else get hit in the nuts. So empathy is inbuilt.
From that comes the fact that if you cause someone else suffering you experience a milder form of it yourself. What sane person is then going to inflict suffering on other beings. Now days of course technology allows us to do so at a distance thereby circumventing that response but we as rational creatures are still aware of the effect of our actions. We try to convince ourselves they are not like us to break the link, but for most people we really don't believe it.
So the desire not to cause suffering informs our morality and for most of us is inescapable.

Kimba Level 7 Jan 20, 2018

I would caution that about 1 person in 10 are actually devoid of empathy...psychopaths. According to something I read.

@arnies I did say the majority not everyone, that last ten percent tend to either end up in jail or positions of power unfortunately.

@Kimba Soundds like we read the same article, I can't remember where it was though.I suppose it is inevitable that there are going to be people who are adapted to survive in society at the expense of others.

5

There are universal truths. For example, there is no modern culture that condones child sacrifice anymore - it is universally wrong. Also, every culture has concepts of justice, beauty, and the like, although the specifics of each may differ; so you may consider those universal as well.

So universal in place, but not in time? That is assuming you were correct that it does not exist at present.

3

There are universal mores across cultures. Murder, un-sanctioned killing, is universally condemned. Look into cross cultural anthropology.

Unsanctioned killing may be universal, but the conditions of being sanctioned are not universal. Come to think about it, unsanctioned everything is universally condemned - we all just sanction different things.

That changes nothing. It’s just form. @propovednik

@Gatovicolo
I'm not sure I follow. The difference is in the details. If the form differs, in what sense is the form universal?

Killing is outlawed unless sanctioned. @propovednik

@Gatovicolo
Everything is outlawed unless sanctioned. Doesn't sanctioned mean approved or permitted?

Yes@propovednik

3

I think there is a sort of universal morality baked into us by evolution. Evolution is what made us so everything we are and do comes from it. Many think that morality comes from religion but I think the reverse; religion comes from morality. It is our nature to be moral (among other things) and that manifests differently in different cultures and at different times as religious as well as non-religious behavior. There is really no useful distinction between religious and non-religious morality. One is described in poetry; the other in prose.

skado Level 9 Jan 20, 2018
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