Yet the females are often so programmed by their cultures, that they accept it as a norm, and even take the lead in have the same thing done to their daughters.

What constitutes this basic morality? It seems what is moral is so fluid and varying, I have a hard time even guessing what would be features of this moral code. There have been cannibalistic tribes in human history, does that mean not eating other humans isn't part of the list?

@ChestRockfield As a small child did you not know not to take your friend's toys and that striking others was wrong? Kids will test their parents but most understand these basics. I am not referring to complicated ethics questions, as we grow we build upon the basics and learn from society. Thus it is both nature and nurture.

@ChestRockfield Religious apologists will tell you that is why you need religion, because otherwise morality is too complex for us to work out. Yet most of the complex variation comes from the many religions themselves. It is true that there are cannibals who eat people because they need food, but most cannibals eat people mainly as a religious ritual, and certainly, nobody ever sacrificed a child without even eating it, without religion.

The apologists will also tell you that you can not get to morality by reasoning. Yet I think the main thing is, as Epicurus said nearly twenty five centuries ago. "Don't over think it." So here goes for just one example.

Do I want to be happy, contented and to live without fear ?

Yes.

Therefore do I think that I am more likely to be so, if I live surounded by a society which is also happy, contented and living without fear ?

Yes.

Is it not therefore worth my while, to invest some of my time, effort and wealth, in making that society so ?

Yes. Then job done.

True that does not perhaps get you to a Christian morality, and most Christian apologists want you to do that. Because they automatically, and with their usual smug cultural imperiallism, asume that, morality and Christian morality are synonyms. But Christian morallity, for reasons too long to go into, is a very bad morality, that nobody in their sane mind would want or think you could reason to anyway.

@Fernapple God gave us larger cerebral cortexes than other primates so we could figure things out

Christianity appears to me to contain a lot of negativity and judgment and thus not an effective path to happiness. The concept of waiting until death for happiness also seems odd.

@MizJ The wait for happiness is not that odd really. If you remember that religion is just a subset of the advertising industry, and what could be more like every advertisers dream than. "The goods are due to be delivered, after you have left home and moved abroard for good." Imagine ! No complaints, no returns, no need even to manufacture, pay for or deliver the goods.

@MizJ @Fernapple
You are both describing a reasoned morality. Obviously I believe in that and that not only is it possible without religion, it may only be possible without religion (i.e. if you're only doing something to get a reward or avoid punishment is what you're doing technically moral?)
I was asking about the innate morality we're "all born with" MizJ referred to. I'm not being a contrarian, I'm actually curious about this. Some say everything is learned, but then I've seen animal behaviors of babies that were separated from their mothers that screams instinct/innate knowledge that make me think otherwise, so I'm not sure where I land in all this.

@ChestRockfield I do not think that we are born a blank sheet, we are certainly not a complete blank sheet, we are born with instincts, emotions, drives and hungers, which are hard wired. It must be so, for without those we would just sit passive, doing nothing, until we faded away. And also we see almost matching things such as empathy for those who are hurt, and a basic understanding of honesty and fair play in other social animals, which are too like ours to be coincidence.

But I would not expect that you would find exact laws of behaviour encoded by evolution, such as say. Don't eat other people. Because that is not the way evolution works, it is not exact, because selection does not have time to be exact, and in some ways it is good that it is not so, because that leaves animal behaviour free to adapt to circumstance. Indeed if programming was exact, then no animal would need to think or have a thinking brain. So evolution will tend to produce vague nominal directions.

For example many animals have devices to prevent incest, in a lot of species including primates females, or in some species males, go wandering at about the time they come to sexual maturity, and join other groups. Yet it is unlikely that they know that they are doing this to avoid incest, it is much more likely that in late puberty they simply become restless and curious, which drives wandering, and that they find strange things, such as foreign sexual partners exciting. Evolution does not tell them to avoid incest, but only to wander and find new lives, and if they should not be able to wander, because of say hard geographic barriers, then they can still fall back on incest as a last resort.

While the well known, positive error bias. Which may be what drives religion in part, because it makes us see patterns and intentions that are not there, is another fudge. If you think you see an eye glint among the leaves in the forest. It pays to respond by hiding. Because if it is something you would very much like to kill and eat, then you may be able to surprise a good meal, while if its is something that wants to eat you then hiding may save your life. While in both cases if you are wrong, then all you lose is a few seconds and a tiny bit of effort. So it pays much better to make positive errors and see things, patterns and intentions which are not there, than to make negative errors and fail to see things which are there. Positive errors are thought therefore to be hard wired into our brains, as another rough fudge.

@Fernapple So I get all that, and that all checks with evolutionary principles. Actions, drives, all that non-blank-sheet stuff is a given. And you're talking to someone who categorically does not belive in free will, so these things are not just innately available, but often "required" so to speak. I'm just not sure that emotions like empathy necessarily translate to morality. I can feel bad for someone who's hurt, but that doesn't mean I'll do anything to help them, or more specifically, that any help I may provide was an instinct innate in me at birth. Every single day I play on my thousand dollar phone (along with every other indulgent act in my life) there are millions of human children literally starving to death. Just not sure how we got here if morality is something we're born with...

@ChestRockfield No that is my point, we are not born with morality, only with drives which can be exploited to generate morality. But I think that you are also confussing morality, with the conventional western Christian view of morality, it is wider that that . Morality for an ancient Aztec meant killing and torturing people, morality for many hindu mystics, and Cathar Christians meant starving yourself to death. That is what I mean by the fudge, the instincts and drives which make us want morality, are so vague that they can be used to generate almost any code you like, yet they are so strong they will still drive people to obey, as long as you know how to push the correct buttons in the correct order.

But that is hard and complex, it is like having a powerful ship streaming forwards at high speed, driven by its drives and instincts, but those on the bridge are people who know nothing about navagation. Which is why so many of the moral cults of the past, like Christianity and Marxism for example started by trying to promote social justice, and ended by causing exactly the opposite to an extreme degree.

@Fernapple That vague definition of it seems like it's vastly different than what @MizJ was alluding to, but only she could answer that.

@ChestRockfield They are fairly similar, what fun is 100% agreement? Also remember that language has limitations and nuances and that most posts and comments are short essays, not tomes.

People are ignorant morons for the most part but we keep getting a bit better, or so I would like to believe.

@SnowyOwl That was good. I like that. Religion in a nutshell and it is kid friendly.

How did you guess.!? Funny that is it not, either you are very clever, it was very obvious, or both.

PS. I think you missed this one, I am trying to say you are smart.

@Fernapple I was confused. You said 'how did you guess' indicating it was, then 'funny that it is not' indicating it wasn't.

@ChestRockfield Sorry, me trying to be funny.