On: Morality

 Hello Lovelies! I hope everyone has enjoyed my posts that I have been making so far, and is finding a home here on my blog. Today, I want to introduce an interesting ethical/philosophical debate, ask for your opinions, as well as express my own.

Today, my goal is to discuss our morals. Do we all have morals? Where do they come from? Would they be different if we were born into a different family? Or a different time period?

Let’s first take a look at what exactly morals are. Morals are defined by Webster as “a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do,” and this definition is relatively solid, however I would like to point out that it says acceptable for them. This means that your morals should have no bearing on another being. You should not impose your morals on someone else because your morals are yours and yours alone. Example time: You should not tell someone else that homosexuality is wrong because you do not get to decide what they find morally acceptable or unacceptable. However you could decide that it is wrong for you to associate with a homosexual person, and choose to not be their friend. Understand? Good.

But where do the morals we have inside of us actually come from? While some may argue that morality stems from religion, I personally believe that morality is older than religion. It just doesn’t make sense to me that before religion came about, before the birth of Jesus, or before any other religion, people didn’t believe in ANY sense of right and wrong. I believe even our oldest ancestors had at least a very basic understanding of morality, however I do think those morals may look very different than our modern morals today. It may have been considered perfectly moral to kill someone who tried to take meat from an animal you hunted, or to torture someone who threatened your tribe, etc. Those are extreme examples, however they will suffice. I think the most basic morals, wired hard within (most) of us come from a biological system that was built around protecting and taking care of mates, potential mates, and offspring. Think about it. The biological urge to take care of your children so that your blood line continues can be extended into modern times, into the idea that all children should be protected and taken care of, the same with protecting the elderly. In hunter-gathering times the oldest members of the tribe carried most of the knowledge and would pass it down orally. This is important to remembering what berries would be poisonous, etc etc etc. (this can be seen in the way our society views children as more sacred and the elderly as generally deserving of the upmost respect and should be looked after and cared for). This means I do believe morality at its core and religion are separate. You can be religious and operate within a realm of morals that do not coincide with your religion (take Christian gays, for example), and I believe you can not be religious and operate within a moral code of conduct that would coincide, at least to a degree, with many religions (share, do not be jealous, do not kill, etc). From a biological perspective this makes sense because the individuals who learned these “moral” guidelines the best (did not steal for fear of being executed, for example) would be the ones who pass on their genes, thus natural selection would favor those with the strongest moral codes. Also speaking biologically, survival (not as much today, however) depended a lot on your social standing within a group of people. In short, humans feel a sense of right and wrong because they have been biologically adapted to do so, which explains why some people feel as if their morals are as ingrained into them as their skin color or their race. This also makes the fact that psychopaths exist, because they are biologically deficient of performing “normal” moral functioning. 

But I also think that the biological perspective may make sense even in religious context because when your God was creating the human race, it would make sense that He would create a code that is ingrained in order to help humans better fit into their society and survive. Humans survive poorly on their own. Consider the fact that people once exiled individuals as punishment, and consider solitary confinement such a horrible punishment. The desire to be kind to others and help others is, to a degree, ingrained because if you have the tendency to help it’s beneficial because those you’re helping are people you can potentially depend on later.

However I do believe that religion has greatly influenced our morality, and if anything, religion was more of a codification of morals that were desirable at the time. Or in other words, that religion plays a strong role in fortifying morals. However I definitely don’t think religion is imperative for morality. If it was, how would we function as a society at all with all the different religions out there? Look at the Amish for example, who think that technology and modern conveniences are temptations of the devil and therefore, immoral. We don’t all feel this way, however their moral belief doesn’t step on anyone’s toes, so it doesn’t cause friction in society.

I think even more important than religion in shaping morality, is society and culture. So, if religion helps shape and refine our morality, how do people who live their lives as atheists learn morality? I think society and culture fills in the gaps that religion leaves. People assess their actions based on the society around them and how much harm vs how much it will benefit them.

Take for example, people born into other cultures that practice other religions. There are tribes who practice a coming of age ceremony in which young male members of the tribe perform oral sex on their male elders. This includes two major western moral taboos! Homosexuality and the sexualization of children or pedophilia. And my first reaction when I hear that is that I feel that it is “morally wrong”, and I would like to think that I would consider it wrong regardless of my culture because I believe that innocence is to be protected, however logically you have to wonder; if you were raised in that culture, if you would still feel the same way?

This, however, leads to an important philosophical question and that is the one of weather people are inherently good or inherently “bad”. Because of the view on morality that I subscribe to, that it begins as a biological development and then becomes reformed through religion, society and life experiences, I do believe that people start off as inherently good. We are biologically predisposed to make moves to maximize happiness and minimize misery.

 Morality serves the purpose of helping humanity live together as peacefully as we can in close proximity to each other. This morality exists, with or without religion and is perpetuated by our society and culture and for some, by their religion. It exists because it is beneficial to humanity for it to do so. It improves the quality of life tremendously. It allows us to have less fear of other humans in our society which frees up communication and the spread of information.

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Discussion Questions

1. Do you think that society or religion contributes more to your morality?
2. Watch this ethical debate on YouTube about the fat man on the trolley. What would you do? Where do you think this decision comes from most; biology, culture, or your religion?
3. Do you think your moral decisions are more guided by emotion or logical reasoning?
4. Do you think people are inherently good or bad? Why?
5. Do you think you have good morals?