A great topic! Unfortunately, I've got to get to bed. A freshman class needs my impute on how to properly draw expressively only nine hours from now. I need to sleep! :)
I'm sure many others here have their own answers, I'll toss in mine later. G'night all!
Morality comes from a person's experiences and thoughts about those experiences.
I believe that morality is a question of happiness and suffering. A good or moral action is one which increases happiness and decreases suffering, and an evil or immoral one decreases happiness and increases suffering.
If I were asked why I am moral, I would say it is because I know what it is like to be happy or suffering. Stabbing someone with a hot iron is, in my thinking mind, as repellent to me as stabbing myself with a hot iron.
Morality comes from a person's experiences and thoughts about those experiences.
I believe that morality is a question of happiness and suffering. A good or moral action is one which increases happiness and decreases suffering, and an evil or immoral one decreases happiness and increases suffering.
If I were asked why I am moral, I would say it is because I know what it is like to be happy or suffering. Stabbing someone with a hot iron is, in my thinking mind, as repellent to me as stabbing myself with a hot iron.
Do you use a utilitarian calculus to determine the most moral action or can you not violate anyones happiness. Further why does happiness determine morality, I'm sure rape makes the rapists happy. I agree wholeheartedly with you other than my nitpicking objections however the problem is how can you construct a proof for why your actions should be bound to that morality othen than for self serving reasons.
An interesting topic!
Now I would begin by questioning whether morals need a "justification" in the first place.
We humans - and to a degree all social animals - have moral intuitions that are as much adaptive features hard wired into us by our evolutionary history as any other adaptive feature.
Do you need a justification for eating? Do you need a justification for sleeping? How about for acquiring language? Or for wanting to find a mate?
These are things that we have an internal drive to do, and I would classify acting in a morally acceptable way with those hard wired imperatives. We act good, because acting good makes us feel good. Acting anti-socially is less likely to make us feel good, and likely to make us feel bad.
We get emotional reactions likewise at seeing others behave in certain ways - we see a man kick a pragnant woman in the stomach, and we feel anger, outrage, feel compelled to restrain and punish the man. We see a man throw himself in between a rabid dog and a child, and we feel admiration, grattitude, a desire to see the man rewarded and applauded.
There are certain universals in these, what we may call moral intutitions, that trancend culture boundaries, and even species boundaries - other primates have been shown to have a sense of what is just and what is not, and to exhibit similar reactions as humans to perceived injustice.
The function of morals, as far as I can see, is to facilitate co-operation within a social species, and like every fascet of our cognition, we humans are able to apply these intuitions beyond the limits of their original function, and to build on those intuitions to codify morality into more complex, intricate, and rationally considered structures.
Thus we have moral phiosophy, and the variety of moral systems proposed. But our intuitions are what the morals are ultimately founded on, and it is difficult to follow a reasoned out moral action if that moral action does not coincide with the moral intuition; it is even hard, in those situations, to genuinely believe that acting in a way that "cold reason" would suggest to provide the best outcome, would be acceptable or good.
I think the closest I can get to a reasoned out moral system that one might follow is rule utilitarianism - it avoids some of the moral dillemmas and practical problems that plague "pure" utilitarianism, and it, I think, coincides fairly well with my moral intuitions.
If you are interested in this evolutionary view of morality, I recommend Mark D. Hauser's book "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong".
Well, one reason for us to act moralily is due to the fact that if we don't, society is bound to punish us for it. You might enjoy the rape the 4minutes you are doing it, but you are (most probably) going to hate the 12 years in prison.
Most modern moral philosophy in general doesn't rely on the existence of a god to justify morality. I am at school and am supposed to be doing other things or I would go into a greater account.
I would suggest reading Peter Singer. I think his arguments, even if you disagree with his conclusions are wonderfully fun to read. Einstein,I know there appears to be a bias here, also has some great things to say in "Ideas and Opinions"
John Rawls, The Theory of Justice is another wonderful book from a social contract/ anti-utilitarian view point. His ideas on a veil of ignorance I think are really interesting and helpful in deciding for yourself what a fair and just world would look like.
My understanding of Nietzsche is that he was an opponent of nihilism. He discussed it, but what I remember reading of his , especially his early works, is that he very much believed in a value system, but one where the strong gave their values to the weak. Almost a Darwinian theory of ethics.
I must profess that I have only read pieces of his larger works and i probably shouldn't talk to much on this topic considering my lack of knowledge in it, but I had gotten the impression from what I read that Nietzsche didn't believe in a morality that existed outside of humanity, but he believed that man could create one for himself. Atleast, the Overman could create a morality for the rest of the human race.
Don't worry about morals. You don't like them!
In the beginning morals were made by those who have believed in the deeds of the ancestors, later aristocracy has developed out of them.
But nobody likes aristocracy, and thus the morals are not anymore important.
1. Morality would be expected to arise in a social animal. Certain behaviors are tacitly accepted by the social group; others are not. The young learn how to behave from their elders. Game-theoretic models show that a certain degree of cooperation is optimal behavior for the individuals in a society.
2. If you treat others well, your experience of life will generally be better than if you treat others badly.
3. Generally speaking, we are able to feel pleasure and pain and want to pursue the satisfaction of our ends in whatever ways we see fit, and we accept that other people feel pleasure and pain, too, and want to pursue the satisfaction of their own ends in whatever ways we see fit. Being social creatures, we accept restrictions on our own behavior in return for others' accepting restrictions on their behavior, so that we retain freedom to pursue our own ends in whatever ways we see fit as long as we are neither harming others nor unduly interfering with other's pursuits of their own ends as they see fit (while they do the same).
4. We are so constructed as to feel compassion. That is simply a fact about human beings. So, it's reasonable for us to behave in ways that reflect our being compassionate--in particular, to so act as to put the maxim "Be kind" into practice.
Justification:
One can stregthen his own soul (=strengthening will) only through generous deeds, because doing generous deeds depends only on you, while doing harm, or bad deeds is usually a reaction and as such it is not an act of the will but just a passion. A will acts and is not a reaction. A strong soul doesn't asks himself "why did I do this?" because he holds his passion in obedience, i.e. didn't lose his mind.
Morality has never been descended...it has always been ascended ..." Karl Marx " .
I'm atheist and I'm having trouble finding justifications for morality which do not rely on god. Of course this does not justify believing in god as that is entirely circular. However, if anybody has put thought into the issue and wishes to share their thoughts on it or have good books to reccomend I would be happy to hear them.