We've all grappled with morality at some point in our life. How do you know that an action you're about to commit is morally permissible? How do you judge the actions of others as either right or wrong?

Why should we care about morality at all?

morality
click that page.

I believe that without morality, laws wouldn't exist at all (since there is no wrong or right) Without it, we would be all dead. We wouldn't know if it was right to eat, if it was right to do anything. That makes me realize that animals have some sort of morality too. How would they know how to breed? How would they know how to survive? To listen to their mothers?

I'm rambling now. I would say or morality depends on what other people and our environments influence upon us. (hope this makes sense)

I think what you're talking about here is the instinct of survival. It is the "code" hardwired into every living being. It is what tells a newborn to immediately start breathing air and crying after exiting his mother's womb. It is what allows you to feel hunger and crave food.

I think it is different than morality, don't you?

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If you wish to discuss this go here.

I think what was being stated was that our environment influences our morals. I agree. I think there is no 'right' morals that we know of, just what we as a community decide. Think about it, 99.66% of us have a conscience. Our conscience just makes us feel guilty or not depending on if we think that what we did was wrong. This is decided upon by our environment and everything that influences our opinion, including thinking about it. So we have no set morals, just a conscience which absorbs the morals we get from our environment and ourselves.

Read what billyme wrote. He said what I was attempting to explain. I didn't mean for the term morality to sound the same as a natural instinct.

How would you know if stealing was bad? It was because your mother 'influenced' you. The television could also 'influence' you, since there are shows, in which 'people who do wrong things' go to jail.
Without morality, there would be discrimination and inequity. With morality, there is justice and equality.

I think that what is good is everything that mantains or improves the sociality, like:
-Life
-Love
-Freedom
-Respect
-Intelligence
-Truth
-Etc.

I believe all things should be governed by morality first, henceforth, no more of the American government which has legalized porn and cigarettes. Not only that, but some of their laws prevent people by living the way the feel is moral; without anything but food to keep them alive.

I also think that, the morality is one of the factors that it takes to an animal to be considered a person, therefore, the morality should be taken first.

Moral => laws
Ethics => personal beliefs.

If you ask about "moral conducts", there is no dilemma whatsoever, as rules are set in the social contract you abide to. If you're talking about ethical commands, however, you're opening an entirely new can of worms, one that I profoundly hate as there is nothing you cannot disagree with, and nothing, not even akrasia, is backed up by facts regarding its nature.

Whats does morality have to do with knowing how to breed, surviving or listening to mothers?

If we didn't have morality we would be basically like cavemen. The men would group together like apes with an alpha. They would have sex, and or rape women when they want and not care about them. The women would take care of the children till they are old enough to be on their own, then leave. It just would make us no different then all the other creatures on this earth.

First of all, look at the posts above yours before responding. If you did that, you'd realize it was meant to be said that our environment influences our morality. (BTW, that makes morality relative and makes universal morality non-existent)

Now, cavemen had morality. Look it up. Cavemen had just as much of a conscience as we do.

Animals, which you are bashing, are a completely different subject. It's an ongoing debate, though many agree with them having consciences. Think about it: the mom protects her cubs, the father brings home food for the family, they take care of each other, the cubs try to help the father hunt when they are old enough, ect. They just have more structured than we do.

lol I'm not bashing animals. It would just put us in the same category of animals, a mother would still protect her baby. She does that because its instinct.



Its instinct. Not morality. They don't care what they kill as long as its food for them. What about the poor animal that died? Where is the moral fairness for it?

We're already in the same category as animals, only with slight differences. And if you read my post explaining what she meant, you'd understand that she was trying to talk about conciousness, not morals themselves. Read it. And we don't care what we kill, as long as its food. That's called survival. It's how this world was made and survives. They kill because they have to. We do too. It's how things work, though I still would prefer to not kill over killing and the less pain involved during the death, the better. But you can't say animals are different because they kill to eat when we torture and kill, not just to eat, even for sport.

BTW, the mother doesn't HAVE TO protect her baby.

To ensure the future of her genes, she does... I think that's instinct again.

I think morality is really what separates animals from people... as has been said before. What I'm basically trying to get across is my thought that animals are Amoral, and only humans can be immoral or moral.

First of all, 'amoral?' Is that sreiously a word? Sorry, it's just funny for me.

Now, about the morality issues. First of all, what seperates them is a conciousness. Right and wrong don't exist and the only reason we feel that way is because we have a conciousness. While I don't believe they have a physical, human conciousness... I personally believe that they have some speck of morality. I do think they have souls like us, but to stay to physical reality... when a dog sees you crying, it'll come over to you. You'd say that it gets pet and a treat so that's what it wants. But in many situations a dog can get nothing but hit when he comes over to his owner, but still he comes over (just takes longer to overcome his fear).

At one point, you could say that animals have no morals because animals act for themselves... so do we though. Animals react to emotions just as we do. They just don't have the thinking capacity to realize the emotional pain that results from their actions. And if they do, they might consider it all right because it's a different species (as we do often, even different races sometimes or at least in the past). Think about that. Our morals are like theirs... we don't want to hurt the emotions of organisms that we feel have value, neither do they.

"amoral" means having no concept of morals. You can also make an amoral decision, such as what you're going to wear that day... Or whatever. It's essentially the absence of morals.

On to the dog, I think it's because of the dog's "pack instinct": to stick with the pack no matter what. Again, it's survival.

Didn't really understand the last paragraph - what do emotions have to do with morals?

Sorry, just a funny word... I thought you were mixing the 'a' with moral because it sounded right; I checked though, it's a word.

The dog thing can be considered survival. But can it be proven? And, tell me, why would it be survival... he's putting himself at risk with no benefit for him to improve his master's mood. If you are going to use excuses that vague, then you can say the same thing about humans. "Oh, you don't want to hurt your friend's feelings because it's human's need for [insert something here; you can even use aspect]."

The whole thing about emotions is that that's what most of our 'morals' are based on. We don't want to cause anyone (ourselves or others;technically anything alive, possibly abotic things too) of VALUE (who we value) harm or pain of any sort. That's what most of our metaphysical concept of morality is set around... not causing harm. You could say that that's not true, but then you have to give me a moral that doesn't follow that set rule. [Yes, you do.... not just say that it's instinct again]. So, if morals are about not causing pain to anything or anyone who/that we value, then the only difference between us and animals is our critical thinking. If consider stealing something and we feel that it will cause pain to someone of value (not everyone feels it'll cause pain or, rarely, that the person isn't of value), we put it back. Animals would take the item if they could because they don't the thinking capacity (or the facts, technically... but generally the thinking level) to consider this chain of events out and realize it'll hurt someone if they take the item. If they did, they wouldn't take it. Many situations show that animals don't want to cause pain... they just usually can't think all this out (or, don't find the animals they are harming to be of value since they are usually different species).

SUMMARY: Morals revolve around not hurting others or ruining their emotions... animals are sensitive to it too but don't have the thinking capacity to think out the long term effects (or don't value the 'victim').