is morality something inherent to the human being or imposed by society???

Question

A child who grows up alone in the middle of a forest without any contact with any kind of society or civilization would develop any personal moral behaviour??? and if so based on what????

ok so far but about the hypothesis do u think a child grown up alone in the forest would develop a moral code??? or would he just live to fulfill his/her vital needings that is eating, physiological activities, sleeping?

to Z driver...yes it is not possible that animals have some kind of morality??? imagine lions they kill other animals to survive but in times of need when no food is around why dont they kill other lions to feed...if there is something like instinct of survival for the whole specie, cant that be seen as a very primitive sense of morality??? a lion "feels" killing another lion to eat is wrong??

Answer 1

Dante said the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a moral crisis maintain their neutrality.



I believe anyone with a conscious has an inherent sense of right & wrong.

Answer 2

Morality or moral codes are not inherent to human being nor are they imposed by society. They are humans' creativity and innovation for better community life. If they were inherent, you would find them the same in each "biological" group for at least long time if not for all time and if they were imposed by society they would never change. Even religions have not brought in moral codes different from those previously existed in society. However, religions as a manifest to human creativity and innovation may have modified some prior moral rules or introduced new ones. For example, adultery was forbidden in Egypt before the Mosaic Law "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS", or how Joseph refused to commit it with his master's wife. This shows the theory of "Social contract", which means the the individuals in a society come to an agreement in which they determine the rights of the group "society" and the rights of individuals as "singles". Whether individuals agree to change, modify or set up new rules in a society, the most important thing is to respect their "WORD" upon which they agreed. This obligation develops in human mind until it becomes "conscience" to which we attribute every repentance or blame for breaking any of these moral rules.

Answer 3

We inherently recognize morality ... but we instinctively seek selfish goals. We are fallen but are exalted by God.

CS Lewis compared the legal systems that have governed societies throughout human history. They show remarkable likeness to each other. I think that was in Mere Chrisitainity. If you take away civilization, the child who grows up in the forest wil be an ignoble savage. Rousseau's "noble savage" doesn't exist. The cruelties illustrated in The Lord of the Flies is more likely what you would see.

Yet when man comes together to form society, the norms of morality that are the code for living are always the same.

Answer 4

excellent question! it ties in a lot of issues, such as free will, moral relativism, absolutism. I am personally a determinist, I dont believe that morality is inherent to a human being, I think that it is imposed by society. However, there is such thing as being born with genes that make you anti-social, and it is proven that people who are anti-social( psychopaths) are more liley to commit a crime, as they do not comprehend laws and authority and do not have the ability to feel other people' s pain. This said, it still doesnt mean that those people who are born without anti social genes have inherited morality. They are simply shaped by society. Perhaps evolution led to to the development of inborn mechanisms designed to ensure and protect the survival and continuation of the species. For example, I read once that there is something in the human brain that makes the killing of a fellow human eing extremely hard to do. However, can you call this inherent morality? I dont think so, this is simply an evolutionary adaptation, designed to ensure our survival as species, as I said earlier.

Answer 5

The 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes thought that humans in the 'state of nature' would have lives that were, as he put it, "miserable, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". He thought that human life without the enforcement of morality and law by a sufficiently strong state power would be a "war of all against all".

Hobbes's 'state of nature' isn't quite the same as your human growing up alone, but the point is that morality is inherently a social phenomenon: - one person alone can have no morality, because morality is all about how we behave *with regard to the other*. Even the question of whether self-harm is morally wrong must make reference to some *other*, whether it is other people, animals, or God.

A human growing up alone would have to associate itself with some other species of animal in the forest. To that extent, it would have, if it were accepted into their 'society', whatever kind of morality they had.

Answer 6

Morality is relative.
I think the only thing that's inherent is the CAPACITY to adopt moral thinking and the ability to act accordingly.
Humans have the ability to feel shame and have a conscience, a concept of right and wrong- it would be shaped by whatever they were exposed to. If I were raised by a pride of lions, I would learn that it is wrong to eat before the male eats, wrong to bite my mother, right to groom my fellow lions, right to hunt in a pack and so on.
Putting it that way, animals have 'morality' too, but based on their 'society's standards'. Our society is just different from theirs, and we look beyond ourselves and our neighbors (fellow lions per say) and to a God or a Law.
So animals are just as influenced as we are by our surroundings- if you took the lion and raised it with humans it would learn the rules of the household (don't jump on furniture etc) just like children.
So in short it's imposed by society. :)

A better question would be: "Isn't EVIL ingrained in us by our human society? If a child were raised in the wild, wouldn't he lack fundamental human evil urges and tendencies?"
i.e., would he ever learn to lie?

Answer 7

I believe morality comes from a combination of inherent genetics and exposure to environment.
Society certainly does impose morals on individuals. Some of those morals are adapted by the individual. Unfortunately, society doesn't know when to quit imposing those morals, resulting in oppression.

Answer 8

i do believe that some morals are inherent in most human beings and i think this can be seen when one studies different religions and cultures, as a whole many of them have extremely similar morals, thou shalt not kill, so on and so forth. but as people have been saying above society does impose its own morals into people, but one thing i find interesting is that if the morals are wrong in a certain society some people in that society may stand up in opposition to these morals. throughout history we see this in political disputes as well as wars and so on. i believe this to be proof that we as human beings are born with some form of consistent morals.
its been said that humans are born with almost no knowledge, having to learn everything from there parents and the people around them in their lives, i believe this to be false in the sense that we might not be born with the knowledge to survive in the physical sense, but in exchange there are some things we are born with that help us in the social sense of existing.

Answer 9

i believe that morality is an attempt to make social life better and possible.

How would you feel if you put a knife in the hand of a a baby of 5 months for example and you bring your face very close to his hands? You would certainly be frightened of being hurt by it. therefore, without any education or with a life far from civilizaion or society , this baby may hurt other poeple as much as others may hurt him in defence.

However morality may disappear even in the case of the most civilized adults if they undergo some sort of sever tensions which results in their becoming uncivilized people.

so my point is that social mores are not inherent but rather like things that we acquire through our exposition to a social environement and education also, through the reading of religious books or novels for example.In other words this code of social behavior is like a mantle that protects and hides the 'bad' sides of humans in order to make life more possible. in a nutshell man is born bad and stays bad but usually wears that mantle of social code to distinguish himself from other animals.

Answer 10

It helps to return to origins of the word itself ... "morality" derives from Latin "mos", plural: "mores" which basically means "custom". Roman writers often spoke of "mos maioram", meaning roughly "ways of the forefathers" ... as a basis for finding the right thing to do in a situation. From the history of the word itself, "morality" is more in the nature of "traditional values or norms" and basically imposed by social consensus. Traditions may be a good guide, or they may sometimes be based on superstition or otherwise outdated in a changing world. A lot of one's feeling on this question will be colored by whether the person views human beings as basically good, basically evil, or neither.

Answer 11

there is true morality and false morality - most people are sucked into false morality

false morality is obeying rules and laws that others put up and you dont question the correctness of - you just pride yourself on being a mindless obedient - you just assume that the people giving the rules are allwise and good and loving and knowing

true morality is where you pursue your happiness with vigour with energy with all the intelligence you can muster with everything you have got - this is the happiness of life - the exciting game of pursuit of happiness with limited wits and powers

this is what all animals except man are very good at -

therefore a child in the forest alone could have a morality but may not - he may not pursue his happiness [the maximisation of good stuff in his life and minimisation of bad stuff in his life] or he may

man has been corrupted away from pursuit of happiness - to a mythical idea of goodness generated by corrupt people who liked to control people by getting them to think that morality is obedience - then you can make them feel bad if they break the rules and thus keep them in mental bondage where they will do your bidding and give you money and power, ie the church

the only duty is pursuing your happiness -

disobedience is as bad as obedience - just doing the opposite of what you are told instead of pursuing your happiness with every bit of intelligence and info you can get, is as stupid and mindless as obedience

obedience is shutting down your brain and your life, and stopping pursuing your happiness, which is duty - consequently there are many many people wandering around not doing pursuit of happiness - consequently there is a lot of unhappiness

happiness pursuit has atrophied in humanity - it will take a lot to get it going again

there are heaps of happiness aailable that humans miss out on because they arent looking for it - seek and you will find - pursuit of happiness is happiness - it makes you happy to pursue your happiness because it feels right - it is clear it is what you are supposed to do - and it makes you feel loved when you experience happiness from pursuing happiness

there are a lot of people who like to control other people and they are keen to tell you your duty, and plenty of people fall for that and live obeying some notion of duty without thinking - dead life