Who decides morality?

Question

I mean like if you are buddhist, christian, non-supreme being believer... why does one belief's morality overrule another. Do we not all have a basic human core of what is right in wrong by nature?

Answer 1

One persons beliefs should not morally be better than anothers. Some people lack the core moral consciousness though because they aren't taught wrong from right when they are young.

Answer 2

Morality is decided by the majority. I don't think that humans are born with an inherent drive towards anything but survival. We do not "know" what is right or wrong. If we did, then we would need no instruction from parents, teachers or spiritual leaders. I say morality is decided by the majority because 200 years ago, it was perfectly moral to own slaves. Today we consider it a perfectly terrible act; it is immoral. Why? Because 60 years ago we finally decided on some civil rights. History is always judged by the times in which it is scrutinized.

However, the examples used are only what I can say for the US. In my African states, slavery and the subjugation of women is still common. It is not immoral to them because it is cultural. So I suppose you can say that morality is truly defined by the culture of the majority. If enough people believe something is wrong or reprehensible, it will become immoral. Religion is simply an example of a smaller type of society being ruled by the majority (all Christians believe this; all Muslims believe that; etc.) The only higher power that truth comes from is the majority. The majority is the higher power. And maybe God's just laughing from the sidelines (you know - we plan, God laughs).



Note: The Ten Commandments were not the first set of laws or morals. If they were, no other society could have existed before Moses and the Egyptians are a clear indicator that they did.

Answer 3

Some spiritualists would assert that pure morality is actually learning to adjust your behaviour
(as thery believe that every action and thought a person has is a projection of energy that has equal and opposite Karmic consequences)
so that you are either karmically neutral or positive. Ie that you have ceased generating thoughts and actions of a negative "vibration" which in turn draw negativing back onto yourself.
And moral actions would be ones which have no detremental effect on others and whose motivations are pure.
NO one need make any decisions to what is right and wrong when things are expressed in these terms as if your motivation in doing something is truely for good then it is morally correct.
Even if the outcome is negative.

Answer 4

That is the problem for the atheist. You see, as a Christian, I believe in morals from a supremely moral being. Morals do come from nature, we are not born with morals. Atheists have a problem in that if they accept universal morals that cut across place, time, cultures and circumstances, they have to accept a universal law giver, i.e. God. If not, then they must say that morals come from either ourselves or a certain culture or people group. In the latter case, who is to say it is wrong to own slaves? Maybe it is not right for you, but how about someone from another culture? And who is to say it was wrong to murder 6 million Jews in the holocaust? Maybe it is morally acceptable in a certain country, but not in another. Maybe it is morally acceptable for me to break into your home and steal your stuff. Without a universal moral code, who are you to tell me I am wrong? Are you trying to impose your morals on me? As you can see, living in a world without a universal set of morals that encapsulates all time, all places and all circumstances would be Hell on earth.

Answer 5

My understanding is there is no right an wrong just experience, and whom ever is your leader probably decides you morality. The question is who is your leader, is it yourself or do you give your power to someone else? I chose myself as my supreme ruler and I decide what is a experience to partake in, no matter what others think, I am my own god, and so far I made the better choice, I seem to have what are considered better morals than those who claim to follow certain religions have.

Answer 6

i think many people would like to not have moral decisions or restrictions placed on them. i think that is one reason the da vinci code was such a relief to people looking for an excuse to say oh yeah see its all a fake a sham we are free to do what we want now, we don't have to go by the bible or gods moralities. but hopefully our conscience has some doing with our morals. because a person without a conscience i believe is called a sociopath

Answer 7

Yes, it is the basic human core of what is right /wrong , that gets distorted with interpretations by religious preachers. Any religion can be 'live ' only when its prescriptions are time relevant. Meat eating for instance, was perhaps relevant at a particular period for survival reasons. Now, we can think of better food(for which the body is designed), and in doing so, WHAT YOU SAID becomes more applicable (basic human.....).

Answer 8

Morality is personal. Human created morality as a way of life. All religion have the same moral values.

Answer 9

Because we are not idiots. Most people know what it is to be hurt by another, and a rational person on some level care for his fellow man. I would not want someone to steal from me, so I don't steal from others. I don't want to be killed, so I do not kill. I don't need a dusty old book to tell me that, it's human instinct, we are pack animals, pack animals can not survive with out the pack, and a pack needs rules to survive. Of course there all ways exceptions to the rules but those people are crazy or mentally unstable.

Answer 10

Yes. It's called a conscience. It is the "law" written on every human heart.

Moral Relativism Refuted
Have you ever heard these words: ‘What is true for you is not true for me’ -- ‘Don’t impose your values on me’ -- ‘You have no right to tell me what to do’? Sure you have. These words are very popular. Unfortunately, they have been taught in schools. How many teachers have you heard say, “Come on guys, don’t be scared. There is no right or wrong opinions.”

This is from the idea called relativism. Relativism is the philosophy that denies absolutes or what is really true. There are four kinds of relativism: metaphysical, epistemological, moral, and religious.

The metaphysical relativism is the claim that there are no absolutes in reality;

epistemological is that there are no absolutes in knowledge;

morality is the denial of moral absolutes;

and religious is the claim that there is no true religion.

We are going to deal mostly with moral relativism in this essay. But first, I must refute the propositions ‘what is true for you is not true for me’ and ‘there is no right or wrong opinion.’

The first proposition, what is true for you is not true for me, is self-contradictory since it asserts an absolute, which is, what is true for you is not true for me. In other words, is it absolutely true that what is true for you is not true for me? Again, it asserts an absolute, making it self-contradictory.

for the rest, you will have to see http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p17.htm