Morality Means Nothing?

Question

I believe that morality is something that is inherited through our society, we grow up and one belief/culture and we incorporate their morals and values into our own minds. Do this not say morality in general is meaningless? The plausability that or values are simply what we were believed to think. Therefore should'nt morals be something you truely believe in yourself? Only YOUR opinion, and no one elses matter on morality? For example a person committed a crime, but in his own morals he believed it was the right thing to do and it was justifyable, or perhaps ones sexual orientation is different to anothers, so his morals are different. Morals mean nothing? Please share your views.

Answer 1

I agree that most morality is given through society, but I also believe what evolutionary psychologists saying that certain moral systems are more "natural" than others. This is why we find similar morality across culture in many issues such as: murder, cannibalism, theft, etc.

Part of the importance of morality is that it keeps us safer as individuals and as a society. Of course, one can use the excuse of "morality" to justify atrocities, but usually these people are rationalizing and are immoral. Psychology basically assumes that a certain degree of indoctrinated morality must alwas be kept such as do not rape in order to be classified as mentally sane, and if you think about it, it makes sense. Finding someone that contradicts all institutionalized morallity usually is maladaptive and isn't doing it beause they think morality is relative.

Answer 2

I think morals are very important. If, from what your saying, someone murders a person and claims that their moral is that this was the right thing to do, then does that mean that they should be let off and not be convicted? I don't think so. Morals may have lost all meaning to some people because they choose to live their life without them but I think that some of us still hold our morals in high regard and live by them.

Answer 3

The liberal fallacy is that we can have a system of laws without a sytem of morality. In fact the two are inextricably linked. Our laws are based on a code of morality that does indeed evolve over time but is nevertheless moral in nature.
The liberal get-out is that one just obeys the process of justice and never mind the morality. This focus on due process explains why liberals are often happy to see the morally guilty walk free because due process wasn't followed. In a genuinely civilised society morality is never sidelined in favour of due process.
Laws tend to mirror public morality and there is no way of having a system of laws that can support the private morality of any particular person. The legal system says to the individual take it all or leave it all when it comes to obeying laws because a basic requirement of law is that nobody is above it.

Answer 4

Dear Game Guy, let me give you a contrasting sense of morality so you can see why we need some standards set.

Warren Jeffs was arrested here in the U.S. because he believes that a grown man should have as many teenaged wives as God wants him to have, and the teenage girls are forced to marry a man much older than themselves that they may have absolutely no interest in. At the same time, many teenaged boys in this sect will be banished, in order to reduce the surplus male population. This allows his favorite males the opportunity to have a forced marriage (and forced sex) with as many ladies as Warren Jeffs felt he needed.

Another issue of morality would be the David or John (can't remmeber the first name) Mark Karr, he was the person who admitted to killing Jon Benet Ramsey. He felt that molesting young girls was okay because of their lack of inhibitions towards sex, and we are talking girls no older than 2nd grade!

These are only two examples, but if we allow people to choose their own morality with no guiding force to help them select good moral choices, then you can have a lot of people damaged by another person's morality.

Answer 5

In one aspect, you and a lot of people are right. Our morality is mostly made of of what we learn through our society. However like the evolutionary psychologists I want to belive that everyone has some sort of individual morality that is ingrained into their system. Of course this slightly validates the example of your criminal, but i want to belive that this ingrained morality is that of good. I once heard an evangelist say that every man is born with some sense of God, a higher power and this sense guides their conscience for good

Answer 6

Morals mean something to me!! OK,... For the dummies.....> Don't kill, hurt, or steal from any one!! Can we start there?? Next lesson will be....... Stop your lame, judge-mental bullshit!! Live and let live.... And shut the **** up. Have a nice day.