Moral Compass Myth?

Question

Is there a moral compass built into humans?

For example I give a hypothetical situation:

A human child is abducted out of the maternity ward by aliens and taken back to their planet.

This child is raised by the aliens as their own, he is not mistreated according to their cultural values.

The aliens society views murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, etc. as acceptable behaviour.

This child is then returned to earth after thirty years on the liens planet.


Would this human be horrified by his new home (the alien planet) and be a 'normal' but ‘screwed up’ human when returned, or would he be exactly like the aliens? Does this mean that humans do or do not have a built in moral compass? What does this mean for our society and moral codes?

Please explain your answers. I thank you in advance for your insight.

Answer 1

I believe that moral compass is built into us not by birth but thereafter by our family and society.

Morals are basically values that arise from our social being.... if we were not to be a social being, everything would have been rightly governed by self expediency alone.... in a society, however, this self expediency gets redefined for the purpose of maximizing the sum total of self interest of all members of the society put together.... morals are these redefining restrictions on pure and straight self interest.

Being so basic and essential for the success of society, morals have been given religious backing as well..... yes, I believe that these morals ought to have been evolved much before any religion came into being.

Answer 2

When the abductee grows on the new planet, this is where the moral compass theory would kick in. If it is true, then they will be tormented by their opposing feelings toward the aliens' "norm" behaviors. Ultimately they may absorb the alien lack of morals and change for the worst. When returned to earth it will take some time for their moral compass to work again, and be relieved to be in a "mostly" civil society.
If there is no such thing as a moral compass, the child will grow and act as the aliens do. I think that when the abductee returns to earth, he/she will still be accustomed to the ways of the first planet. They may not view rape, murder, etc..as wrong even though the majority here does.
However, the simple fact remains that people grow and learn from their environment. Those that overcome shortfalls, or in this case, immorality, in their lives have a higher level of moral achievement.
There are always people with morals and people without. In either case we do learn from our environment. So if the aliens view rape and murder as fine in their society, the abductee will also think it is fine (it's not to say they will murder or anything else).
Back on earth, murder, rape, etc..is not fine and will not be done.
Morals are a tricky thing.
In simple terms: people accustom to things pretty quickly. We're pretty versatile and do things for good. Anyone who is not and does bad things does not have morals anyway.

Answer 3

What you pose is the question of evil. It seems every society on earth has strict rules about harming other members of the society. Rape, incest and murder are taboo pretty much everywhere on earth.
However, there are periods in history where humans are capable of the most horrendous act. The Rwanda genocide, the Holocaust, the Aztec sacrifices, the Witch burnings are some of the examples that come to mind.
I would, however, like to posit that compassion is a natural human trait and that this is why harming others within the society is universally taboo. Of course, there are sociopaths, but these individuals are very rare and don't constitute the rule.
But if that's the case, something has to happen for genocides to be possible at some points in history. We will note a common factor to all of these events; their intrinsic xenophobia. In order to get people to act in this way, they must be convinced that there is an enemy outside the society, that this enemy is dangerous and that action must be taken. Thus, it is only be dehumanizing a certain group of people that one is able to bring another group of people to override their natural compassion and become killers without a conscience. So interestingly, only by denying the humanity of one's enemy are we able to act inhumanely towards them, and override our natural compassion for other humans.

Answer 4

It depends on which way it points. A compass is just a tool (or in this case a metaphore) for heading in a given direction. Not necessarily the right direction. The compass does not know where you want to go. Example: At this time all compass' point to the North pole. North being an arbitrary designation, but magnetically that is where the arrow points. Now it is known that every 15 thousand years or so the magnetic poles switch. (North to South). If tomorrow this switch occured and all of a sudden your compass pointed south, and you wanted to go to say Canada from Mexico, which way would you go? North (the arbitrary designation and the correct direction) Or would you blindly turn your compass around until the arrow lined up with the N and go to Peru. Your moral compass is what you "know is right" and what you "choose".

Answer 5

Most likely, no. There is a slight bit of moral codes in his or her own mind but that can differ greatly. The first and top priority being self-preservation. He or she would come first in any situation. Sacrifices made out of love is 'built' into us through society and a bit from the media, where winning a girl's or guy's heart seems more important than life itself.

However as seen in most underdeveloped countries(note, I'm not targeting any specific place), they don't necessarily believe the same things the "normal" would believe, such as you said, rape is correct or anything.

A child can only be taught what is right or wrong by someone he or she sees as superior, most normal cases being his or her parents or guardian, thus in this way, a newborn child can theoratically be taught that violence is right. But as in most situations, a parent is still affectionate towards his or her child in some way or another, which means this is not likely to happen.

But no matter how "tough" the child has it, or what values or morals he or she learns, fear is still present in some way. This makes him or her have thoughts on what is right or doing something wrong will result in punishment. This fear drives the child to learn his own set of morals and values.

In direct reference to your question, and in short, humans are not necessarily born with 'compassion'. But rather the child "earns" that value through his or her lifetime.

Answer 6

I think you've hit the nail on the head referring to a 'Moral compass'. Especially as we are all just 'biological batteries' with our own 'magnetic field'.

YES, I do think we're born with the moral compass pointing toward 'the positive'.

But like any magnet, if you rub opposing poles, you can CHANGE the polarity.

So if you are being raised in a 'negative' atmosphere your moral compass will point you to all things negative. But those 'negative' morals will appear 'normal' to the child/person WITH those morals.

If we are raised in a 'positive' atmosphere, then theoretically we would behave 'perfectly'.

Sadly, there are so many 'opposing poles' brushing against each other all the time, that mostly we're left with 'Random polarity', not knowing which way is best, or right.

But if we constantly 'charge' ourselves with the 'positive' energy, we'll surely keep ourselves on the right path.

Many think 'The Labyrinth' is the 'positive' charging resource most effective for us humans.

You can find the entry to an on-line 'labyrinth' below.

Answer 7

well, the interesting thing about humans is that they tend to adapt to where they are, and what they need to do to survive. this is a tricky question, but overall, i think that he'd probably have a real hard time fitting in, until he was punished severely for what he's doing wrong. look at cultures that dont allow women to have the same rights as men, there are those in the culture that cant understand life differently, and there are those who feel its wrong.

so, i think it depends on the person. there will always be those who feel one way or another about things like that. i recently answered a question posted by a woman sleeping with a married man whom she doesnt care about, and he pays her bills, and she feels theres nothing wrong with it. i'd say her compass is broken, and i bet she'd be the type to feel that if rape and torture were culturally acceptable, she'd do it. i came from a family that has had very specific religious beliefs about whats right and wrong, and from a young age, i didnt agree with much of it. it might have been my compass?

Answer 8

People think that atheists have no morals because they have no fear of God to govern them. An atheist when committing a crime will have no shame or fear of any punishment etc from a divine power,while a religious person (If he even mildly believes in divinity) will always regret what he did or feel bad about the evil deeds he has committed because he knows that he will be punished for the evil deeds he has committed. Atheism mean that the individual which is an atheist has no moral code to lead his life by, which can be very dangerous for the society, while a person that believes in a higher power, if he truly follows the guidelines provided by the religion, will never commit crimes.

Answer 9

It's really hard to say since something like this has never happened, and therefore we don't have any empirical data to go on. What is documented is how people from different cultures in different times and places react differently to the same situation.

For example, my ancestors lived closer to the land as farmers. They had no problem butchering their livestock for food. But there are many people today who think that killing animals is inherently wrong, just as in some Asian religious groups, the killing of all animals is looked upon as being wrong. One of my relatives lives in an African country. There it is considered to be a much more serious crime for a child to talk back to their parents than for someone to steal something. In America it is just the opposite. Different cultures, different attitudes.

I think there is a certain amount of similarity to people's moral ideas that you could think of as a common human moral compass. All people tend to disapprove of things like cold blooded murder and rape. But again, it's hard to draw absolutes, because in certain situations, murder is not considered to be murder for example.

Take the ancient Vikings. They're a culture that delighted in battle. To them, it was a virtue for men to be strong and to go out and kill each other. It was the same way all the way with medieval European knights and even in European duels of honor in later centuries. Now in America, if men go around killing each other, they get charged with murder and go to jail. We don't accept the idea of honor killings or duels or the virtue of battle anymore like my European ancestors from ages past did. To them it was a right, honorable, and acceptable way to kill someone in this way. To us it is not.

Answer 10

What my personal feelings are in this matter are contradicted by observation. We do not need to go to a fictitious alien planet. We have examples right here where children have been raised to believe things we might feel are reprehensible. Yet in that environment, perfectly acceptable.