What is the source of morality?

Answer 1

Your source of morality, lives within
ones self...it really depends on what you
do and don't believe in...

Answer 2

And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good---
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
— Robert Pirsig

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Every religion manifests ideals such as do not steal, do not tell lies, and so on. These are the norms for any civilized society and they should not be linked to any religion or god.
— D. D. Bandiste

I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.
— Katharine Hepburn

One of the greatest tragedies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion.
— Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Morality does not depend on religion.
— John Ruskin

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
— Albert Einstein

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.
— Louis Kronenberger

Answer 3

Instincts to continue the species and personal survival. Things that threaten individuals or the continuation of the species are wrong.

I think this is why so many people are so against homosexuality - the instinct to continue the species. However, you also have to take into account the fact that we don't need any more humans on this planet, so homosexuality is not a threat. Murder, on the other hand, threatens an individual's survival, so it is still wrong, though we don't really need all these people. I think we can boil all moral judgments down to these instincts.

Answer 4

Because human beings are social animals, we are each equipped with an evolved set of instinctive behaviors which allow us to interact in ways that serve the interests of our species as a whole. Personally, I find the whole set of human social instincts boils down to two simple rules, one of which was so eloquently stated by Jesus Christ. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." ...the familiar Golden Rule. The inverse is equally valuable. Do not do to others as you would have them not do unto you. Every moral dilemma a human being is likely to encounter is summarized by those two simple rules, which essentially codify instinctive human social behaviors.

Since I am willing to accept that God actually does exist in the subjective experience of true believers, I cannot deny that religion does have an effect (both good and bad) on moral behavior. However, because the human species is far older than human culture, morals derived from religion are essentially a restatement of those previously evolved naturally. Morality derived from religion is frequently corrupted by ignorant superstition and ancient bigotry. True morality is derived from evolutionary forces acting on our prehistoric ancestors. Seriously deluded religious believers imagine that God is the source of "objective" of absolute morality, a philosophy which can only be substantiated by first proving that God actually exists in objective (physical) reality.

Answer 5

But that really is the problem with the atheistic worldview. Not that some atheists choose to be immoral, but inherantly it provides no objective foundation for morality whatsoever. Any atheist Ive ever talked to on this subject at length eventually admits that he or she believes that morality is subjective because the bottom line is they are forced to say that morality comes from humans and not a transcendent being. If morality comes from humans, then there is nothing objective about it!

If I tell you that an apple is red, grows on trees, is a type of fruit, and grown in Washington, Ive told you a set of objective statements about an apple. These have nothing to do with how anybody personally feels about apples nor did I have a hand in determining these facts. Now if I tell you I dont like eating apples but my brother does, I didnt really tell you anything about apples, only a set of subjective statements about me and my brother.

So invariably any answer you get from atheists is going to be just that, SUBJECTIVE. They will say "well I believe doing this is good for this reason" and "well I dont believe in that so much." A subjective moral viewpoint tells you so much about the person but it doesnt tell you squat about morality itself nor clearly objectively defines what is RIGHT or WRONG. Therefore what Hitler did wasnt WRONG, you just happen to disagree with it!

Its true you dont have to be Christian in order to hold to good morality. But you do need to be a theist in order to have a proper grounding and understanding of it. Otherwise, choosing good morality to the atheist may as well be as arbitrary as picking MCD's or Burger king, you arent obliged in any objective sense to pick either. Morality becomes a subjective picking and choosing what YOU think is right and wrong and not what is ACTUAL right and wrong.

“Like Stalin and Mao, Hitler illustrates the point made by both Dostoyevsky and earlier John Locke: when God is excluded, then it is not surprising when morality itself is sacrificed in the process and chaos and horror is unleashed on the world. So it has been in our time, and all the elaborate evasions produced by today’s atheists cannot change what their anti-religious kinsmen did, cannot change the grim facts of history.” -Dinesh D'Souza

Answer 6

Society. Its why our concepts of morality have changed over the centuries. Killing someone, if you found it to be necessary, was no real moral issue back in the middle/ dark ages, and now the guilt society-based thinking places upon us would make the average person have guilty thoughts for the rest of his/her life were they to kill someone, even if accidentally. Polygamy, incest, and adult-child sexual relationships were all morally okay at some point in our history, even in Europe, but aren't now.

Answer 7

In his book HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN,...
Nietzsche elucidates this point quite well when he writes :

---"...'MAN'S ACTIONS ARE ALWAYS GOOD'. -
We do not accuse nature of immorality when it sends us a thunderstorm and makes us wet: why do we call the harmful man immoral?
Because in the latter case we assume a voluntarily commanding free-will, in the former a necessity.
But this distinction is an error.
And then: we do not call even intentional harming immoral under all circumstances; one unhesitatingly kills a fly intentionally, for example, merely because one does not like its buzzing, -
one punishes the criminal intentionally and does him harm so as to protect ourselves and society.[...]...
All morality allows the intentional causing of harm in the case of self-defence.: that is, -
when it is a matter of SELF-PRESERVATION.
But these two points of view 'suffice' to explain all evil acts perpetrated by men against men: -
one desires pleasure or to ward off displeasure; -
it is always in some sense a matter of self-preservation.
Socrates and Plato are right: -
whatever a man does he always does the good, that is to say:
that which seems to him good (useful) according to the relative degree of his intellect, the measure of his rationality."...

In short,...
... MORALITY is a construct which is rooted in man's basal instinct to survive.
.

Answer 8

In no way does it sound as exciting as morality's being a gift of a tribal god of the Bronze Age, especially one who fostered genocide, gang rape, human sacrifice, slaughter of the innocent, murdering children, and a talking snake, but, as provided by another R&S participant, here's the answer:

"Brain influenced by our genes that are programmed by our survival and social instincts since we were uni-cellular organisms."

Answer 9

God.

For if God does not exist, then what is right and what is wrong?

If it is a matter of Opinion, who's?

If it is decided by society, how?

Take both questions all the way back to the beginning of recorded human history.

For if it is as the Darwinist, Evolutionist say's according to the laws of natural selection, there is no right or wrong that might makes right and the weak die off to make room for the strong, that would mean, Stalin had it right, Hitler had it right, Napoleon had it right, not that any of them had Darwins Idea in mind when they went about their agenda.
But the point is clear, if you say you cannot legislate morality, I would ask, "is murder against the law? " you would of course answer "yes" well then... You just legislated morality, the only difference is who's morality will you legislate?

So,,What is right and what is wrong?

Answer 10

God given Conscience -- however, if you don't follow its
guidance it gets weaker with each incidence until it no
longer has values and you no longer have morals.