How much of our 'morals' & 'common decency' is based on FEAR? Explain...?

Answer 1

"Morality and common decency emerge out of proper upbringing and expectations of the society."

This illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of fear.

Society trains us in acceptable behavior. We are praised when our behavior is acceptable and we love praise. Praise makes us feel good. When we are adults, we feel good from both real and imagined praise.

So we are trained to feel good when we do something praiseworthy and bad when we don't. FEAR includes fear of bad feelings, fear of loss of respect, fear of loss of reputation, fear of loss of love, fear of loss of acceptance.

Now some of our moral behavior might be based upon hope of reward. Of course, hope of reward is just as poor a foundation for morality as is fear.

Answer 2

I do not see that fear factor has any role to play in morals and common decency. Morality and common decency emerge out of proper upbringing and expectations of the society.

Answer 3

I think it partly depends on how religious you are. I think a lot of people have an innate civility learned through parents and culture which keeps them on the right track. Others though only seem to be good people because of the bribe of going to heaven and/or threat of gong to hell.

Atheists and other secularists who do not believe in an afterlife tend to be good just for the sake of being good. (Do we need another reason?) Indeed, some believers who see all morality as stemming from whatever holy book they believe in actually have a hard time understanding _why_ an unbeliever would be a good person and not just a nihilistic libertine.

I guess what it all boils down to is that some people need a stick-and-carrot to behave, while others are more moralistically mature enough to simply be good for its own sake.

Answer 4

probably for many people a lot of it. But real morals and decency is not the product of fear and the ignorant lack of brains... Real morals come from love.

yeah its true... most immoral people are the combination of people with no fear and/or no brains. but rarely do you find a person who loves life, and loves other people that are immoral.

why dont i go out tonight, pack my butterfly knief, and mug a blind old lady, and use her money to buy some hookers, then get em drunk then kill them, take their money to buy myself the new car i want?

maybe i do fear.... fear getting aids from the hookers.... fear of getting caught murdering, fear that the old blind lady will pull out a mac10 out of her purse and blow my head off.

but mostly its not fear. its love that is real morals. i gues in a way one could love the old lady, because one remembers ones own grandmother who was so caring. i guess i love my girlfriend so much, i couldnt dare to fcuk a hooker.

murder, if one loves life itself, taking another aint possible.

i disagree with you. its not fear... its love that is real morals and common decency

Answer 5

IMO, some of it may be based on fear depending on how you were raised. We all have our own moral compass; some of it is intrinsic, some of it is environmental. A combination of both if you will.

Answer 6

Our 'Conscious' governs most of our thoughts and actions. Listen to it and be guided.