Are Morals Based on Society, Instinct, or a Divine Good Vs. Evil Battle?

Question

I have a few friends I love debating with. One of our debates was about morals (it was related to political issues I won't go into). One point they raised was my moral belief is because of the culture I was brought up in. The idea being that if I lived in an Aztec culture I would think that human sacrifice is alright. If I lived in feudal Japan I would think boiling any non-Japanese alive was perfectly normal, etc.
My counterpoint to this is that if it is this absolute then the American Revolution never happened, the story of Moses is completely false (since he was raised Egyptian), and serial killers don't exist.
On the other hand there is some evidence that we are becomming desensitized to violence the more it becomes the norm in the media (all media).
How much of a role do any of the three have in our morality? I lean towards instinctive simply because there are some things I won't do that no one ever told me not to do, I just feel they are wrong "instinctively".
Thoughts?

Answer 1

For most people, morality is a set of feelings we often call conscience, common sense or sometimes, instinct. We get these feelings from society training us from our infancy. It is in our human nature to love praise and society uses praise to train us.

We also have in our human nature the capability to put ourselves into the place of others thus making the feelings of sympathy and empathy possible. Society uses these feelings in our training.

By the time we're adults we feel bad when we misbehave and good when we do something praiseworthy. We don't need direct rewards and punishments; we have imagined feelings of praise and imagined feelings of fear. These are the unfocused feelings that we call conscience, instinct and common sense.

But feelings by themselves are a very poor basis because we'll eventually see how our feelings are being used to manipulate us. After all, from a rational basis, what moral obligation do we really owe to a feeling?

Religion is then brought into the equation. The thought is that God Himself is behind these trained-behaviors. Society is doing the will of God by teaching this or that. I think that eventually all societies have to rely on religion in order to back up their moral teachings.

The truly moral person understands all of this but also does believe in a higher moral authority, i.e. God. The moral authority of God is behind our capacity for empathy and sympathy. For God is the only possible basis for a morality that isn't based upon mere feelings.

Answer 2

Human are animals.

Some like Frued would suggest that all action is linked to sex. The drive to reproduce.

everything else is a battle of Super Ego keeping you from running around killing and raping.
(this is an extreme example, but humanity is capable of it, just look to any war.)


i kinda agree, that we forget we are animals, just with big brains.

Us humans/animals have brains which control action, these actions are green or red lights. right and wrong.

based on society,( now we are talking about a cumlitive of hummanity, from slavery being ok to giving womens votes,
back to
believing everyword in the bible is true.)

All action is free will, there is no morality, there is instead the fear of law,
law which is revenge for actions society deemed immoral.

so, society dictates how the culture will green light or red light actions,
socitey uses religion, ie theres a god we must make happy,
or
practicallity, if we let each other kill each other we may never be able to sell more and more products...

so our notion of morals is based on two things social history and communal norms.
and the fear of law...
(in my opinion morals can only exsist without law, because then you chose to do the right thing, not fear the consquence)


sacrifice, revolution, ect ect...
the brain can justify it,
with religion, or greed, or self intrest,

these things are taught, not innate,

kids will steal a candy bar if you don't teach them its wrong.

Answer 3

'guy is a villian' - Raskolnikov, Crime and Punishment this is greater complicated than that at situations, yet that's what all of it quantities to. many human beings have faith that there is this style of element as 'solid' and 'evil', yet those are in basic terms definitions that are given to them by potential of their ancestors and authority figures. Nature makes no such bias assumptions. even though it form of feels that following those given codes is 2d nature to us because of the fact in the event that they weren't the trail of least resistance we in all probability could have strayed from them by potential of now. this is grow to be organic to be unnatural, and God is acquainted with how lots trial and mistake it took to grow to be that way. the two way, the greater efficient majority human beings are awash in confusion. it quite is as a results of the fact human beings do no longer be attentive to themselves properly sufficient. they could fairly dive into somebody else who's purely as perplexed as they are with the intention to keep away from stagnation or right into a lapse into intrinsic introspection. and don't take those 'text textile e book definitions' of sociology and philosophy because of the fact the suitable say on the problem. Even those quickly promulgated factors would be greater upon.