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Moral Polly Parrot

Where do you stand with regards to morality?

  • Morality is mostly self-evident

    Votes: 4 30.8%
  • Morality comes from religions alone

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Without my religious morals I might be a criminal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Religious morals serve the particular religion

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • God made us immoral so s/he takes the blame

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Who needs morals anyway?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • What are morals?

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 8 61.5%

  • Total voters
    13

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
None of the above suited my understanding of Morality so I chose other. Everything in the cosmos is made up of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. And good morality is the visible evidence of this 3 as a whole. only when human beings can live truthfully (speaking the truth) showing full compassion toward all living beings, and have forbearance for all living beings (in all form of life anywhere in cosmos) can we truly say someone has become fully morally being.
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
If one accepts and agrees to this definition of moral:
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.​

Then who does not have morals?
 

Galateasdream

Active Member
I tend very heavily towards moral realism.

I see right/wrong grounded in God.

I think humans access this moral knowledge, imperfectly, through a mix of conscience and reason.

Neither conscience nor reason is anywhere near infallible, and people vary in their abilities in the use of such.

The vehicles through which this knowledge may come (to which conscience and reason are applied) are very varied (potentially anything), but usually include: personal experience, religion, philosophy, history, science, and art.

Like all other human endeavours, moral understanding can wax or wane, progress or regress. Mostly, I'd say our moral understanding (in 'developed' countries) is progressing and better now than a few hundred years ago (or even sixty years ago).
 

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
I think the best form of morality comes from reason and compassion. I don't think there is a such thing as a "perfect" system, but those derived through empathy and logic are vastly superior to those that are completely irrational, arbitrary, and unsubstantiated.
Superstition makes for a poor moral compass in the modern world.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Since loaded polls seem to be the rage these days. :D

Morality can vary from religion to religion, culture to culture, etc. But whatever one's morality might be, it should be consistent throughout, without double standards or hypocrisy - which are the height of immorality, in my opinion.
 

Darkforbid

Well-Known Member
Where do I stand?

Morality is an abstract concept until it's applied to a real situation. When this is done the good of the many is usually considered most moral
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
If one accepts and agrees to this definition of moral:
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.​

Then who does not have morals?

I suspect some might not meet this definition if their morality varies depending upon the circumstances - so very much a moving target.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I tend very heavily towards moral realism.

I see right/wrong grounded in God.

I think humans access this moral knowledge, imperfectly, through a mix of conscience and reason.

Neither conscience nor reason is anywhere near infallible, and people vary in their abilities in the use of such.

The vehicles through which this knowledge may come (to which conscience and reason are applied) are very varied (potentially anything), but usually include: personal experience, religion, philosophy, history, science, and art.

Like all other human endeavours, moral understanding can wax or wane, progress or regress. Mostly, I'd say our moral understanding (in 'developed' countries) is progressing and better now than a few hundred years ago (or even sixty years ago).

I quite liked that, especially about us progressing in many ways, although some seem to think such progress is not possible - for example the dreaded John Gray - but I would say I have witnessed such.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Morality comes from God. It is inherent in man in a general way. No one is born a tabula rasa, a blank slate.

Well I'm glad to see a dusting of such was granted to many species of animals besides us, since many seem to display very much what we might experience - but do they know it as such?

Blank Slate - worth reading, by Pinker - if you haven't already read it. :D
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Other... I would have gone for self evident but it needs some explanation.

Yes i believe morality is self evident, it is an inherent trait of many mammal species, not necessarily what we see as human morality (more later) but certainly moral in their own way.

It takes a moral sense to live in groups, to keep the group functioning as a group rather than kill another member of the group which will lead to anarchy.

And for the same reason it requires morality to combine groups and build a civilization... As humans have done (or so i am told). Which in turn builds religions that take that morality and use it as a weapon against those not in your religious group. "You can't be moral because you... Are not a member of our group... Don't hold the same group values that we do... Don't worship our god".

Morality is what is accepted by yourself and your group concerning your behaviour in that group and how you would like that group to behave towards you.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Well I'm glad to see a dusting of such was granted to many species of animals besides us, since many seem to display very much what we might experience - but do they know it as such?

Blank Slate - worth reading, by Pinker - if you haven't already read it. :D
Instinct, and morality are not the same. Animals just do as instinct directs them. They neither know or care why they act, they act.

Of course, humans reason, and have conscience's. They may know right, but choose to do wrong.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
IMO, morality is about your feelings of right and wrong. I think feelings are partially genetic, partially cultural and partially experiential. So where there is commonality in these things we find commonality in morals. However it is not all in common so we find differences amongst us in our feelings about right and wrong.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
As Sam Harris put it: Morality has to do with the "well being of conscious creatures" (WBCC). This idea isn't original with Harris, but I appreciate that he champions it.

Of course this definition might strain the bounds of the OP a bit as it includes non-human conscious creatures. We tend to have an intuition that smarter creatures should be treated better than more primitive creatures. (Although we frequently break that rule.) So - for example - we worry about the emotional lives of our dogs and cats more than we do about the ants that live outside of our house.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Instinct, and morality are not the same. Animals just do as instinct directs them. They neither know or care why they act, they act.

Of course, humans reason, and have conscience's. They may know right, but choose to do wrong.


Scientists studying animal behaviour believe they have growing evidence that species ranging from mice to primates are governed by moral codes of conduct in the same way as humans
Animals can tell right from wrong

I have seen wild animals perform kindness, give self sacrificing help, and behave in a far superior way to some humans i im unfortunate enough to know

Animals (some animals) also reason, have conscience and will work for the common good of the group
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Instinct, and morality are not the same. Animals just do as instinct directs them. They neither know or care why they act, they act.

Of course, humans reason, and have conscience's. They may know right, but choose to do wrong.

Well I think you are wrong, and if you looked at current knowledge concerning animal behaviour then what they do would not be seen as just instinctual. A mention in another thread of injustice being observed in many animal species is one example. How would an animal display this if it didn't have some kind of moral values to compare against? I fear you are just ignoring so much related to animal behaviour because it suits your religious beliefs to do so.

And the article provided by @ChristineM is well worth reading.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Morality to me is inherent in us but religion can help by making certain principles explicit.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
If one accepts and agrees to this definition of moral:
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.​
That's a somewhat confusing definition, though, as Its trying to imply morality as being both the ethical standards for judging behavior, and the behavior, too. Whereas I think the term "morality" applies only to our behavior, and not to the ethical imperatives that we use to define behavior as being moral or immoral.​
 
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