Can You Change Your Morals

[Nakosis]

Can you change what you feel is right and wrong?

For example, if you feel murder is wrong, can you decide to feel that murder is morally good?
What about child abuse?

I'm not saying morals never change but I don't see that it is a conscious decision. Something outside ourselves has to be the catalyst.

So while we can judge someone's else's morals according to our own moral view we can't expect someone else to change theirs.

How beneficial then is it to complain about someone else's morality if we cannot even change our own?

 

[JustGeorge]

I think we can. I think my morals have changed over the years. Things are less 'black and white' for me overall.

However, these changes were mostly due to experiencing different things, and being presented with more situations than I was previously. Its easy to be an outsider and cast judgement on what's right and wrong. However, unless you've been there yourself, you probably can't imagine.

 

[YmirGF]

View attachment 79679​

Can you change what you feel is right and wrong?

For example, if you feel murder is wrong, can you decide to feel that murder is morally good?
What about child abuse?

I'm not saying morals never change but I don't see that it is a conscious decision. Something outside ourselves has to be the catalyst.

So while we can judge someone's else's morals according to our own moral view we can't expect someone else to change theirs.

How beneficial then is it to complain about someone else's morality if we cannot even change our own?

Yes, you can change how you feel about what is right and wrong though there does have to be some kind of catalyst in order to get a person to re-examine their thinking. As to your two examples, yes, people can convince themselves of pretty much anything given perceived need. It is asking a lot to expect others to change their views but we seek to influence each other with every thought, breath and action. It's sort of the point of communication (to influence and be influenced by others). Entering communications with the expectation that the other party will change their position is delusional or overly optimistic, at the very least.

I'd change the last question to read, "How beneficial then is it to complain about someone else's morality if we are unwilling to critically examine our own thinking."

 

[Alien826]

Yes, I can and have changed my morals. It usually occurs when I gain new information, or read or hear something persuasive.

There's a level of my morality though against which I judge all the other rules. Loosely it's "don't do harm to innocent people without good reason wherever possible". That would take a lot more to change and I'm not sure if it could change as there's a subjective element to it that isn't affected by externals.

The murder example is complicated. First we have to define murder. Obviously self defense is allowed, and so on. It depends directly of the "basic rule" I describe above, so it would be difficult to change.

 

[Valjean]

Given a reasonable, contrary argument, yes.

 

[LuisDantas]

Morality is created by the joining of empathy and reason.

If circunstances, understanding or (more rarely) ability to empathise change, morality can and must change as well.

 

[Quintessence]

Well, I changed my "morals" from having them to not having them - that is, being amoral and instead operating by a combination of virtue ethics and consequentialism. I'm really not a fan of deontology.

 

[sun rise]

Mine changed. When I was growing up I was a conscientious objector because I felt that war was morally wrong. That's not my view any longer.

 

[syo]

Damn! That's a nice pic! Congrats!

 

[Nakosis]

Given a reasonable, contrary argument, yes.

Sure the reasonable, contrary argument could be the external catalyst but not guaranteed.
I suspect you can use the same argument on two different people and reach agreement in one case and not the other.
In fact I find that some folks simply get more defensive and circle the wagons.

 

[Nakosis]

Damn! That's a nice pic! Congrats!

I like to use pictures to break up the monotony of reading.

 

[syo]

I like to use pictures to break up the monotony of reading.

And Homer Simpson is spot on!

 

[Nakosis]

Mine changed. When I was growing up I was a conscientious objector because I felt that war was morally wrong. That's not my view any longer.

I'm not saying they don't change. However, for example could you decide to be a conscientious objector now?
IOW, do we freely choose our moral views or are they the result of external influences that we have limited, if any, control over?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Of course people can change their morality, and it can be a conscious decision.

 

[Twilight Hue]

View attachment 79679​

Can you change what you feel is right and wrong?

For example, if you feel murder is wrong, can you decide to feel that murder is morally good?
What about child abuse?

I'm not saying morals never change but I don't see that it is a conscious decision. Something outside ourselves has to be the catalyst.

So while we can judge someone's else's morals according to our own moral view we can't expect someone else to change theirs.

How beneficial then is it to complain about someone else's morality if we cannot even change our own?

You can change your values , but keep in mind there is no universal standard of morality to go by.

It's all on your own ticket.

 

[Nakosis]

Of course people can change their morality, and it can be a conscious decision.

Then I'd suppose they don't want to for some reason.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Then I'd suppose they don't want to for some reason.

On the whole no, though people tend gk change more than they think.

 

[Heyo]

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Can you change what you feel is right and wrong?

For example, if you feel murder is wrong, can you decide to feel that murder is morally good?
What about child abuse?

I'm not saying morals never change but I don't see that it is a conscious decision. Something outside ourselves has to be the catalyst.

So while we can judge someone's else's morals according to our own moral view we can't expect someone else to change theirs.

How beneficial then is it to complain about someone else's morality if we cannot even change our own?

As @LuisDantas said

Morality is created by the joining of empathy and reason.

so being given reasons to change, morality can, or at least should, change.

E.g. the Trolley Problem. Many people say they would pull the lever out of some utilitarian ethics, better one killed than five. But after having heard the iterations, I bet many would revise their first decision.

 

[Valjean]

Sure the reasonable, contrary argument could be the external catalyst but not guaranteed.
I suspect you can use the same argument on two different people and reach agreement in one case and not the other.
In fact I find that some folks simply get more defensive and circle the wagons.

True. Especially those whose positions are intellectually indefensible.

 

[Valjean]

View attachment 79679​

Can you change what you feel is right and wrong?

I try not to base my moral/ethical decisions on feelings. I do have a personal major premise, but I try to base all subsequent decisions on logically derived ramifications of same.

What I feel about something, and what I think about it, can be quite different. I feel what I feel, but I act on my thoughts.