Morals

[VoidCat]

One thing I've struggled with is understanding why people don't question things more. People have a habit of following orders, following what society says is right without question, following what their upbringing says they should do, and doing things a certain why just cuz their religion says it is right and never stopping to ask if it is indeed the right thing to do. My question is this: are you truly moral if you never question what is right and wrong? If all your morals come from someone else and not you? Say for instance...society states drug use is wrong and to be criminalized...but scientists say that it is an illness...is it truly moral to allow people to be locked up for being ill? To never question it?Or say growing up you had spankings...yet psychologists now say that spanking a child creates mental health problems...is it moral to spank your child then? Yet you never question it? Say again that you are a Democrat or a Republican just because your parents are one...is it truly moral to back a party just because your parents followed it not because you believe in it? To never question that perhaps your parents might be wrong? Now I am not saying following the crowd, following society, following what religion says, and doing what your upbringing taught is wrong. My question isnt whether doing so is moral its whether doing so blind without question is moral. Thoughts?

 

[Vinayaka]

My thoughts are that it's complicated, and the efforts to simplify it often don't make room for all the possible diversity within man. For example, if a hungry child steals a piece of food, the real crime is with the society that allowed the child to be hungry.

 

[Secret Chief]

I think the world might be a better place if there was a tad more critical thinking.

 

[darkskies]

It depends completely on the situation. Following blindly can be good when time is fleeting (like in hospitals, military, etc.). So I don't think you can generalise the morality. Also, most humans are instructed by guardians, made to follow rules they don't understand all the time growing up. It's understandable to have a percentage of the population that continues doing so instead of trying to fit their head around everything.

 

[SomeRandom]

I am not moral. I have ethical values that can change based on information.

 

[Vinayaka]

I think the world might be a better place if there was a tad more critical thinking.

I agree in principle, but sometimes when two sides argue, each accuses the other of not thinking critically. So what exactly is critical thinking?

 

[stvdv]

One thing I've struggled with is understanding why people don't question things more

That's an easy one for me to understand:

1) Children were not taught to question things
2) Children were taught to not question things

 

[Quintessence]

Morality is a construct that only works based on broad social adherence to the norms which it establishes. When social adherence falls apart - which can happen when things are questioned - so do the morals, which are then replaced with different morals sometimes. Put another way, obedience to the social norms that establish behavioral limitations (aka, morality) is required for morality to function in human societies.

 

[VoidCat]

I am not moral. I have ethical values that can change based on information.

That actually makes more sense to me...

 

[Secret Chief]

Morality is a construct that only works based on broad social adherence to the norms which it establishes. When social adherence falls apart - which can happen when things are questioned - so do the morals, which are then replaced with different morals sometimes. Put another way, obedience to the social norms that establish behavioral limitations (aka, morality) is required for morality to function in human societies.

There's possibly a difficult balance to maintain between maintaining social adherance and having a critical attitude.

 

[Secret Chief]

I agree in principle, but sometimes when two sides argue, each accuses the other of not thinking critically. So what exactly is critical thinking?

I don't necessarily expect agreement, but I would say it involves scepticism. rationality, analysis, reasoning...a buffer against propaganda and deceit.

 

[Nakosis]

One thing I've struggled with is understanding why people don't question things more. People have a habit of following orders, following what society says is right without question, following what their upbringing says they should do, and doing things a certain why just cuz their religion says it is right and never stopping to ask if it is indeed the right thing to do. My question is this: are you truly moral if you never question what is right and wrong? If all your morals come from someone else and not you? Say for instance...society states drug use is wrong and to be criminalized...but scientists say that it is an illness...is it truly moral to allow people to be locked up for being ill? To never question it?Or say growing up you had spankings...yet psychologists now say that spanking a child creates mental health problems...is it moral to spank your child then? Yet you never question it? Say again that you are a Democrat or a Republican just because your parents are one...is it truly moral to back a party just because your parents followed it not because you believe in it? To never question that perhaps your parents might be wrong? Now I am not saying following the crowd, following society, following what religion says, and doing what your upbringing taught is wrong. My question isnt whether doing so is moral its whether doing so blind without question is moral. Thoughts?

I agree with @Vinayaka, morals are complicated.
Some moral ideas we develop subconsciously. Your upbringing, what you read, hear, experience all gets knocked around by your subconscious and then your subconscious provides you feelings about what is right and wrong. Does that mean what you feel is right is right? No, but you feel what you feel and likely do not consciously know why.

There has also been some moral codes developed by cultures/religions. This this mean what they say is right is right? Again no. However many have collaborated on these codes and mostly have agree that these ideas feel right among a majority.

Why do we follow other's codes of right and wrong? IMO mostly because we really don't know what is right and wrong beyond our feelings. Feelings being a subconscious process we can logically/rationally decipher them. So when someone comes along who appears to be successful or appears to be knowledgable about right and wrong e naturally tend to accept this perception.

I don't think you can look to science for morals. Your morals, my morals, society's morals are more about feelings which we really don't have a science for.

What we do is always blind in a way. We are not fortunetellers, we can't actually know the consequences of our choices. We have a built in feedback system of feelings which is far from precise or accurate but has worked well enough to allow the species to survive. You have become aware of the fragility of it. All you can really do is acknowledge that. No one as far as I know has been able to fix it.

And, I don't know if we really want to fix it. It is more than anything else, IMO, what makes us human.

 

[Quintessence]

There's possibly a difficult balance to maintain between maintaining social adherance and having a critical attitude.

Yes. It is perhaps a bit easier in ethical systems that are less fixated on "right" and "wrong" and instead focus on virtue or cultivating character. In such systems it is less about deciding what society deems appropriate in black-and-white terms and more about deciding who and what you want to be in the world and what relationships are cultivated as a consequence of those virtues. That actually carves out a very interesting niche for the philosopher, whose virtue includes critical thinking as standard. But for those whose character is not to aspire to be a philosopher, that would matter far less to them.

 

[Samael_Khan]

One thing I've struggled with is understanding why people don't question things more. People have a habit of following orders, following what society says is right without question, following what their upbringing says they should do, and doing things a certain why just cuz their religion says it is right and never stopping to ask if it is indeed the right thing to do. My question is this: are you truly moral if you never question what is right and wrong? If all your morals come from someone else and not you? Say for instance...society states drug use is wrong and to be criminalized...but scientists say that it is an illness...is it truly moral to allow people to be locked up for being ill? To never question it?Or say growing up you had spankings...yet psychologists now say that spanking a child creates mental health problems...is it moral to spank your child then? Yet you never question it? Say again that you are a Democrat or a Republican just because your parents are one...is it truly moral to back a party just because your parents followed it not because you believe in it? To never question that perhaps your parents might be wrong? Now I am not saying following the crowd, following society, following what religion says, and doing what your upbringing taught is wrong. My question isnt whether doing so is moral its whether doing so blind without question is moral. Thoughts?

In my opinion morality is a religious word and is subjective, making the term obsolete. In reality we have right and wrong ways to achieve certain goals, right ways are those that bring us closer to the goal and bad ways are those that are detrimental to those goals.

In terms of religion, the term morality is used to dictate what laws are best for the society that those specific people live in. It maintains tribal cohesion while alienating or eliminating those threats that are detrimental to social cohesion. A lot of times there are morals in place that have no purpose except for setting people apart from others. Just look up the laws of Israel. There were certain laws specifically stated to separate them from their neighbors so that the Israelites could be isolated from them and see them as the other.