What is Morality?

What makes some things "moral", and others "immoral"?

We spend a lot of time talking about how we are right, and they are wrong, but what do we mean by that? Why is that the things we think are right, *ARE* right, and not just a matter of opinion?

What I'm looking for here is something a little more deeper than "because that hurts people". My response to that is, "Why is it wrong to hurt people?"

So what is Morality, and what is it based on? How do we get it, and why?

and your loved ones. And treat others as you would have yourself be treated...

Works for me...

Being true to my self might not lead to the most moral of behaviors.

And why should we treat others as we ourselves want to be treated? Why is that moral?

What if someone tortures you and there is no way for you to stop it ? Would you take it like the boorish inferior soul you say you are so that you might learn why torture is wrong by experince??

Do you like that idea mr lex talionis? Than why brute do you whine that someone would limit your ability to brutalize others since you say you don't understand why it is wrong.
Me thinks brute is a hypocrite looking for an excuse to be an ass.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

There's still plenty of room on DU's servers for threads about what the latest ass said on cable

as to how the world should be, and how they would like to live. From this, I believe that morality derives. Much of it comes from the golden rule, and although this rule hasn't been around forever, I believe that even in earlier times, the concept existed if not they saying. If you don't like it when someone hurts you, than it would stand to reason that you wouldn't feel good about hurting others. Empathy plays a big roll in this.

An excellent question for discussion!

These things run very deep within us. But how do we come to any specific view of how the world should be (or is) and even, is there a specific view? Or is it a collection of views?

If you don't like it when someone hurts you, than it would stand to reason that you wouldn't feel good about hurting others. Empathy plays a big roll in this.

I think you and I are going to agree about a lot of things wrt this topic. Yes, there is an empathetic basis to morality, at least for many of us.

Why is that? Self-interest?

And I'm not accusing you or anyone else of being selfish. It's just that the way you just described it sounds a lot like (and if I'm wrong, please correct me) "I should be good to others so they will be good to me". I'm trying to arouse some thought in the hopes we might delve a little deeper than usual.

I think almost everything comes down to self interest. People want things to be the way they think they should be. If you think that the world will be a better place if... then you will probably act in a way to try to make it so. It give you a sense of accomplishment and it makes you feel good to do good, not really like an adrenaline rush, but something like it. It is also self-interest in that you would hope others would help you if you were in need. In this case, self-interest works to benefit the larger community. People do lots of "selfless" things for "selfish" reasons. People donate to charity to help other people, but they really do it because it makes them feel good to help others. They decide that the feeling they get from helping others is worth more to them than the time or money they give away. You rarely see someone give all their money to charity, because all of their money isn't worth that feeling, but to give some of their money is.

I think we will probably agree quite a bit on this.

morality comes from the word mores or folk customs. It does explain a lot about racism, sexism and other isms. If a stranger comes into your village and does something like eat your dog, should you kill him?

I remember a cultural brouhaha years ago in San Francisco, when Vietnamese refugees started hunting stray dogs in the parks and alleys for food. They also managed to pick off a few pets. Fortunately, the mostly liberal San Franciscans, after the first shock, were able to focus on the cultural differences to solve the problem. So, morality is really about what we think doesn't fit into our community.

I also agree that there is a higher consciousness that says, there are some things that really go against the grain of our humanity and are cruel and really heinous.

Culture (ie environmental factors) and something that's (maybe) inherent in our nature?

If culture, then why do some moral beliefs seem universal or nearly so, such as incest?

And if it's just a part of our nature, where did it come from?

Read Michner's Hawaii sometime. Among the royal Hawaiians or Alii, it was important for high born brothers and sisters to marry. The ancient Egyptians, Mayans and Incas seemed to have similar mores for their aristocracy. The Bible also notes that Arbraham's wife Sara was also his sister.

Michner brings up the fact that although, children born to such unions could be deformed, it also could emphasize good traits like native intelligence and tallness, important in the past. It wasn't a big secret that the deformed babies were dispatched at birth.

Royalty was exactly what I was thinking when I qualified the "universal" meme!! Did you know that this is also true amongst the royalty of Europe? (I only ask because you only mention biblical times and Hawaii)

But still, there are some things that seem to be widely held as immoral. Though different cultures define these things differently, they do seem to have moral prohibitions against stealing, murder, etc...If it's culture, and cultures are different from one another, why would something be considered immoral across so many cultures, even if they define the immoral act somewhat differently?

And where do you think that "higher consciousness" comes from ?

That higher consciousness has to rule in the end.

depending on my subjectivity?

Bush doesn't think the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians is murder but I do.

I think having an IUD is not murder but fundies do. :shrug:

The definition of what constitutes murder *is* subjective, but what I was referring to was, if morality is all subjective, then what is immoral about doing something that even I consider murder?

The Ultimate Morality

Tigers have no morality. It's something we made up to get along better with each other. Humans found that we survived better in groups, so we started making up rules about how to treat each other.

If you go around killing other members of the group, we might have to kill you. (Golden rule begins.) In most human civilizations, random killing of other humans is "wrong."

Having empathy also aided survival.

But different groups have different rules. My own personal morality says nothing about sex, for example. Yours might.

I think a lot of the trouble we're in now is one group or other thinking its morality is absolute, rather than subjective.

Just my thoughts.

It's getting late, and you've given me a bit to think about.

Thank you

is a sense of treat people the way you want to be treated. In order to form a society, even as small as 2 or 3 people, all have to agree to not kill the sleepers - if you can't come to that basic level of agreement, you can't have the roots of a society, because the first one to fall asleep from exhaustion is the first one to die.

Everything else builds from that; what works for a particular group, what is anathema for that same group? This becomes the basis for differing moral values. What set of rules one group may find useful, may not be as useful (if at all) for another group. If the two groups come into conflict, one will probably dominate the other, and so the weaker groups moral values become immoral, as a basis for conquering that group. And obviously, the weaker groups morality was flawed, else they wouldn't have been conquered. Or at least that makes a powerful argument for denigrating those 'immoral' values.

You can be sure most other social groups of animals don't either unless there is unusual stress in their group. Humans don't either. This is Victorian age thinking, or should I call it Straussian social Darwinism?

is "social groups of animals" - what about asocial animals? They defend their territory against intruders they see as competitors. Or they yield the territory, but they're really not much on sharing. Male lions drive off younger males before they become too much of a threat, as one example.

From the root I described, either a social darwinist culture or a much more compassionate culture can develop. One has a more clearly-defined hierarchy, with few leaders and many (relative to he number of leaders) followers. The other will be much more democratic and striving for the survival of the overall group.

If these two type of groups come into conflict, one is more likely to choose agression, and the other more likely to try to strive for peaceful co-existence. In our own society, that plays out with Republicans trying to win at all costs; Democrats being more likely to find ways to work together.

We went to the casino to play a game with them according to the rules. They cheated. We lost. We will work at bringing them to justice and making sure they can't cheat on the rules again.

Neither camp is in the wilderness, nor has it been in millenium, so your premises aren't in play anymore.

you're right, I'm wrong; it's settled, I win.

You've jumped form coyotes and wolves to playing games in casinos. I've lost your line of argument, and was never certain what it had to do with my original point of two beings coming to some level of agreement in order to form the basis of a 'society.'

As far as premises, I live in CO where the Dems captured control of the state legislature, and have been making noises about reaching out to Republicans, and trying to find bipartisan solutions to problems.

keeping things brief for the sake of making a point is where I am. I will save excruciating explanations for a textbook. If you think you are going to get a bipartisan solution from people who only play the game so they can cheat at it, then you will be falling off of Pike's Peak with the rest of the Democrats.

I have observed some of your Republican politicians and more than one reminds me of our more embarrassing California Republicans. Who is the guy with the red hair who so resembles our B-2 bomber Bob, but somehow he still has fruitcake dripping off of him? You know whom I mean.

Now let's retreat to the poker table. They are only pretending to play by the rules while they cheat you. Once you get that down then you have a chance of winning by exposing them for what they are.

We can and will work at bringing them to justice, but there's no guarantee we'll win. If they win, that would be their morality winning out on ours.

As far as i can tell you're essentially saying the same thing as Kenneth.

My point was that even in the wilderness, nature isn't as base within the group and closer to us than away from us. For instance the alpha male's job is to protect the pack, especially the pups, not to exploit it. But my point here is that those who have no morals aren't really reverting to their inner caveman but maybe their medieval pirate's mindset.

Strauss argues that there is no morality.

But the PNAC follows Strauss and this is who is running our country, the PNAC. One need only go to their website to see all the names of the founders are the same names in high places in Bush's administration, the most prominent of these being Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. That should explain the lack of principles in this administration.

and it's having an effect on how people understand what's being said here. IMO, though Strauss himself describes his argument as being "amoral", as in "without any morals", I believe that there is a moral code lying underneath. Basically, it says "Pure self-interest is moral"

Essentially, Strauss is making a plea for the "morality" of living a life devoid of "morals". In truth, as I see it, he claims to have no morals, but what he's really doing is rejecting the basis of what most people base their morals on (and I'm assuming here that the overwhelming majority of people's morals take other people's condition into account to at least some degree, even if not as far as "do unto others") and substituting HIS own moral that "Pure self-interest is moral"

And in line with MY belief that Strauss does have a moral code, I also think the PNACers have a similar moral code; "If it's good for me, it's good"

I think morals are the boundries we create in an effort to impose goodness. Since they are manmade, they're not exact. I'm sure we can all think of instances where the right thing to do conflicted with some moral law, but hopefully we trusted our inner sense enough to do what was right.

I remember seeing a documentary about Freud where he talked about there being two different types of people. I can't remember the terms that were used, but what he was saying was that some determine their value system from within themselves, and others allow their value systems to be determined for them based on what exists outside of themselves. In listening to what he was saying, I saw him describing liberals and conservatives, but than I see politics everywhere and in everything..lol

n/t

I think that morality means treating people with respect and kindness. I think its immoral to try to take people's rights away and other similar behavior. I guess I agree w/ a previous poster who said "Do unto others what you would have done unto you". I think that's a great philosophy.

It's like pornography. I know it when I see it.

...they seem to have developed certain connotations (perhaps only in the US -- I wonder whether any international DUers would care to comment on this).

When people talk about morality, they seem to mean adherence to sexual norms. Homosexuality is immoral, for instance. Pornography is immoral. Promiscuity is immoral.

Ethics, on the other hand, seems to be a term which applies to business dealings. Failing to honor a verbal contract is unethical. Used car salesmen are often accused of being unethical. The use of the term in so-called "ethical funds."

Regardless of any connotation, however, it is not right to actively harm or allow harm to come to another person. Why? Because in our interpersonal dealings with others, we make an assumption that all is as above-board as it appears. If we didn't, if we instead cynically assumed that everyone was out to screw everyone else for their own personal gain, then joined in that tactic to our own advantage, civil society would rapidly disintegrate, leaving nothing but chaos and dispair in its wake.

As social animals, human beings require checks on their behavior to create stability. Etiquette, for example, lubricates the social cogs and permits smoother interaction, better allowing for constructive cooperation.

Those who would attack gays for being gay, promiscuous people for their promiscuity, and who would generally like to dictate, marginalize, and codify sexual behaviors in the cause of "morality" overlook the fact that if the shoe were on the other foot, they would resent that action.

This is really what morality is all about: considering the impact of one's OWN actions upon the lives of others. Will marginalizing the minority result in the improvement of society, or simply create a seedy underbelly which can more easily cause harm to ALL, both those directly involved and those apparently uninvolved in the so-called "immoral" acts?

As an example of this, narcotics are outlawed, and thus are completely unregulated; crime springs up around the narcotics trade, causing little old ladies' houses to be invaded in the midle of the night so an addict can avoid painful withdrawal.

In short, morality does not consist solely in what feels right to me, but in the way one relates to others; in other words, morality is not about all the bad things other people do, but about whether I reflect upon my own actions as they relate to other people in order to insure that I cause no harm.

i thought of this line from a Leonard Cohen song (Bird on a Wire) that conveys, at least to me, a sense of the subjectivity of morality:

I saw a beggar leaning on his crutch
And he said to me, "Why do you ask for so much?"
I saw a woman standing in her door,
And she said to me, "Why not, why not, why not ask for more?"

We can set standards of morality like life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness ... perhaps we can even get an overwhelming majority to agree that these are indeed "good" things ... and that's fine as long as we remember that all definitions of good and bad are subjective ...

morality is nothing more than mankind's attempts to define a system of right and wrong to make life "better" ... so we value free will, we value Mother Earth that sustains us, we value non-violence, etc ... if you're looking for absolutes with your question, you've asked the wrong question ...

in response to the specific question you asked "why is it wrong to hurt people?", i would respond that it is "wrong" only because most people would prefer not to be hurt themselves ... i suppose as close as i could get to an answer to this question falls into the "do unto others" category ...

Societies have decided what kinds of behaviors (means) and what types of outcomes (ends) benefit the society and what types hurt the society. Moral codes represent a general agreement on these things.

We only recognize it when it goes outside the curve that is set by society and no one knows where the curve begins or ends...

The idea that morality lies within a certain "area", and as long as you stay within it's limits, you're moral. Go outside the boundaries, and you're a bad boy.

So who decides where the boundaries are, and on what basis?

may already have been said, but waht can you lived with? What allows you to sleep at night? Ultimately, that it what motivates us all.

"Integrity, integrity, integrity."

Morality is a 'Collection' of ideas. Fundamentaly it gets to the question of what is "Right and Wrong." But since it is a large collection we do not all agree on what it includes. And even what seems basic is often more complex. e.g. Thou shall not kill. except When some one is trying to kill you, spouse, children, stealing your property? The answers are not always clear. Was the "Morals" vote based on sexual preference issues or the use of foul language by so many today.

So to answer your questions Morality is a personal collection of right and wrongs. And like all personal issues it is formed by the sum of our life experiences.

Though we see a lot of consistency in the responses here, I don't think that we think of morality as consistently as the responses here would indicate. I think that we think about morality in different ways at different times. Sometimes we look at morality as a geographic area (see my response to Kentuck's post) we we are moral so long as we stay within the Moral Boundaries. Sometimes we look at morality as some sort of financial transactions, such as when someone does us a favor, and we feel we "owe them one"

So to answer your questions Morality is a personal collection of right and wrongs.

I'm trying to look for something that is more than a collection of moral opinions on a set of issues or questions. I'm looking for the underlying structure of how we think about morality and why we think of it in the way we do.

And like all personal issues it is formed by the sum of our life experiences.

Ahhh! I think you're onto something there. Many here have said that morality is based on what we do to and for others. What does our experiences have to do with that?

The overwhelming majority of responses describe morality as being about what one does to and for other people. Why is that? Why don't we define morality as "doing what's best for ourselves"? However, there are some differences in how we express this and WHY we think this is how morality is defined.

Several people have linked this "Do unto others" with "self-interest". I wonder how self-interest works when it comes to charity, where the giver has no expectation of receiving anything in return. Is charity motivated by self-interest?

One poster suggested that charity is motivated by self-interest - that is, the self-interest of feeling "good" about oneself. But to me, that seems to "beg the question". If morality is based on self-interest, then why would someone feel "good" about themselves for doing something that does nothing to promote their own self-interest?

One possible answer to this question might be found in Cleita's response, where she referenced a "higher power". That raises several issues. One is "Where does this 'higher power' come from? Is it something we're born with?

Another question that this raises for me is "Is it really a 'higher' power, or is it really a 'lower power' in the sense that it's a part of our unconscious? Is this belief of ours, which many of us seem to share --that morality is based on what we do to and for others-- the result of 'lessons' we learned as very young children and have since incorporated these lessons into our uncouncious? Or maybe we're just born with this belief?

What do you think?

One could argue that helping others IS in their own self interest in the long run.

The more people that are raised out of destitution and helplessness, the better it is for everybody for numerous reasons. Destitute, helpless people will be more prone to violence, uprisings etc.

Charity/selflessness/cooperation ultimately leads to a more stable society which is for the "greater good". It can also lead to emulation.

Ultimately the human race is not about the survival of the individual but of the race as a whole. This is achieved much more effectively through cooperation and selflessness. The ultimate morality would be those actions that further the cause of the survival and progress of the race as a whole.

I don't think there is any reason to bring a higher power into questions of morality. I think reason is sufficient to bring one to morality. Moral actions, actions that further the survival and progress of the race as a whole, are actions that involve selflessness and cooperation and valuing the needs of the many over the needs (or desires) of the few (to borrow from Star Trek). A higher power is irrelevant in this line of reasoning.

apparently

An inner compass

A few simple starters.

#1 Respect the sanctity of human CONSENT.No means NO.. Respect differences in others that cause you no harm,don't start shit because of looks,sexuality,or race,or religion(unless they have disrespected your consent by proseletyzing after you asked them to stop.) ..
Don't manipulate,bullshit,Lie or skew the truth,withold information, to get your own way by manipulating the decision process.Be genuine walk your talk,and face the music when you did something wrong.
Don't try to shift blame when blame is due.

#2 No more abuse. Don't beat,hit rape,psychologically gaslight,verbally assault others (this isn't about cussing or raising ones voice or saying controversuial things it's about using a predatory,dehumanizing bullying cruelty in your words designed to tear a person apart on the inside) NO torture or rape,no blaming the victim when it comes to rape or torture .Rape is always wrong..people,the ends DO NOT justify the means ever. Torture is always WRONG.


#3 Enforcing Boundaries by yourself,if you don't want it done to you don't STAND BY when it is being done to others unless they request you do not interfere. And in some cases like rape,bullying,abuse and torture you MUST intervene to stop the abuse.

I was wondering WHY those things are moral? Why isn't it moral for me to do whatever is in my interest to do, and to heck with everyone else?

What a great question.

I read something last year by a zoologist who studied primate behavior that might be useful here. He said that, while violence in primates varies, the motivation is consistent. It got down to defining the concept of "we".

Babboons will attack babboons outside their immediate family group- even babboons in the same "pack"- without suffering any social punishment. It's acceptable. The babboon's "we" is it's family, and that's all.

A chimp, on the other hand, will be a social outcast if he/she attacks chimps in the same group, whether they're family or not. But they WILL openly fight chimps in other groups and it's perfectly acceptable.

He went on to say that humans show the same behavior, but our concept of "we" varies greatly. So when we say that "hurting people is wrong", we're really only syaing that hurting "we" is wrong. War with some "other" is perfectly acceptable to most people.

So anyway, I think it's based in biology. As social animals, we're always looking out for "our" safety.

If this were translated this to politics, I'd say conservatives consider "we" to mean the United States. Evangelicals might define "we" as other Christians. So to these people, hurting people in other countries is just fine. It doesn't matter if the motivations are questionable, the people in the other countries aren't "we" and they simply don't count.

I don't know that Liberals are quite as monolithic. I think some see "we" as the poor, others see it as the secular, or the gay, or the pacifists, or even humanity as a whole.

Not only did you directly address the question, but you also raised my one of my favorite hobby horse - Nature vs Nurture

So since you indicate you lean towards Nature, I'm compelled to give you a "tweak" and ask "Does Nurture (the environment and one's experience) come into play at all, and if so, to what extent"?

Personally, I think nurture still plays a key role. We really get our concept of "us" or "we" from our surroundings.

I mean, if we just grew up in the woods with no human guidance, we wouldn't understand the concept of "nation" or "religion" or "poor" or any other social construct.

If you're raised evangelical, then anyone who rejects Christ is not "us". If your raised saluting the flag, anyone who lives outside the imaginary lines on a map is not "us".

I think human beings can decide who is "us" or "them" very dynamically. People joke about it, but it's true- if aliens with tentacles invaded the planet, people would consider all other human beings to be part of "we".

So I guess the trick is really in redefining "us".

Because we are NOT apes exactly
We can DECIDE whether to abuse or not.WE Choose to rape or torture and we rationalize the choices to get away with it.Look at Gonzalas..
Apes may or may not choose we can't get into thier heads ort talk to them yet so we observe.

Humans can talk in abstract ways,we also can decide to let leaders manipulate how we live.This is not always good for us to live as animals do.Animals may live in hierarchies because they might not have figured out how wrong hierarchy is yet. But people do not have to live in a top down social structure. We can choose egalitarianism and to not be scared of strangers.

Cooperation,integrity and respect of ourselves and others may be our best most natural survival strategy.When a person is an abuser this stuff is conditioned into them,by parental abuse.KIds who grow up loved respected nurtured do not have the same violent controolling tendancies as abused kids do.We have no claws or fur we need each other to love each other.A single human cannot survive on it's own with nothing individually no matter how much of a survivor/loner you fancy yourself..
When one or a few people are allowed to control the destiny of manyof us that is when shit goes bad for all of us in our relations with each other.We become competitive instead of cooperative,domineering instead of sharing.And if you have parents that neglect,abuse or mistreated you or treated you like thier own property and disrespected your personhood,this has profound effects on how you see the world and the effects seem permanent and it shows in how you relate to others emotionally if you don't introspect and look at your emotional responses,and take care NOT to pass it into your kids...society in it's sick form is recreated and it is assumed there is no other way.

construct. Know what I mean?

I think we'd all agree that it would be wrong for you to walk outside right now and shoot someone.

But let's say we were invaded by some foreign army. Suddenly it would be socially acceptable for you to walk outside and shoot someone (from the invading army, of course). In fact, shooting someone wouldn't only be acceptable, society would actively encourage it.

The first instance would make you a social pariah. The second would make you a hero. The only difference is that one is an attack on "we", and the other is an attack on "them".

Can refuse to shoot someone.
Suirvival sometimes IS NOT the highest law IF you choose to have integrity until death.
Consientious objeectors to war who do it because of thier integrity they value thier freedom to say no over thier own heroism or bodily survival.
They choose to become a peace hero (even if it's only in thier own heart) Rather than a murder/self defense hero.

or that we can't transcend them. I took her words to mean that we do have a legacy that we've inherited through evolution, and it does have an influence in how we see the world.

Consientious objeectors to war who do it because of thier integrity they value thier freedom to say no over thier own heroism or bodily survival.

The point here is that no matter what an individual decides, they are doing it on the basis of some morality. I wanted to discuss HOW we come to have a morality, any morality, and not to discuss which actions are moral and which are not. I would like to address the issue of morality and where it comes from, and not address individual morals.

I grew up in a shitty home. I know I did not derserve the cruelty I faced at the hands of my parents,a fundie pedo neighbor, my peers or this society.I don't like to hurt other beings.I don't like watching others suffer.
So I always asked why did some people deliberately hurt each other for nothing? Why do some people seem to be addicted to,or get off on others pain,but are fearful of it coming back to themselves so much they'll do or say anything to avoid owening up to it??
I am different than alot of people,because I have climbed out of alot of beliefs about what I am, that other people put into me. You know those "Norms". I have alot of creativity and I question everything because I am curious, including questioning what"authorities" say or pundits or anybody no matter who they think they are or who other people say they are.I want to know for myself.

I asked myself
Why does our ego reward us,why does our very psysiology reward us , our society for doing what is wrong to others? Why do some get away with avbuse more than others do as long as we are of certain social classes ,certain"private" cicumstances or in certain cliques,while others the minor transgressions get them nailed quickly? Why don't pedophiles molest kids in full view at the food court at the mall if they think it's thier right and the world be damned? If might majkes right why do kids get protected from harm in some situations and doubted when they are hurt in others?

Why did teachers look the other way while the bullies ganged up on me in thier presence and beat the crap out of me,while if I so much as punched on of the assholes back I got suspended?

Where comes this kind of strange injustice?

And I looked into psychology, into sociology ,into behavior,into different religions to satanism,to Assemblies of God,Buddhism,Paganism,(the closest metaphysical answer I have found is in some forms of Gnosticism) I looked into biology,into the way animal cultures are,I looked into history,I even studied cancer and how it seduces cells in a body and how those cancer cells behave to find answers.I looked at politics,economics,the psychology of nazis, I have looked outward and inward for all my life to understand where comes this strange injustice..

I found that it really does come down to choice and your own preferences in how you wish to live and also how honest you are about your own motives in these matters,and what position on the domination hierachy you are at colors how much abuse you tolerate if you are the sort to indulge in it for your own reasons.


I might do stupid shit,I even show my ass,I fight or soiometimes not.

BUT I am as much as I am able to be, AWARE of my own motives as to why I say things,do things or even THINK some things..I know if I am reacting to a script my mother used to belittle me,I am aware if I am projecting a school bully on someoner,or that abusive preacher,or whatever. And I know I am resonsible for my actions words here.
And this awareness of myself inside and what I do in this world and how it may or may not affect others has a high price,My own internal,eternal vilagence and ruthless self honesty and a lot of pain over my responsibilty and a sense of empathy that hurts me deep down inside like a burning fire that never goes out..But I get one good thing..I see there is a way out of our social delimma.
But I have to overciome alot of beliefs,alot of abusive programs,alot of resistance to self introspection and self change in people who don't know why in thier own consience why they should choose to be non-abusive to others.

Integrity requires the kind of chosen personal dedication to maintaining your own integrity and boundaries of conduct in a way alot of people are scared of or don't want to hear.Living the kind of true to yourselfness that gets you scapegoated,or put on a pedistal you must refuse,The kind of courage that gets you labeled a coward ,a nut,a troublemaker or hero by all those people who would rather not let thier own motives be known even to themselves..
when they do the shit they do,preferably behind closed doors with no one who would complain within earshot.

I know can be hideously wrong.I can be projective,I can be a class A asshole.. BUT I strive to know why I am being these things sometimes and not always is my motive good.I must keep my shadow visible to myself if I want to understand my own heart's desire.. I can try to listen to my own motives and stop myself before I do something I'd regret.I'm not perfect at it.I may never be,I always can improve. I can also examine my own motives honestly and decide to take a risk that if I stood by and did nothing I may be praised or make an uneasy peace but I also must live with the fact I would not be pleased with myself.

This world rewards the exploiters,the bullies the dominators. Because the system of relations we currently live under was set up by these sorts of people.

I can choose to be different than this system of reward and punishment and point the way to a different way, to a world without kings or slaves..This ability to choose in an abstract way I think is what makes us more aware of ourselves than animals,seem to be.Sinec we can communicate such abstract enlightened ideas as freedom from abuse we can choose to live free from abusers.

I choose to NOT reward a dominator,an exploiter,an abuser a bully and be afraid of them for myself.I won't bystand when someone else is suffering the sadism of another and has thier freedom taken. I'll call the condemnation and risk the bullies tempertantrums at having to limit his desire to dominate..Domination is NOT compatible with freedom,peace,equality,prosperity or anything of value in this life.Control freaks can kill me or use thier followers/believers to do it,But I'll die free with NO on my lips and this time they will not win. And maybe just maybe people around me will get some courage and quit merely surviving,choose to develop thier own sense of character rather than listen to the abuser they internalized and learn to not believe in"big men" and instead become a bunch of big hearts..

But it will not happen in a big way unless you choose it to inside and you know what is motivating you for yourself and encourage others to be free to find it even if you disagree with where they go looking(this is why freedom of speech is so important)..
And this world it makes that choice to be free painful indeed.
You have to know in your own heart for yourselfg WHY it is wtrong to abuse others.There can be all sorts of sociology explanations religious tenets and whatnot to explain it,but idf you cannot FEEL the answer you will not understand it and your morality is controlled by beliefs not be real life understanding.

This I think is why we have ideas like faith or devils,or chains of command as some ways among many we use to try to externalize the choices we make into a system of social control.By using beliefs that impact us all, to justify choices to others we cannot feel as truth inside us ,it seems we ourselves do not want to own our own goodness and badness fully. In reality we do own it all and the power we have to change ourselves is immense,Only if we decide to do it.When we choose to act together and not give in to the urge to act on abuser/sickness or narcissitic urges that live in all of us in varying degrees we can chage our world and how we percieve ourselves dramatically,however it is slower process.

Here are a few things I've written struggling with this issue over time.

http://www.rudemacedon.ca/0306/0620-freedom.html

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=47615

http://www.unknownnews.net/031126a-up.html

http://www.unknownnews.net/d1205up3.html

I'm going to have read that several times before I respond, but I wanted to thank you for sharing all that with us.

I started this thread because I had recently read in a book that our morality was basically rooted in our experiences and feelings, specifically our feelings of well-being. It rang true to me, but I'm not the type to rely solely on intuition, so I thought discussing here might help clarify my thoughts about this. Up until this point, it was something that made a lot of sense to me, but you made it real when you said:

There can be all sorts of sociology explanations religious tenets and what not to explain it,but idf you cannot FEEL the answer you will not understand it and your morality is controlled by beliefs not be real life understanding.

As you said, we all have the freedom to make our choices as to who we are going to be, and I suspect that the choices we make are strongly influenced by our experiences and how they affect our sense of well-being. But there's this one thing that troubles me, and again, it reminds me of the narture vs nurture debate; Which comes first?

The choices we make? Which lead to experiences that affect our sense of well-being? Or do the experiences lead to the choices? And if it's some sort of cycle, then how does it get broken? If someone has chosen the "easy" way, how do we convince them the hard way is even better, particularly if they don't feel that way?

And like you said, I think it comes to showing people that there is another way. By expressing how we feel through our actions and words, we can show people who *do* feel the same as we do that they need not go along for sake of "convenience".

Thanks for all that. I haven't read the other links yet, but I'm sure I'll get around to it.

"we" as our species and non others. Other species can be hunted, tormented, evicted from their neighborhoods and in general treated in the cruelest fashion.

Ok What is a we without a THEM?

What if we stopped seeing things in terms of US/THEM?

What if we stopped being scared of strangers?
What if we saw we as more than us,saw humanity as we,
saw the earth itself as we?

It would be impossible to rationalize torture.

People speak of"empathy overload" that is one explanation of why people get horrified idf thier family meember suffers but get a milder upset when it's someone overseas.]

I think the reason we don't see the world as one big we is because we have been conditioned by our small minded top down culture to disconnect ourselves from our bigger we self ,as in the universal equality sense.

A parent that is disconnected from thier own experinces/emotions/motives can rationalize hitting thier own kid
this is howe screwed up we are,when we follow leaders.
We are like a many and one thing fighting inside itself for a supremacy of 'individuality' that is an illusion because people believe in "leaders" and "power" and this belief tuurns certain kinds of individuals into"deviants" based in the leader's definitions and the deviants are nessary for the leader to maintain control over the believers.

There must be the appearance of no other way of living avaliable that is free of the influence of the" leader" or the leaders belief control "norm" system that really serves to limits follwers perceptions of reality and options of choices(freedoms)...For people to obey a master they must agree to give up thier inner locus of control and thier own desires to associate with certain "deviants" among other things..In exchange they feel belonging they have an US..When more people see there is no threat in talking to others outside thier own US as interconnected ,interdependant individual people they could relate to...Peace will not happen until both sides of the people choose together to stop blinding themselves to the others suffering,abusing"deviants" or hating different people who are like themselves..And too often they await the leader's permission to do this.

When in reality ANY PERSON can choose disobedience to ANY belief,leader or system.And to choose means they free themselves which may be refusing to kill an enemy the'leader' declares'dangerous',refusing to be drafted,refusing to work,Questioning an immoral a religious tenet,and arguing it im public Refusing a parental dictate, This is choosing to break ranks with the US they allied with for moral reasons. It puts you in a partial THEM category.And this place of having no US and not quite being THEM is where you find your OWN freedom and true moral character and begin to lead yourself.

Leaders have no power over other people until enough masses of people believe in that leader and choose to give this individual thier power,as in thier arms legs eyes words, labor, and thoughts.Then when you have true believers, you have a real danger to fight against as an individual person should that leader use that structure of people who belive to become dangerous to it's neighbors.Than you ally with others and make a similar structure to fight THEM...Then things break up into US/THEM fights because people do not want to be abused, enslaved or made servants to leaders they don't trust or causes they don't believe..And in this situation the winner take all mentality makes sense.And it is not wrong to hurt people to survive.


BUT
Remove the concept of elitism and"leaders"and the winner take all mentality is silly if not sociopathic.Because we already HAVE it all as long as we SHARE it we will not be deprived as long as we ensure all have..

Leader types(narcissists/sociopaths people with conduct disorders ambitious winner types) don't like living this way(in a state of equality,cooperation and peace) because it renders them mere individuals,with as much power as everyone else has.They are subjected to the rules of social conduct everyone else is,they have no entitlements or special gifts or rights,( peace requires an agreement for all to respect each others's consent,and it requires the choice to have intgrity and not abuse others.)Bullies ,sociopaths and narcissists do not want to have to live by the social conduct rules everyone else lives by to ensure peace.
They set themselves up as leaders and generate true believers and create a "them" out of the universal us to make themselves look like"great men" among mortals. This is a lie that has entranced humanity for a long time,the lie of kings.

Jesus defined the Law as coming down to loving God with everything you are, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

When someone asked, "Who is my neighbor?", Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan, someone who would have been reviled by Jesus' audience because Samaritans were not part of the Jewish "we" that you're talking about. In fact, I think they were looked upon with contempt.

I'm not a Christian, per se, but I do find what Jesus taught to be very radical and revolutionary, something that is totally lost on many of the people who claim to follow him today.

Immoral behaviors cause harm to someone.
Physical or emotional.
Against their will.
Most behaviors are morally neutral, they cause no harm, but do no good. Moral behaviors are the opposite of immoral ones; moral actions help someone.

Examples:
Kicking Grandma In Shins: Immoral
Fetching Grandma Her "Chompers": Moral
Consensual Gay Sex: Neutral (although it could be argued that this is a moral behavior, if the other peron's really likin' it.)

Why is a behavior that harms someone immoral?

If someone tries to murder me, and I kill them in self-defense, I've definitely caused them harm. So did I act immorally?

That's one of the reasons I changed my post. :)
I would argue that the cat of murder you've hypothetically commited is "immoral" by nature, but "moral" in the sense that you are directly helping someone (yourself). Because of this, I would say that murder in self-defense is morally neutral. Not immoral, it was necessary, but also not a moral action.

and I think that's essential to this discussion. If the self is seen as only the individual, then what's in the interest of self may not be what's in the interest of another. But to the extent that the "self" is the Universal, which includes all humans, and maybe to some extent other creatures too, then morality simply means to do no harm to any PART of the self. If there is an infinite existence beyond time and space, then this life on earth is small indeed, and differences among people are pretty much an illusion. I think that to understand our separateness as false and our connectedness as real is to be moral.

of the more Fruedian "Who do we define as "we" " argument that others have raised.