What Should Be the Nature and Scope of Human Morality?

[Langbein]

Should humans have a moral ?

If they should, what should then be the nature and content of this moral ?

Would it be some advantage to be without a moral ?

If there should be a moral, in which circumstanses or in which environment should this be applicable ?

If moral is about doing or practicing some kind of "rules" when and in which situation will these rules be valid ?

Will they be valid in a family ? What about in a country ? What about between coutries ?

Should it be possible to say something like "I have one moral that I use in my family and the neares group around me while when it comes to politics and things like that, it should be an other set of rules that has nothing to do with my daily life moral."

As an exsample could the question about how the natural resources are chered between nations be a question about morality ?

Could it be bether and more practical just to say that there should be no moral at all ?

 

[Moridin]

Humans do have a sense of morals because the individuals that did not, probably had a less change of surviving in the past. This of course, is perhaps only limited to the strongest, such as avoiding to kill or steal. Weaker ideas are obviously arbitrary social constructions. 'Morals' can be seen in apes and vampire bats. There is a difference between reciprocal altruism and what we define as morals, but over time, certain traits will be selected.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/

I wrote more exhaustively on the subject here

 

[Astronuc]

Should humans have a moral ?

Humans should have a set of morals, and those should be applied fairly consistently over the range of human interactions.

Perhaps it would be useful to establish a common understanding of morals, morality and ethics.

Morality (from Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") refers to the concept of human action which pertains to matters of right and wrong — also referred to as "good and evil" — used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values —shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct morality.
. . .

Moral codes are often complex definitions of right and wrong that are based upon well-defined value systems. . . .

Examples of moral codes include the Golden Rule; the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism; the ancient Egyptian code of Ma'at ;the ten commandments of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the yamas and niyama of the Hindu scriptures; the ten Indian commandments; and the principle of the Dessek.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality

There seems to be motivation on the part of many to establish a set of morals.

It would appear that the practical side of morality is a reduction (or minimization) of instability, axiety, suffering, trauma within the individual and society.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think morals have everything to do with empathy. If you can place yourself in the shoes of another, then you can conceive of them placing themselves in your shoes. So, you treat them in a way that, if the situation were reversed, you personally wouldn't get scrood.

i.e. "I will not mug this man because I don't want to get mugged by someone else."

The extent to which these morals reach (to your family, to your town, to your country) is a matter of how you define your identity ("we" are a family, "we" are a town, "we" are a country, "we" are a planet). So, if you identify yourself as a family, you have a strong moral code within your family, but if you don't identifty yourself as a planet of people, you have little moral obligation to other people on the planet. Other people aren't "we", they're "they".

 

[jiohdi]

Morals, beyond empathy seem to have a lot to do with game theory. it seems that throughout the world and time, one consistent rule has always held sway universally, it is known as the Iron rule. Do good to those who do good to you and punish those who harm you. Based on this, if yours is the first move, you give the benefit of the doubt and do good prior to knowing the intention of the other and then you respond accordingly.

 

[AbouNart]

Moral is the rules on which is based human relationships.
when you buy something, you have to pay its price. you exchange your mony on a basic rule, quantity, volume,size ...etc. You buy 1 K.g of X , you pay Y , so there is a rule, a relation between X and Y. without this rule there will be a big mess
every thing in this world is ruled by , based on something.. I don't know how to explain.
So human relations are based on moral, to avoid that huge mess, even if we don't follow those rules.

 

[Pythagorean]

self preservation. The benefits of having reasonable morals are:

They increase goodwill with other people
They increase the quality of society, which is a significant fraction of your environment.
Avoid prison or social persecution by adhering to stricter morals
Increase the amount of resources you have through acquaintances, instead of spending resources (including your own time and energy) on enemies.
Golden Rule: The more people you put in discomfort, the more likely you are to receive retaliation, The more people you help, the more likely you are to be helped.