The idea of morality

[Kowani]

Nszis. Islamic Terrorists. Unit 731. Pretty much every ancient conqueror ever. ‘Ndrangheta. ETA.
Need I go on?

All of them thought that they were doing the right thing.

And yet all of them thought killing was right, which is what I was originally disputing.
Also, particularly with the Italian Mafias, blackmail and threatening people into doing their business was pretty common.

[Callisdrun]

All of them thought that they were doing the right thing.

And yet all of them thought killing was right, which is what I was originally disputing.
Also, particularly with the Italian Mafias, blackmail and threatening people into doing their business was pretty common.

Indeed.

[Geneviev]

Morality should be a universal constant but a lot of people ignore it and sometimes whole countries ignore it.

[Kowani]

Morality should be a universal constant but a lot of people ignore it and sometimes whole countries ignore it.

Based on who's morals?

[Aggicificicerous]

As soon as you admit any concept of human rights, you admit the concept of an universal morality. Otherwise you would be led to conclude, that if slavery has economic benefits it should be allowed, which is false.

I don't follow your reasoning. Human rights exist because humans thought about them; they are laws because humans codified them. There is no universality required.

[A m e n r i a]

Morality is real because it's the parameter used by the angels who stay by your side to determine whether you go to Heaven or the other place. God determines what's right and what's wrong through Islam.

[Aleckandor]

As soon as you admit any concept of human rights, you admit the concept of an universal morality. Otherwise you would be led to conclude, that if slavery has economic benefits it should be allowed, which is false.

I don't follow your reasoning. Human rights exist because humans thought about them; they are laws because humans codified them. There is no universality required.

Human "rights" exist insofar as humans thought about them, that much is true. As concepts, they also exist in the language of the law — and of course, that's also true.

But if you're saying that the idea is operating outside the purview of a universal morality, then the idea becomes devoid of any ultimately absolute and undeniably universal source of authority beyond a bunch of folks getting together and saying it's right 'just because we feel/think so'. Those aforementioned "rights" would then only be valuable enough to be proliferated and enforced as long as those who have power in a society hold (or at least profess to hold) them to be sacrosanct.

In short, these rights would just be fictional. But hey, fictions are not necessarily good or bad because they're fictional; as for rights, since there are people willing to uphold them and fight for them when they are threatened, the intensity at which these people do is the extent to which human rights can be said to "exist" under this view.

So if one says that human "rights" need not be something that is true in the universe (as opposed to being only true in human minds) for it to exist, what's actually happening is that they're really saying is that they'll think and act like these "rights" are real simply because they have the desire and capacity to think and act as such.

[Aggicificicerous]

Human "rights" exist insofar as humans thought about them, that much is true. As concepts, they also exist in the language of the law — and of course, that's also true.

But if you're saying that the idea is operating outside the purview of a universal morality, then the idea becomes devoid of any ultimately absolute and undeniably universal source of authority beyond a bunch of folks getting together and saying it's right 'just because we feel/think so'. Those aforementioned "rights" would then only be valuable enough to be proliferated and enforced as long as those who have power in a society hold (or at least profess to hold) them to be sacrosanct.

In short, these rights would just be fictional. But hey, fictions are not necessarily good or bad because they're fictional; as for rights, since there are people willing to uphold them and fight for them when they are threatened, the intensity at which these people do is the extent to which human rights can be said to "exist" under this view.

Sounds about right. I wouldn't call the rights fictional though. They might be arbitrary or constructed, but they are real, and continue to be real so long as (or if) we choose to enforce them.

So if one says that human "rights" need not be something that is true in the universe (as opposed to being only true in human minds) for it to exist, what's actually happening is that they're really saying is that they'll think and act like these "rights" are real simply because they have the desire and capacity to think and act as such.

Indeed. The question one has to ask oneself is: is this true because I think it is true, or is it true because I want it to be true? The people who say that morality requires some universal morality out there (usually code for a certain god) strike me as the sort who lean toward the latter.

[Callisdrun]

Morality is real because it's the parameter used by the angels who stay by your side to determine whether you go to Heaven or the other place. God determines what's right and what's wrong through Islam.

Funny, I've never met these angels.

[The New California Republic]

Morality is real because it's the parameter used by the angels who stay by your side to determine whether you go to Heaven or the other place. God determines what's right and what's wrong through Islam.

Funny, I've never met these angels.

I have met some people in my time who I would describe as angels, but I wouldn't think my particular definition falls within the remit of what is implied here.

[Kilobugya]

Well, first I don't think questions about "really exists" are very meaningful. At the end the only things which "really exist" are quantum fields of fermions and bosons, and even those we aren't sure... all the rest, when you say "human" or "animal" or "plane" or "sky" or "temperature" or "star" or ... we speak of high-level aggregate, always with somewhat artificial boundaries. Morality "exists" because it is a useful concept, and because it maps a part of reality.

As for where a specific moral framework comes from, it's a mix of many different influences and constraints. Some part of it comes from "universal" mathematical structures, like Game Theory and the efficiency of variations of "tit for tat with initial cooperation" to iterated prisoner's dilemma, some part of it comes from evolution and genetics, some part of it are cultural. What we should strive for is a moral framework that starts with a few "core objectives" (like empowering individuals to live, be happy and fulfill their own preferences) that are simple and universal enough to get broad support across all cultures, and from that and our understanding of how the world works (mathematical structures, biology, human psychology, sociology, ...) devise rules and guidelines that we can follow to maximize the fulfillment of those "core objectives".

[Moskovalkia]

Morality? The idea of morality? Well, where do I start, I guess we can for the definition of 'the idea of morality'. (To make my answer clear I'll split it up)

An initial naïve attempt at a definition of “morality” might take it to refer to the most important 'code of conduct' put forward by a society and accepted by the members of that society.

But the existence of large and heterogeneous societies raises conceptual problems for such a definition, since there may not be any such society-wide code that is regarded as most important.

As a result, a definition might be offered in which “morality” refers to the most important code of conduct put forward and accepted by any group, or even by an individual. Apart from containing some prohibitions on harming others, different moralities—when “morality” is understood in this way—can vary in content quite substantially.

In the middle of the 20th century the dominant sense of “morality” seems to have been the descriptive sense. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact that both philosophers C.H. Whiteley and Neil Cooper took themselves to be revealing the important ambiguity in the meaning of “morality” when they distinguished the 'sociological sense from the psychological' (Whiteley 1959) and the 'social sense from the individual' (Cooper 1966). But according to the taxonomy at the heart of this answer, all of these are versions of the descriptive sense, distinguished primarily by the size of the relevant group.

Quite simply the idea of morality can be defined as principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior, depending on the cultural and societal conditioning of the collective or individual.

[Sancta Romana Ecclesia]

As soon as you admit any concept of human rights, you admit the concept of an universal morality. Otherwise you would be led to conclude, that if slavery has economic benefits it should be allowed, which is false.

I don't follow your reasoning. Human rights exist because humans thought about them; they are laws because humans codified them. There is no universality required.

What you describe are not human rights as defined by the UN, for the rights you talk about are not inalienable. There is universality required for them to truly be inalienable.

[Page]

I don't follow your reasoning. Human rights exist because humans thought about them; they are laws because humans codified them. There is no universality required.

What you describe are not human rights as defined by the UN, for the rights you talk about are not inalienable. There is universality required for them to truly be inalienable.

No rights are inalienable, not in practice. Universal rights are an ideal, and that ideal is codified into national and international law, but governments are not always held accountable for violating them.

[Aggicificicerous]

I don't follow your reasoning. Human rights exist because humans thought about them; they are laws because humans codified them. There is no universality required.

What you describe are not human rights as defined by the UN, for the rights you talk about are not inalienable. There is universality required for them to truly be inalienable.

To add to what Page just said, the UN is a little under 75 years old. Are you saying those inalienable, universal rights only came into existence with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?

[The New California Republic]

What you describe are not human rights as defined by the UN, for the rights you talk about are not inalienable. There is universality required for them to truly be inalienable.

To add to what Page just said, the UN is a little under 75 years old. Are you saying those inalienable, universal rights only came into existence with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?

League of Nations.

[Aggicificicerous]

To add to what Page just said, the UN is a little under 75 years old. Are you saying those inalienable, universal rights only came into existence with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?

League of Nations.

Even more tenuous, especially considering the League of Nations had nothing akin to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[New Excalibus]

In my opinion, morality is a social construct that represents one's mindset, leaving it kind of real and kind of not.

[Ethel mermania]

The idea of morality is a good one.

[Geneviev]

Morality should be a universal constant but a lot of people ignore it and sometimes whole countries ignore it.

Based on who's morals?

God's.

[Page]

To add to what Page just said, the UN is a little under 75 years old. Are you saying those inalienable, universal rights only came into existence with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?

League of Nations.

Yes, there was the League of Nations before the UN and Geneva Convention before that, but governments don't create rights. Freedom is the natural state of things. Freedom is not ever granted, it is won by those who struggle against those who repress. If a state previously jailed people for criticizing the government but now no longer does, that state did not "give" free speech, it became less repressive. I think that's an important distinction.

The debate continues on whether there is a such a thing as "natural rights" or not, but either way, there is one thing that has to be acknowledged: Rights and liberties are won in struggle, often won in blood. The state does not grant them, rather they are forced to relinquish some control for the sake of self-preservation.

[Ethel mermania]

Based on who's morals?

God's.

So we should stone the gays, the adulterous, and those who blaspheme? Good to know.

[Hammer Britannia]

Based on who's morals?

God's.

Which one?

Odin? Zeus? Allah? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Yahweh? Shrek? Buddha? Tengri? Confucius? Enki? Me? Yours? Mickey Mouse? Vishnu? Jupiter? Brighid? Satan? All of them? None of them? The bowl of Frito Pie I ate last night? A cow? Some mysterious Deistic god? Ahura Mazda? Quetzalcoatl?

[Geneviev]

God's.

Which one?

Odin's? Zeuses? Allah's? Flying Spaghetti Monster's? Yahweh's? Shrek's? Buddha's? Tengri's? Confucius? Enki? Mine? Yours? Mickey Mouse? Vishnu? Jupiter's? Brighid's? Satan's? All of them? None of them?

The real one.

God's.

So we should stone the gays, the adulterous, and those who blaspheme? Good to know.

Technically yes but it's better to not do those things.

[Hammer Britannia]

God's.

So we should stone the gays, the adulterous, and those who blaspheme? Good to know.

And call God perfect despite the fact he is a "Jealous God"

Which totally isn't envy by the way.