Are we fooling ourselves with morals?

[Garnier Fructis]

I'm not a quantum physicist I assure you, but truth is much simpler than what you are making it out to be. Truth is simply what happens, whether it makes sense or not, whether we understand it or not. Similarly, not all answers necessarily agree with that which we have established as scientific fact in this universe. The shortcomings of our knowledge and understanding is not evidence that something can also be something that it isn't under the same circumstances.

This is the black and white you were looking for. Either the predictions of QM are correct or they aren't. And so far as we can tell, they are. Which means you can't assign an up or down to an electron, because doing so goes against every experiment ever performed on Bell's inequalities.

Nothing about truth says it has to be simple or that you have to like it. Nowhere in the laws of the universe is it written that you have to be comfortable with it. No offense, but your answer here is basically a cop out.

[Stonecloak]

This is the black and white you were looking for. Either the predictions of QM are correct or they aren't. And so far as we can tell, they are. Which means you can't assign an up or down to an electron, because doing so goes against every experiment ever performed on Bell's inequalities.

Nothing about truth says it has to be simple or that you have to like it. Nowhere in the laws of the universe is it written that you have to be comfortable with it. No offense, but your answer here is basically a cop out.

Isn't that the complicated math version of yes, and no. Like binary. Dualism essentially.

[Zython]

I can see the benefits of being a moral human being, but it strikes me odd that people are barely if at all able to follow them. The very foundation of Capitalism doesn't give a rats behind about them. Is it just a coping mechanism to ease the brain of what we really are? As a delve further into things like this. I find society, at least in America seems to be extremely confused. Ignorant may be the word of what's really going on.

Seems more like capitalism is the issue here, rather than morality.

[Hooked]

The police keep the good people from removing the bad people. We aren't legally allowed to practice and enforce morals at this time.

[Graeham]

Morals and empathy is what separates us from animals.

My cat shows more empathy than a lot of people I've met...

[Dezerte]

I think morality arose from our basic need of categorizing people, i.e. 'us vs. them'. 'Us' are the good & moral people, 'them' are the bad & immoral people. Our brains wants to make these quick (and often knee-jerk) decisions, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective - we need to identify threats quickly and deal with them quickly, there's no time for pondering and asking yourself what is really the case. So from the sounds of this, morality is subjective - and it really is, everyone has their own set of ideas on what moral & immoral actions are.

But I'd like to define moral acts as something that is inherently good & positive (and vice versa). This concept operates on the basic principle of 'do no harm', which everyone can agree with; nobody wants harm to come to them. So I find this to be a case where we can argue that an objective morality should and can exist.

[Lord Pebbleton]

We are, in many ways.
But the average person is too stupid to realise this, so I let them in their utter ignorance.

[ItachiZaku]

Why would marriage rates and morals be intertwined? It would be immoral to stay in a marriage that isn't working. So, we are growing more moral in our ways, while some other places (25% person) lives in a place that is morally deficient and needs to start divorcing the shit out of each other ASAP, or they are doomed.

[Kurioxan]

I live by my own set of morals. I think society as a whole is becoming a far more immoral bunch by my standards. To many people are tossing morality aside for their personal interests. We've become a very greed based society.

Which already is leading to decadence one might argue.

Its funny people attribute morality to religion, it has nothing to do with it, if anything older morality required for a society to function has been added/absorbed by those religions.
A set of codes of conduct which we call morality have the function of greasing the wheels of a society, with morality such as not stealing or killing or torturing, people can spend their time being productive, instead of worrying about who is going to kill/steal from them next, as an example.

I honestly dont think that things such as gay marriage would break down society, (it would be hilarious it if did) so such old morals can be discarded as remains from the overzealousness in moralizing society from the last cycle of decadence/downfall, but other morality and rules might as well be quite important, which? its hard to tell.

To say morality is just religious based and something stupid, is shortsighted and ignorant.

A lot of our current morality would look alien in the eyes of older civilizations, where we tend to afford extra protection and care for minorities as an example, in the ages of old they would just laugh at the very notion.
A lot of morality is fairly recent, we can invoke logic here and there when it suits our views, but there is notihng logical about humans, and a purely logic based society would likely break down really fast. Silly utilitarians.


Edit: why are people talking about marriage? was the original topic marriage and morality and then OP edited it out or am i blind?

[haxartus]

Marriage as an idea is not a good thing, people are starting to realize it.
People very often don't love each other for life, in fact love often fades after a few years. Marriage forces you to stay with the same person even after you don't love them to ensure the security of the children. However, the children that see that their parents as unhappy are not happy either, so it is a closed circle that is bad for everyone.

[Kurioxan]

Marriage as an idea is not a good thing, people are starting to realize it.
People very often don't love each other for life, in fact love often fades after a few years. Marriage forces you to stay with the same person even after you don't love them to ensure the security of the children. However, the children that see that their parents as unhappy are not happy either, so it is a closed circle that is bad for everyone.

Marriage was for the most part politicial, social and economical, it was a bond between two families in order for them to come together and achieve different goals, peace, monetary stability, social status...
It was not really about love.

About children, if anything marriage is more important now for children than it was during the start of civilization, families were big, friends were close, community was there so children would have many "fathers" and many "mothers" and plenty of "siblings", children were taken care by the community, the burden was never on the parents nor their emotional stability dependant on only 1-2 people, now it is.

[Scathbais]

I can see the benefits of being a moral human being, but it strikes me odd that people are barely if at all able to follow them. The very foundation of Capitalism doesn't give a rats behind about them. Is it just a coping mechanism to ease the brain of what we really are? As a delve further into things like this. I find society, at least in America seems to be extremely confused. Ignorant may be the word of what's really going on.

OP, the issue is lack of belief in God. Without the belief that moral behavior comes from a creator (10 Commandments, the Gospel, etc, etc), there is no foundation for morality.

So yes, if there is no God, morality is just a goal set by whomever is in charge, which can be quite confusing I imagine.

[Xcal]

I can see the benefits of being a moral human being, but it strikes me odd that people are barely if at all able to follow them. The very foundation of Capitalism doesn't give a rats behind about them. Is it just a coping mechanism to ease the brain of what we really are? As a delve further into things like this. I find society, at least in America seems to be extremely confused. Ignorant may be the word of what's really going on.

Most people are moral, don't let hollywood and the news tell you different

[Kurioxan]

OP, the issue is lack of belief in God. Without the belief that moral behavior comes from a creator (10 Commandments, the Gospel, etc, etc), there is no foundation for morality.

So yes, if there is no God, morality is just a goal set by whomever is in charge, which can be quite confusing I imagine.

Morality does not come from "god" lol.
The majority of rules are shared by every single civilization, ones older than Abrahamic religions, or with puritans from the 18th century.
What varies is when those rules apply and when they dont, and how they are implemented.
but the core is there for most of said "rules" (not the 10 commandments lol, 10 rules that can be compacted into 3 doesnt make morality)

[Ehrenpanzer]

I can see the benefits of being a moral human being, but it strikes me odd that people are barely if at all able to follow them. The very foundation of Capitalism doesn't give a rats behind about them. Is it just a coping mechanism to ease the brain of what we really are? As a delve further into things like this. I find society, at least in America seems to be extremely confused. Ignorant may be the word of what's really going on.

as opposed to the wonderful benefits of communism I'm sure.....

"Humans are stubborn, self-destructive conformists... and anything beyond that is deluded self-congratulation"
-Ian Malcolm

[notorious98]

So, the only morals that aren't universal are the ones you personally believe not to be? That's awfully convenient.

No. The only morals that are universal are the ones that are universally agreed upon by all societies.

If you're going to have an intelligent conversation, try to pretend like you belong in it.

[Super Kami Dende]

OP, the issue is lack of belief in God. Without the belief that moral behavior comes from a creator (10 Commandments, the Gospel, etc, etc), there is no foundation for morality.

So yes, if there is no God, morality is just a goal set by whomever is in charge, which can be quite confusing I imagine.

It worries me that people in this world actually believe this.

[Kurioxan]

as opposed to the wonderful benefits of communism I'm sure.....

To be fair, humanity is not culturally ready for communism yet, it requires a certain level of social/economic/cultural stability/level that we simply dont have.
As such all attempts to implement it end up being the same shit, far right-winged in all but name.

[Independent voter]

Right and wrong have been proven to be subjective? What does that even mean? If right and wrong exist, then they are not subjective. According to logic, something that exists is either black or white, correct or incorrect. If morals exist, then they must be objective. But if they don't exist, then they can't be proven as anything in any way.

Well, you can say that humans come with a basic set of morals. Here's a thought experiment:

It's far in the future and AIs, artificial intelligences, have taken over. They want to conduct an experiment to discover the basic set of morals found in all men.

The AIs take 100 infants to a desert island and raise them but not teaching them anything about morals. They simply feed them, make sure they are warm, etc.

I think the basic set of morals that comes from this experiment would be kindness towards other members of the tribe. Because that is what would form, a human tribe, these are found all over the world. If a member got sick others would show concern. There would be a lot of sharing. Yes there would be the bad things like envy and jealousy too, but you'd see a basic set of morals emerge.

There would be a basic religion of some short whether its worshiping a hilltop or even a set of rocks. They would bury their dead and might even have ceremonies for births and marriages.

The tribe would defend its territory from strangers. They would learn about war. But you could do anything to those strangers without repercussions.

I'm basing this on how primitive men act around the world. Some basic morals are shared.

[Deleted]

Morals are just a luxury product, it's nice to have when you can afford it, but the first thing that goes if push comes to shove.