What gives us morals?

[Nuke_em_05]

Generally, you don't do anything unless you stand to gain from it. Most people weight what they stand to gain vs what they stand to lose and make the decision from there.

Generally, what you stand to lose depends on your social contracts. We create social contracts to protect us from others, and others from ourselves. In a civilization, this usually manifests itself as "the law". This can also be the implied terms of a friendship/marriage, or the rules of a club or religion.

Generally, if you break the social contract, it no longer protects you to a certain extent.

So, while the law says "You can't murder" it also protects you (in theory) from being murdered. However, if you choose to murder, you may not find yourself protected from being murdered under the law (capital punishment). However, if you deem that whatever you gain from murder is worth whatever consequences come from breaking the contract, then you may choose to murder regardless of the social contract.

It's essentially the concept behind "the golden rule".

 

[Bran1470]

Well if i recall from my psychology class it comes from your childhood

 

[quantumsoul]

Empathy, reason, and logic. Religion isn't necessary as it condones some pretty horribly evil things if you get deep into it.

This video explains better than I can.

 

[DannyJBeckett]

I think the driving subconscious force behind morals is an inherent desire to see our species as a whole survive. e.g.: I want this person to go on to help start a new generation of our species, ensuring its continued existence, henceforth I won't end his/her life.

I think it's this sort of instinct towards preservation of the species that makes people disgusted by those who show little or no regard for the lives of others.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

How do I defend my morality?
Logical thinking has brought me to the conclusion that my morality leads to a happy healthy community, which I know is good because I want to live in one, and empathy allows me to understand that others do too.

Overall, our morality comes from our evolution, and societal opinions built upon over time.

 

[health-bar]

has no one said religion?
really?

at its base form ANY religion is described as A SYSTEM OF MORAL CODES that say things like "murder is wrong, don't be a douche to other people" etc.

and they've been around since the dawn of humanity so they have to be a factor.

 

[Alanj95]

On the individual level, it is our environment growing up.
On the Species level, we have no morals.

 

[Hugo Artenis Rune]

"Morals" is just a word for the desire to not kill a member of your own species. We're not alone in that as very few animals murder their own species. In fact, few animals kill anything unless they have to, and I will include humans in that statement.

However, there are always people who are NOT like this. They're sociopaths and they generally don't give a damn about other people. These guys (because sadly it's usually males who are sociopaths, not exclusively, just mostly) couldn't give a flying fig about anyone else. Not in an evil way, more in a Dexter kind of way.. They just don't see other people as important. Much the same way as a normal person would treat a fly. We wouldn't go and try to kill a fly, but if we swatted it to death, well, we wouldn't care much about it. I mean, it's just a fly.

I've read that 5% of nearly all mammalian species are gay. In the same line, nearly 1% of all mammalian species are sociopaths.. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as evolution requires as many physical and mental traits as possible (within reason) to give any species a chance of survival. As far as humans go, we're damn good at finding work for societies sociopaths. We put them in the army. I need to check my facts here but I seem to remember reading something that mentioned in the American Civil War only about 1 in 10 soldiers would actually do any killing. The "normal" guys just didn't want to kill anyone. In World War II it was much the same, reports of soldiers emptying entire clips into the air so the wouldn't kill anyone. Once this was noticed the recruiting was changed and apparently armies are now up to 90% sociopathic. Hell, we've all seen the videos of gunship pilots laughing as enemies are cut down, or seen the news of atrocities in prison camps etc.

Normal people like myself and 99% of everyone else who reads this would not do that shit. Not for any reason - the same way that 5% of the people who read this are going to be gay.

Anyway, I have gotten away from the point. You mentioned that reprisals might be a reason why you don't turn around and murder your friend. Well, that's a very good point. If you killed your buddy then you would be seriously ostracised by everyone else, because lets face it, who wants to hang around someone who might kill them? But the main reason you don't kill your buddy is that you just don't want to. They are not a threat to you or your loved ones in any way, so there is just no point. You may as well ask what is preventing you from knocking down your bedroom wall and replacing it with ham. What would be the point?

 

[Dags90]

But we're not here to discuss my failure to understand genetics.

Your failure to understanding genetics is pretty key if genetics plays a part in morality.

 

[Get Off My Lawn]

A mixture of genetics. A mixture of cultural influences. A mixture of influences from parents, and role models.

All of these mixed together can make a widely varied net that can be called the spectrum of morals. And we're all in there somewhere.

^This.
Though I believe more heavily that it's influences from your parents. I believe you are a blank slate when you are born and are able to become/do anything, it all depends on what influences you have throughout life.
In different countries (namely places like the Middle East) children hold guns/are around guns at young ages in the particularly violent areas. Therefore they may not see murder as 'wrong' because it's justified by something, such as their religion.
Places like Papua New Guinea and such have violent, cannibalistic tribes. It's seen as the norm.
Basically, whatever the people around you accept, you will most likely accept as well.

 

[kouriichi]

The perceived notion of "right" and "wrong" based upon the social, political, and religious ideas thrust upon us by those we deem "superior" in social status.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Well, depends on who you ask. Socrates would say that justice is an innate human characteristic. According to him, we do everything in pursuit of justice, and our morals are a result of that.

Others say that morals are subject to society.

Yes, but why? What makes society give us those morals? That's the wuestion I'm asking.

Self preservation. "I don't want them killing me. I bet they don't want me killing them. Let's agree to that, just to be safe."

 

[OrokuSaki]

Morals are given to us by the government and pounded into our heads by our parents and the school system. Also people who break these rules to an extreme are made public spectacle of to put the fear of repercussion into you.

For instance, serial murderers are demonized by society and heavily broadcast with public trials so everyone can see that they've been bad and are going to be punished by life in prison.

Also they make controversy out of things that contain "Extreme" violence so everyone knows that they frown upon slaughtering your fellow man.

So really, we have morals because we're conditioned to have morals, and if we didn't, we'd be dead or in prison.

 

[Loonyyy]

I'm intrigued. I'm not sure. I think the only thing which enforces base morality is society: Groups of people work together to help each other, and thus, themselves, and in doing so develop rules which protect themselves out of self interest, these rules happen to protect everyone. Since people form police forces, or lynch mobs to enforce the rules they consider moral, people are forced to behave within some guidelines.
I guess the rest is up to personal philosophy.
TY retyopy, you've made me have a proper think today