Where do you derive your morality/ethics from ?

[leonus]

can not put it in any simpler way ... What is the source of your moral guidelines that you follow in your life (if you are not an anarchist that is) ...

Waiting to hear from you friends ...

[boredstudent89]

Society, just like everyone else.

[leonus]

Hey Bored ... thanks for dropping by, so you are saying that you derive your morals from society, which is a brilliant answer, but my question to you is considering your society tells you that this is wrong and this is right, would the same thing apply if you were living in another society ? and if your answer is no, it wouldnt, then we are not talking about the ultimate (good) or (bad), but about (habitual) actions, which strips our understanding of morals from its (meaning) ... which brings us to another question :

What is (good) and what is (evil) ... ? how would you answer that

[boredstudent89]

Good and bad are just social constructs though so yeah, if I lived in a different society I could have a completely different understanding of what is right and wrong.

[leonus]

You see here is the thing ... when you say that good and bad are only social constructs, then, what you are saying, is that there is (no ultimate good) or (no ultimate evil) ... you are an anarchist in this sense ... hope to hear from people who do think that there is a pure good or evil ...

[boredstudent89]

Yes but I subscribe to these social constructs, of course I think things like murder and rape are evil, however I think these things because I live in Western society, not because I am human, its social conditioning. Would I think they are evil if I've lived in a pre-modernity tribal society all my life? Who knows.

[leonus]

Well, let me tell you buddy ... its all about evolution, societies who thought that murdering babies, or lying to each others, or killing other people, were OK actions, didnt leave posterity in the long run, so what you see now is natural selection for ethics ... when you help your neighbor you increase the chances of YOUR survival as well, because its quid pro quo ... which leads us to the disturbing idea that there are NO GOOD and NO EVIL, only actions that helps the DNA to be transferred ...

[boredstudent89]

Originally Posted by leonus

Well, let me tell you buddy ... its all about evolution, societies who thought that murdering babies, or lying to each others, or killing other people, were OK actions, didnt leave posterity in the long run, so what you see now is natural selection for ethics ...

Unless your society is better at killing than other societies, case in point - Iraq. We don't always see killing other people as wrong so long as the leader of our society tells us its ok, or justified.

[leonus]

tarni, then by that you are assuming that good and evil are (a priori) knowledge, which cant be so, since as we mentioned things (like prostitution, say, or polygamy, or human sacrifices) these things are totally acceptable (and ethical) in certain cultures and societies ...

[boredstudent89]

I take it you're a philosophy student or something? Man I hated doing about morality and epistemology.