Occasionally i hear the phrase “there is no morality outside of human society”. I believe, what is meant by it, is that you cannot say whether something is morally right or wrong in nature, if it isn’t part of human society.
For example, when a turtle eats a bird (here’s a video about it), you cannot say whether these deeds are “good” or “bad”. It’s part of nature, it’s part of the circle of life, … if these things didn’t happen, the bird couldn’t be alive in the first place.
Now, i’ve had some interesting talks yesterday with a close friend about what “morality” really means. They very certainly assured me that morality is simply the construct and the set of rules that society uses to organize itself to make itself more successful. In other words, morality aids the fitness of the group, but not necessarily of the individual. Do you agree with this view?
And if so, would that entail that the beneficial effects to the group can overwrite the wellbeing of a single individual? Where do you draw the limits? Like if some republicans claim that some women cannot decide themselves who they are/should be in a relationship with … does that derive from that view of morality? What do you respond to that? I’m seriously wondering because all these discussions make my head spin and sometimes i wonder truly whether i even know anything at all… How can you find certainty in what’s morally acceptable and what is not?
First category: people choose their morality. Every generation looks at the world and chooses a morality they think will help them succeed. Could call this “popular morality”.
Second category: systems of morality that are basically a generation that wrote down what they think worked well for them. Could call this “traditional morality”.
Then I guess the third category is “philosophical morality” but the philosopher can’t completely separate themselves from their traditional and popular views. The other categories like to pretend they are philosophical, absolute, certain, scientific, etc.
yeah i think this is the answer i like best so far, because it’s really clear and gets to the point of it.
Even if one defines “morality” as “what’s best for the group”, the question still arises “what’s best for the group?” . To answer this, people have come up with belief systems in the past, which is essentially your second category, which is just past knowledge and experience about what worked and didn’t work. So you can’t purely define morality on philosophical terms, but you have to respect the experience and history of your past. This is why we say that morality derives from our instincts and traditions, because those are basically the experiences and lessons learned of previous generations.
Even though morality is supposed to lead us into the future, it mostly does so by looking at what worked well in the past.