questions of morality 1: is there such a thing?

So the next big question is: what is morality? Are there any rules that really do apply to everyone? And who gets to decide about what is and isn’t moral? Do we need divinely revealed scriptures to tell us what is moral behavior?

Different societies and cultures have many similarities in their moral codes as well as differences. And we know the different religions include ethical systems - whether those can be attributed to God is, of course open for debate. Even if you believe in God, and even if you believe in God telling us what to do, that doesn't necessarily mean that all the ethical codes of religions are therefore direct revelations from God.

In fact, though there are many ethical beliefs in common between the different religions, there are also differences here as well. Of course even that could be attributed to God - I'm sure he'd be culturally relevant with ethical codes so they match up with the particular predilections and needs of different ages, regions, and societies.

But I'm equally sure that even if all the ethical rules were all sent down from God, everyone has totally screwed with any moral revelations so there is now probably no recognizable relation to the original. And all of the religions have gotten way too enthusiastic about enforcing their own particular moral codes on everyone else - even if it kills us.

But what about the natural morality thing? Is there a purely natural process which can generate an innate moral compass? And if there is, would it be the same for everyone?

First let's distinguish between ethics and morals. I see ethics as externally enforced rules but morals as internal governing instincts. Ethics are articulated in our religious, as well as our social, collective laws. Morality, on the other hand, is a personal inner, often unexpressed, sense of right and wrong.

Morality is much more like our sense of balance - not something we think about but something we sense and respond to on an unconscious level. It's balance applied to the abstract, experience of our life. We know when we feel our lives in balance and when we feel ourselves going off balance. We may or may not feel like the social ethics of the groups with which we work, live, and interact correspond to the inner moral sense that we experience and rely on to guide our personal life.

But both our personal morality and the larger social ethics are formed in the convoluted labyrinths of our individual and collective psyches. Both exhibit an extraordinary degree of variability. Our own morality and the ethics of our cultures change with time and circumstances.

Some of us absorb the cultural ethical norms around us and internalize them as the structure of our inner morality. Others break with cultural conceptions of ethical behavior and take up the ethical norms of a different culture or construct one of their own.

But is there any purely natural basis for morality? Is there a universal human sense of morality that we all share? Or are our concepts of morality just cultural constructs?

Actually there are a number of natural processes that have developed in animal populations which together display a common relationship to elements of the human capacity we often refer to as morality.


For clues to this particular pool of questions and conundrums see the next post.