And?

How does that equate to assessing superiority? I can acknowledge the fact that another has a different morality code, without calling it less or worse or wrong.

Can't I?



Better yet... haven't I?

Seriously? No, I'm nope. This post was a joke. You cannot possibly be serious that you can JUDGE without saying one thing is better than another. I'm assuming you are simply pulling my leg and I'll see you another day my friend.

I do not find any reason to believe in a biological sense of 'right'.

Instincts are often animalistic and should be subdued through our sense of morality.

Of course you can and so can anyone else. It is probably a better approach in most situations anyway.

I agree instintual right may not always be the best. Instincts can lead us to act on anger or jealousy for example and that will not come out well in the end.

Judgment does necessarily equate to an assessment of superiority spider. Jugdment does not require condemnation. I have, in fact, judged for myself that people have different beliefs regarding morality without necessarily assessing which is more right or wrong. This is not about whose morals are right. This is about the idea that there exists different foundations upon which morality stands.

Yes, I can judge certain things without assessing value. I just did, and have throughout this thread.

keep in mind were talking about human kind here. not wolves or lions...
its human nature for a male to protect his wife and children, its human nature for woman to love and care for her babies(not to say they both cant do either or)
its human nature for the strongest to lead (intelectualy or other wise)
rape, murder, stealing, all that can be tied to that biological wiring)
i dont think people put enough stock in us as humans.


thank you creative soul for your succinct perspective, im glad someone can get their point across without a 5 page lecture ( =

good point, i agree, ill scratch the instinct

The greeks have a word for allowing your emotions to overwelm you. its called possession. It always ends badly.

I am a Creative fan too

That is not necessarily true.



Not necessarily true.



Perhaps by brute force and or fear, again...

That is not necessarily true.



Not necessarily true either. Specific experience can play a huge role outside of physiological elements.

Thank you...

Right vs. Wrong is a question of a philosophical term called ethics. Another way to say ethics is "moral philosophy."

Every human culture has agreed upon some form of ethics. The study of ethics does not always include anything about a god or a religion.

Ethics is an indication of a cognitive human mind being able to question the attributes of right and wrong.

Typical philosophical questions might be:

What is right?
What is wrong?

Volumes have been and still can be written on just those two questions.


I had one epiphony while in my undergraduate philosophy class. It dawned on me that ethics is the entire reason mankind cannot make continuous leaps and bounds toward technology. Let me give one brutal example... if medicine were to really make leaps and bounds forward, experimental surgeries would be permitted on live subjects. There are still some experiemental measures that are only allowed on a corpse because of the culture's ethical standards or beliefs. And then, folks have to sign the back of their driver's license in order to donate their body to siecntific cadaver research. If there were no ethics, every kind of experiment that came to mind would be allowable, and technology would then forge passed its creeping state, into a higher level of technological advancement. BUT, ethics holds back technology in that certain experiments are not allowed by those who set the station of ethics in the social organism.

At times, it could be said that ethics actually cripples the human mind and details for human advancement.

Entire wars have been waged on the disagreement of particular ethical systems. We seem to be limiting our thought to western philosophy (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) but many wars have been waged in the Far East and ethical systems for these wars did not necessarily develop because of some god or gods. Not every warrior was a Christian, Jew or Muslim. There is much more to the planet than these few philosophical points.

Ethics seemingly congeals the human society into a set of acceptible norms, but it could also be argued that ethics is the very underlying reason the same society is boxed in at all ends and cannot grow beyond the ethical norms.

how so?

Hmmm... if you are saying it is human nature for a male to protect his wife and children, then it might be assumed a man who abandons his wife and children does so because he has been nurtued in that fashion?

Nature vs. nurture.

Then let us assume women who leave their babies in dumpsters do so because they were nurtured to do so?

I don't agree that it is nature that causes the strong to lead. At the time of the American Revolution there were two philosophical schools of thought. One was that only certain people were born to lead... i.e. the Monarchy... and the other school of thought taken on by the fore-fathers was that all men are created equal.

No one is born strong or weak. We are all equally born infants who crave their mother's milk.

Nature has nothing to do with ethics. Ethics are learned and thus are a trait of nurture, not an in-born natural thing. No one is by nature right and the same, no one by nature is wrong. Right and wrong are cognitive functions of the human brain that require psychological development to achieve.

The atmosphere of a new baby, the culture it is born into, these things mold the ethical structure of that particular human mind.

It is by cognition, thought, and the ability to reason that some figure out how to take or get the advantage on others and pose as "leaders." It is not an in-born, natural state. It is a learned behavior, stemming from the individual's level of nuturing.

That is not necessarily true. Do all men do this?



Not necessarily true. Do all women do this?



Is this always true, given our past presidents?



Specific experience can play a huge role outside of physiological elements. Crimes of passion. Starvation.



The problem with attempting to assess absolute morals is this...

No matter how soundly one can prove that a thing is true or correct, one cannot ever soundly prove why it ought to be so.

Excellent additions telephoneman!

if all men or woman did the right thing, than we would have no use for right and wrong anyways. just like a cow, certain sisuations can disrupt that natural balance.

Most everyone does do the right thing - in their own eyes.

That is why it is completely relative to the individual sense of ought, which as telephoneman has added, is mostly formed by the collective sense of ought.

It is when an individual's personal sense of ought becomes the collective that history has shown corrupts the morality of a society.

Celebrate diversity and you will have succeeded in redemption from absolutionism!