Because you can become the other other rich and powerful...

A fully functional human being...

life is not measured by the steps you take in the light of knowledge but rather by the ones you take when faith alone is your guide.

Step into the darkness in faith and one finds the stairs are well lit.

I'm guessing nobody has a better answer? Seriously, if there is no standard by which we judge our morals, why do they progress? Why are women given rights? Why were the slaves freed? Why do we treat animals kindly? Those are all improvements, right? So HOW are they improvements? There must be a goal of perfect morality to which those changes bring us closer.

Because our 'morals' evolve.

we grow up bit by bit century by century as a species...

The suggested behavior cannot result in increasing the overall wellbeing of humanity.

If you expect me to converse with you, I suggest you pay attention to what has already been written.

Trust and truth are irrevocably essential to the human condition.

Who claimed there was no standard?



Because those are the right things to do, Spider. Those things are good for the overall sustainable wellbeing of humanity, therefore we ought to do them. Improving the wellbeing of humanity is not contingent upon a 'perfect' morality.

What I mean is that ... story tellers made up our morals.
There is no universality outside of as someone stated...
evolution of our societies as we expand our population to its peak.

Morals grow and change with society

So? Why should I care? If I benefit and there is no punishment for my bad behaviors, WHY shouldn't I do what I want when I want?



Don't pull that crap. You ignore any statement about the Bible that contradicts your bigoted view. Why should I believe or accept or even read anything you post?



WHY? Because you say so? If they are essential, how is it that we lie? Don't you mean "beneficial"? Air is essential, we can't go without it. There are many people who go through life with a distinct lack of truth and trust and some of them do quite well.

If by "morals" you mean lessons about right/wrong behavior that are derived from a story, then I would agree that they made up the stories in order to teach a lesson. It does not follow from that that the lesson itself is necessarily man-made, although it may.

I mean, we make up words to communicate ideas about things in and of the world and ourselves, however, it does not follow that we made up what we talk about.



It seems that there is no distinction being made here between a statement and what the statement corresponds to. The difference is pivotal. Universally speaking the above does not make much sense to me. I mean, it is a universal truth that humans must have sustenance or we will die. It is a universal truth that we all must be born in order to live. Likewise, one's current life on earth will end one day. The list goes on and on.

None of those things, or any other universal truth for that matter, are contingent upon their being said. They are true regardless, because true statements simply reflect the state of affairs. The state of affairs is not necessarily affected by langauge, although it may be - if that state of affairs is a linguistic construct. Morality is no such thing.



Agreed.

What is the standard by which all morality is judged?



Why do the right thing? Because it's the right thing to do! Tautological tripe.

WHY should anyone care about the well being of humanity? If we are just dust and a larger piece of dust in an infinitely large and mostly empty universe, why should we care? If we will never be judged by our actions and we can personally benefit from "wrong" actions, why not do it?

Let's imagine a man who is physically beautiful and strong and incredibly intelligent, shall we? There are a number of men who would fit this description. Now for the benefit of the species, why shouldn't we impregnate every woman on the planet with these "perfect" specimen's semen? Their children would be more likely to be above average than your or my children, we are just passing down defective and undesirable genes. Or better yet, why shouldn't we sterilize every human with genetic defects of any kind, to prevent them from dirtying the gene pool? That would improve the species, wouldn't it? But we all *know* that these actions are wrong. They improve the species as a whole, but they are wrong. Why?

I think you're asking me what constitutes sufficient reason to act morally. Or perhaps it is better put, why you should be moved to act morally?

Is that about right?



Offering up your personal judgment about some past conversation or another has nothing to do with this one. This thread has a focus, and it is not what you think about ou past discussions.



Why are you here then?



That claim is true regardless of with my saying so. Thought/belief formation and language acquisition necessitate their existence - we know that a priori. In addition, it has been empirically verified many times over.



Does this somehow pose a problem to you?



No, I mean irrevocably essential to thought, belief, knowledge, and common/formal language.



Not without thought, beleif, knowledge and common language. Those necessarily presuppose trust and truth. I think you're confusing things here. It does not follow from the fact that people are both deliberately dishonest and/or untrustworthy that those people lack trust and truth.

First off, that was not the question you asked. Secondly, this new question makes no sense on my view. It is to ask, what is the morality by which all morality is judged.



Apparently there are some comprehension problems.



Because when one acts in and of respect of others, one is acting morally. Perhaps it is also good to ask - why not? The different reasons why people care, do not matter as much as the fact that people do. It does not follow from the fact that different people care about different things that there is no thing that everyone cares about.



The obvious answer is because not everyone needs to be threatened with judgment/punishment in order to do the right thing.

Personal benefit is not the sole measure of right/wrong. If personal gain were the sole measure, society would collapse. It is unsustainable and in direct conflict with the overall wellbeing of humanity. Moral claims are supposed to apply to everyone. That is one condition which identifies their use throughout human history. There is no 'your' right and 'my' right. If an action is right, it is right by all and for all.

morals are gone, there was a time when a hand shake was as good as any paperwork. now everyone is worried bout whats in it for them. the world sickens me. but there are alot of great people out there whose hearts are in the right place. its just hard to trust people now and i really am a trusting person but things have changed

I value my autonomy. I see myself in other humans. I want them to have what I have, and what I want for myself - which includes autonomy. Therefore I think its wrong to coerce others in most circumstances, including coercive sterilization.

I approve of non-coercive steps being taken which have in the incidental effect of improving the gene pool...for example, those that know they carry a significant defect may voluntarily opt for in vitro fertilization that allows them to ensure their child doesn't have the 'undesirable' gene(s).

I'm sorry, I thought we were having a discussion of morality and the origins of morality. I didn't realize you guys were playing make believe. You still cannot answer what the standard by which we judge morality is. You can't explain why we are more moral now than 500 years ago. You can't answer any question posed, you just repeat tripe you have already said. "We act morally, because then we are moral! You are having comprehension problems spider!"

WHY? WHY? WHY?

You guys keep saying how you feel and how people should be treated. I'M ASKING "WHY"?

Why do you see yourself in other humans? Why do you care if they are treated fairly or not, so long as you are. If it's for the good of humanity, why not forcibly sterilize genetically and mentally defective humans? Why should the mentally deficient be treated as your equals when they obviously aren't?

I (and billions of other people and philosophers throughout history) suggest that there is an underlying morality of which we are all aware. The "Natural Law" that applies to men and tells us when we are being immoral or unfair. We find this law hard to ignore, so we create justifications and exceptions to the law in our own mind and thus callous our own natural moral instincts.

Here's the problem with the belief that morality comes from the society. If that were true, then society and morality would never change. Why should society change, if you are morally comfortable? Why should your morality change when your society hasn't? The belief that society drives morality makes no sense and doesn't allow for a dynamic society that grows to offer more freedom and equality.

Now lets imagine that morality drives society. If there were a perfect human morality, of which we were all aware, our societies would change and advance towards that morality. The societies would start out far from that morality out of necessity. Slaves would be owned and used by many, for a variety of reasons. Excuses would be used to explain why we deserved to own the slaves: He was captured in war, he couldn't pay his debts, etc. When we could no longer as a species justify slavery, our societies would reject slavery.

in your first quote you play again with semantics ... words and meanings and our ability to communicate...
Your logic through your retort is flawed and working on false similarity of ideas.

in your second quote you take the statement out of context to answer it... that is called a strawman argument.
not worth any consideration at all.
the context is talking about morals ... the no universality refers to morals ... not everything as you answered ... but only morals.
It should have been obvious to just about anyone.

the third quote covers the gist of it all .... no universal morals exist. ... they are not static and change with time.

I've stated a few likely influences earlier in the thread.

Evolution doesn't produce 'exactly that which is a survival advantage', it produces influences/tendencies which can be survival advantages in some circumstances and disadvantages in others. Evolution causes us to have a tendency to really enjoy sweet and fatty foods, as well as sex. Those same tendencies can work against us, leading to obesity and STDs. Similarly, the tendency towards empathy can find an expression which is no longer favors the propagation of the genes which cause that tendency. I find that to be a beautiful thing.



As an aside, I don't believe that the mentally deficient should be treated as my equal in all respects.



I assert that there are several contributors to morality, some are common to 99+% of human beings, some are specific to a particular culture. I believe you are speaking of the contributors which are true for almost all humans.

I don't assert that this is nothing more than genetics, but I have yet to see a compelling argument that it must be more than genetics.



For clarity, I don't assert that morality only comes from society.



Society will change for many reasons, unrelated to my moral comfort. Competing civilizations, wars, different sub-cultures vying for different kinds of dominance in the society, technological advancement, environmental changes. Any of these things could cause a change in a society's morals.


I don't see any successful argument here against the idea that society influences the morality of the individual.



I don't see the connection between exploring whether morality drives society and the effects of having a perfect human morality.

Suppose there were no such thing as a perfect human morality.

Then morality, of whatever kind, could influence society un-effected by the chain of reasoning that follows from the premise that there is a perfect human morality.

Personally, I don't accept the notion that there is a perfect human morality.


But if there were...



I don't accept that all of this follows. For argument sake, if I embrace the hypothesis that there is a perfect human morality, it still seems to me that human society could easily wax and wane in their approximation of that perfection.

Oh, and as far as "Why? Why? Why?", its true that we could successfully drive into this issue a bit more deeply, but after a few more layers I'll arrive at "I don't know" and "It could be..." or "It might be..."

I'm comfortable with this.

I get the impression that going beyond the superficial on this topic is out of the question for most of them members. That's fine for some, but to me it feels like ignoring the elephant in the room.

totally false assumption .... when society itself is not static and constantly changes ... then the morality of society would also constantly change.

show me a society that does not change ... especially a large society. ... in a small one ... no change is almost possible or your perception is unable to detect the small changes. which is most likely the truth of the matter.