Is morality given too much attention?

[zarus tathra]

I feel that it's pointless to expand morality beyond "Don't kill people, don't take their food away." Anything above and beyond that seems like nothing more than an anal retentive attempt to control people's behavior/justify one's own violations of the basic morality outlined above. Thoughts?

[MrsSassyPants]

I believe people DONT have morals these days.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Yeah, that leaves open a metric fuckton of horrid possibilities. Under this two statement ethical code I can rape children, own slaves, torture people, scam, cheat, etc. It's an easy enough code to follow, and I can be an absolute monster under it.

[Shiranu]

Keep filling the mold.

[Insult to Rocks]

Morality, despite what many people say, is inherently rational, for the most part. We consider things immoral because they are harmful to society/people, and we shun said activities. We can make mistakes, yes, but like any type of evolution, we need to go through a lot of different phases to get to the best possible one.

[zarus tathra]

Yeah, that leaves open a metric fuckton of horrid possibilities. Under this two statement ethical code I can rape children, own slaves, torture people, scam, cheat, etc. It's an easy enough code to follow, and I can be an absolute monster under it.

It was an oversimplification for the sake of irony, to be sure, but hopefully you aren't full autist and understand my general point.

Keep filling the mold.

uhhh okay what?

I believe people DONT have morals these days.

They have pages of pages of legalese and flawed ideology justifying their behavior to themselves and to society at large, it's basically the same as a moral system.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Yeah, that leaves open a metric fuckton of horrid possibilities. Under this two statement ethical code I can rape children, own slaves, torture people, scam, cheat, etc. It's an easy enough code to follow, and I can be an absolute monster under it.

It was an oversimplification for the sake of irony, to be sure, but hopefully you aren't full autist and understand my general point.

I am an autist, but now that you explained it I understand your point.

A more apt simplification would've been "do what you want as long as it harms none". The problem is that while this is a nice basis to start on, and it certainly works for the majority of human activities, once you get into specific situations that principle needs to be fleshed out more. Abortion, self defense, inaction, etc; those are all things that are debatable and have been debated endlessly. The outcomes of these debates do matter, because they determine the direction a society will take.

[Mermaid]

The very word "morality" has morphed for me into an excuse to judge other people. I know that's not what it means, but it's what the word has become for me.

[zarus tathra]

Abortion, self defense, inaction, etc; those are all things that are debatable and have been debated endlessly. The outcomes of these debates do matter, because they determine the direction a society will take.

What's so hard about saying "I don't know?" Not directed at you, it's more directed at society.

The very word "morality" has morphed for me into an excuse to judge other people. I know that's not what it means, but it's what the word has become for me.

Dude, that's what it always was. It's the passive-aggressive revenge of the afflicted.

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Abortion, self defense, inaction, etc; those are all things that are debatable and have been debated endlessly. The outcomes of these debates do matter, because they determine the direction a society will take.

What's so hard about saying "I don't know?" Not directed at you, it's more directed at society.

The difficulty in general is that we want to think of ourselves as a moral society.

There's also the need to belong to some sort of group. We're a social species by nature, and in general a majority of us want to be a part of some group or another. One of the defining characteristics of a group is largely shared morals and ethics.

This works nicely when you have small groups of a couple hundred or thousand people; it's when you scale the group up by millions of people that problems arise. Moral codes start to clash, conflict arises. In the past (and in some places right now) moral conflicts of such nature were resolved by everyone killing the fuck out of each other. After some time people decided that being killed over silly disagreements sucked, and that it's much easier to bicker endlessly about it and call your opponent an asshole.

So society can never admit that it doesn't know the answer to a moral question because that would mean that the other guy isn't an asshole...When we all know he totally is.

[zarus tathra]

The West needs to learn the concept of mu. At the very least, you can shame people for being so invested in this or that issue. I guarantee that if you're arguing with a conservative, they're probably a billion times more pissed about the issue than you are.

[mykcob4]

Morality is a necessary function and product of society...ALL societies. What is accepted or rejected as moral is dependent on said society at the time of the society. It garners a great deal of attention because it is subjective to the ebb and flow of the society forming it. so no is the answer to your question.

[zarus tathra]

Regardless of what moral system you come up with, it's always problematic to overcomplicate things. "The multiplicity of laws is the corruption of the Republic."

[Plu]

What's so hard about saying "I don't know?" Not directed at you, it's more directed at society.

Saying "I don't know" to a moral question requires you to tolerate immoral behaviour. Allowing immoral behaviour is (pretty much by definition) a bad thing.

[Mermaid]

Dude, that's what it always was. It's the passive-aggressive revenge of the afflicted.

Not in the technical sense, no. From a biological standpoint, morality evolved in animals (yes, that includes humans) as a selective pressure.