Morality an emergent concept?

[dusk]

"Murder is always wrong"
statement from another thread.
One of the reasons why there is an absolute morality apparently.

Now lets recap.
What is murder?
If you live in a viking village 11th century. You can go out on ships, raid, plunder, raper, kill everyone you come across.
Yet when you kill your leader that is murder. Premeditated murder usually requires motive. You betray the trust of your community. A community that protects each other, helps each other, ...

From this I would derive that the concept of murder requires some kind of community.
If the lone tiger in the Indian jungle kills anything including another tiger that is never considered murder. A tiger either stays our of another tigers way or they fight.
The concept of murder makes no sense for a grown tiger in any situation.

If murder and just the same most other immoral or moral actions are concepts only ever really present if there is some kind of relationship or community. Why would there be an outside objective standard.

To evaluate the property of semantic security in an cryptographic algorithm/scheme you first need such a scheme. You need an exchange of information. Semantic security is a concept that only makes any sense in the realm it comes from. The semantic security of our living room door is just none sensical.

Why would a first cause (god) set in stone immutable always true objective moral truths before there is even anything they apply to? Why would a first cause as a single possibly mindful entity care about the finality of moral truths before he even gets to creating the space for them? Why are they not just emergent from the conceptual space they live in?

Obviously communities and all social structures are complex. They have different goals, cohesion, values, ...
There is never one that is truly the same. Absolutely independent of context is somewhat nonsensical.

I once had a discussion about this with Jester here on the forum.

The real problem is specific moral truths. Such as all the so called numerous sins in different religions.

Debate Questions:
Is morality a property of its emergent space (social system)?
Does an absolute morality not also entail the existence of one single perfect social system(consisting of specific shared values, goals, ..) in which alone it can be absolute?
How can one argue for such absolute truths in the absence of the surrounding environment? As in is murder still wrong when our solar system is swallowed by the super massive black hole of our milky way.

PS: This questions bug me because I think it odd that we are thought of being free to have any (or very many) values we want (conservative vs. liberal vs. ...) but morality ought to be objective, when IMO it is an emergent set of rules that simply emerge from shared values. The possible sinfulness of certain actions never even remotely occurs to some secular humanist but is obvious for a traditionalist. For a minute one shouldn't think of the extremes such as murder but something like respect your parents. Do as you are told and such. The respect for the wants and needs of parents or traditions are very much different among many people. Nobody ever talks about the absolute set of values.

[mal]

"Murder is always wrong"
statement from another thread.
One of the reasons why there is an absolute morality apparently.

Now lets recap.
What is murder?
If you live in a viking village 11th century. You can go out on ships, raid, plunder, raper, kill everyone you come across.
Yet when you kill your leader that is murder. Premeditated murder usually requires motive. You betray the trust of your community. A community that protects each other, helps each other, ...

From this I would derive that the concept of murder requires some kind of community.
If the lone tiger in the Indian jungle kills anything including another tiger that is never considered murder. A tiger either stays our of another tigers way or they fight.
The concept of murder makes no sense for a grown tiger in any situation.

If murder and just the same most other immoral or moral actions are concepts only ever really present if there is some kind of relationship or community. Why would there be an outside objective standard.

To evaluate the property of semantic security in an cryptographic algorithm/scheme you first need such a scheme. You need an exchange of information. Semantic security is a concept that only makes any sense in the realm it comes from. The semantic security of our living room door is just none sensical.

Why would a first cause (god) set in stone immutable always true objective moral truths before there is even anything they apply to? Why would a first cause as a single possibly mindful entity care about the finality of moral truths before he even gets to creating the space for them? Why are they not just emergent from the conceptual space they live in?

Obviously communities and all social structures are complex. They have different goals, cohesion, values, ...
There is never one that is truly the same. Absolutely independent of context is somewhat nonsensical.

I once had a discussion about this with Jester here on the forum.

The real problem is specific moral truths. Such as all the so called numerous sins in different religions.

Debate Questions:
Is morality a property of its emergent space (social system)?
Does an absolute morality not also entail the existence of one single perfect social system(consisting of specific shared values, goals, ..) in which alone it can be absolute?
How can one argue for such absolute truths in the absence of the surrounding environment? As in is murder still wrong when our solar system is swallowed by the super massive black hole of our milky way.

PS: This questions bug me because I think it odd that we are thought of being free to have any (or very many) values we want (conservative vs. liberal vs. ...) but morality ought to be objective, when IMO it is an emergent set of rules that simply emerge from shared values. The possible sinfulness of certain actions never even remotely occurs to some secular humanist but is obvious for a traditionalist. For a minute one shouldn't think of the extremes such as murder but something like respect your parents. Do as you are told and such. The respect for the wants and needs of parents or traditions are very much different among many people. Nobody ever talks about the absolute set of values.

Mal: Morality is the perception of right and wrong. Right or wrong does not exist separately from each other however. Morality is a practice, but when an individual/group claim he/she they are moral then they instantly are not because morality is a perception given, not taken. As soon as one claims or believes he is moral he/she/they have supersede the considerations of all others automatically and thus having become Amoral.

Morality never came from god, any god not only for the same reasons I posted above, but because for god to have set a moral standard, the standard (THOSE MORALS) would never change because they would never need to because they would for all tenses and purposes remain perfect and would never find themselves in the need of change OR god is imperfect as those morals and therefore not god.

Jesus is said to have followed the old laws, Jesus never denounced the Old Laws, Jesus’s parents practiced the Old laws, to claim otherwise would be literally unsupported biblically. In short, the Old Laws remain intact…..so therefore it is still MORAL to kill your children and or sell your daughters off as (sex) slaves or morals have changed since that time.

[charles brough]

DUSK, you are on the right track. We evolved as small-group primates and all our social instincts focus on preserving the small group. We instinctively, subconsciously, behave in ways that support the group so that we preserve or gain status in it. That means we are also innately motivated to want to protect it from other such groups even if it means killing their members.

When we adopted language, we learned to form ideologies that enabled us to combine into huge groups, "societies," in which enabled us to accept and function in just as we did in the small hunting gathering groups we evolved in.

But now that our whole religious and secular ideological structure has shattered into sects and become weak, we are losing that sense of the small community in our society and beginning to build hostility towards each other that was once aimed only at "the other societies."

[dusk]

What is really the thing that often comes up are those absolute moral standards?

What I am getting at is that I think that this seems a somewhat meaningless term.

Imagine Group A.
Highly hierarchical like the military. Obedience is important. Strength common ideal. A common high cause.

Group B
Individualistic. Self actualization. Obedience is seen as stupid sheep behavior. Intellectual maturity, responsibility for ones own actions. No prescribed common cause.

Murder is illegal in both but many of the lesser moral statements like when and how to obey. When to fight back, When to suck it up. What is immoral and moral is definitely not the same. What is tolerated in one Group is illegal in the other. What is considered important "good" is entirely neglected in the other.
How can there be an absolute moral standard?

Isn't it that this standard would define the one proper society? It cannot exist, make sense or be true as in logically conclusive without that single proper value systems?
This would suggest that an absolute moral standard would in turn promote only one set of proper values.
Since the morals change if all you change is the weight on some values. That weight would also be fixed in place by the ominous god.



What is problematic is that we keep talking about moral statements of good and evil but not about good and bad values which we are free to choose. Yet those sit at the source of everything.
You want an entirely non violent culture. You do not ever beat your child. You don't have capital punishment. Exceptions for some eye for an eye or harsh treatment bring violence in like the poisonous apple in garden eden.
If you do correct your child's misbehavior in forcible ways and do allow capital punishment even for very few cases. You no not value non-violence the same. Justice and fair punishment is more important.

So shouldn't we be talking about the values we mean to promote instead of what he or she thinks is right or wrong. That way we would have much fewer misunderstandings. Some people may find they have conflicting ideas. Some people in an international multi cultural world will more quickly understand why Chine is not Sweden and would much faster understand the root and reason of rules and different behavior, expectations and laws.
Isn't the whole talk about morals an ignorant short sighted approach when the talk about our values would lay open the difference between a conservative Muslim and a secular humanist much better.

[charles brough]

DUSK:

Isn't the whole talk about morals an ignorant short sighted approach when the talk about our values would lay open the difference between a conservative Muslim and a secular humanist much better.

Yes. It would. Different religions and different secular "isms" (ideologies) survive or spread because they have "values" which all societies need. A value is the goals and means to achieve them that are fundamental to all successful ideological systems. There has to be goals and the (morals) means its followers are expected to follow to achieve them.

For example, our secular ideological system has "the American Dream" and "the pursuit of happiness" goals. These materialistic and sensualistic moral standards are framed by our largly corporate legal system and academic activism by law and are constantly changing. Other ideologies are more fixed and hence have lasted much longer. The old Christian doctrine sets Heaven and The Last Judgment as threir goal and the Ten Commandments as part of the moral means. Marxists in China set communism as their goal and forceful revolution as their "moral" means (which explains why they have so much corruption there despite their legal system).

There is no "abstract moral system." We evolve ideological systems to help society function and they have to set some goal and the means in order to help adjust our evolved social instinct repertoire to the "greater good." We need common goals and moral means or standards to follow. Otherwise, we could not live with each other and cooperate to solve common problems. We need unity. And we need a better ideological system than we have anywhere now on Earth in order to achieve that unity, that is to be able to cooperate to solve world problems. We need one that non-theistic and sets us better goals and more lasting values and standards than those of our secular system.

[dusk]

So you agree with me.
I would suggest that cosmopolitan secular humansim is a pretty good start for great meta ideology.

What still stands to question is WHY that discussion never occurs while we in Media and everywhere we constantly go on about morals and laws?
Maybe my observation is wrong but to me that seems like constantly taking about trade laws and financial regulation without ever discussing what kind of a economy we want. Like anarchy, communism, utilitarianism, fairness, limitless possibility, oligarchy...

I think it is so obvious and on the other hand completely ignored by most discussion of morality on this forum.

[charles brough]

I would suggest that cosmopolitan secular humansim is a pretty good start for great meta ideology. What still stands to question is WHY that discussion never occurs while we in Media and everywhere we constantly go on about morals and laws? I think it is so obvious and on the other hand completely ignored by most discussion of morality on this forum.

Yes, I agree. I am also reminded, that there is no discussion about the only ultimate solution to global warming, environmental problems, loss of species, pollution and escalating conflict, that is, birth control and ending over-population! I also deal with that in my web-page. . .