What we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words of command.
Havelock Ellis
Values fade away if there isn’t environmental reinforcement. The best example I can use is stealing. Most people would say “stealing” is wrong, but what if someone is near death and steals food in order to survive? Morals are only walls that people put up in their own minds to create a sense of justice.
Key Points
- Morals are man-made justice, they don’t exist in the real world
- Morals have no relevance to survival, they are only tools
- “Right” and “wrong” are very deceptive words. We do not live in an absolute world
- Morals are patches created to treat an ineffective part of society
- Morals suggest “fault”. “Blame” and being at “fault” are not effective tools to assess with
- Laws and morals aren’t unnecessary, but they cannot be set in stone. Time is ever changing
- Morals have their place, but should yield to reason, logic and relativity
Morals
Morals are presented all over the world. In most cases, morals are a group of accepted ideas that people identify themselves with. The good thing about them is that sometimes they help people adjust to their surrounding easier. Morals give people a guideline of the society they’re in and others around them. The bad thing is that sometimes people take morals as absolute truth and are threatened by anything that challenges them. We’re all affected by emotions one way or another. When one’s morals are challenged, their identity is challenged and that triggers negative emotions.
Unfortunately we have no free will. Our environment dictates all. If the sun disappears, we all die. If all the water evaporates, we die. If we live in a world where everyone is a killer, we may have to kill in order to defend ourselves or face dying off. We are victim to whatever our environment evolves to. That being said, morals are not right or wrong. Good, bad, right and wrong are all opinion based judgments. The only way we can judge an action or a scenario is if it was effective or ineffective to it’s desired results. If I want to kill someone, it’s not “wrong”, it’s ineffective because I am putting myself in harms way and setting myself up to go to prison. None of those are ideal in this environment. If I kill someone in war, I’m a hero. Right or wrong is subject to change, so is effectiveness.
Morals are at the mercy of our environment. If the environment is changing and our morals don’t adapt along with it, that conflict will cause us problems. We will become ineffective in our new environment. Whether the new environment is “right” or “wrong” isn’t important here, that’s subject to interpretation. What’s really important is whether you are effective in your new environment.
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