On Morality

I'm not sure if this is an entirely new idea...I'm sure someone else has already thought about it.

It's new for me though.

I've been thinking a lot about morality lately. How do you know if you're doing the "right" or the "wrong" thing? How can you potentially come up with a set of rules that everyone should live by in order to be "moral" people?

I've decided morality only exists in our minds.

Imagine the state of nature. There is no government. People are their own independent nations. I contend that in this scenario, there is no right and wrong. Might means right. Whoever is stronger is going to end on top. I'm not saying that people in the State of Nature should be going around killing everyone and such things, I'm saying that if they felt like doing it (because of a dispute over resources or whatever), then it is totally permissible to do so. Who is to tell them that what they are doing is wrong?

Now obviously we don't live in the State of Nature. We have a government. We forfeit some of our individual freedoms to come together and form a society. Humans and prehuman species formed societies and groups a long time ago. They decided they were better off as a group than by themselves. Over time, we have become used to the concept of forming such groups. We have become used to understanding that certain actions go against the formation of our society. If we steal, then we are not playing our part in society.

Ok, here it is----morality really is the instinctive voice in our head that tells us what is right and wrong. I contend that we all know what right and wrong is. It's just that a number of us ignore the voice in our head and do what is more pleasurable. That voice in our head is evolution talking. We have been wired to know that certain actions go against our society. Stealing, killing, lying, etc.

We can obviously know that stealing, killing, lying and bad things to do. We shouldn't do them because, again, they are going against informal contract that we signed in order to be a part of the society. So for the more shaky and complicated areas, how can we know what is right and wrong?

Here is my rule. For something to be wrong, if greater than 50% of society were to act in a similar way to the one in question, ask yourself would society be able to exist?

For example, if greater than 50% of people lied all the time, then society couldn't exist. We wouldn't be able to trust one another. That is whole basis of society. If greater than 50% of us were killers, then obviously at least half of us would be dead, so that wouldn't be a good thing.

So what do you think? Is this the only rule of morality that we need?

Update: On Virtues

So, just as I make my post, I find perfect article for what I'm talking about.

"Prof Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are "hard-wired" into the brains of all mammals and provide the "social glue" that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups."

According to this controversial study, it's not just humans who know what right and wrong is. It's animals. Which isn't surprising considering we are animals. We're not the supreme being that rules the world.

So when you think about morality, maybe there are some absolute truths. Those truths being ones that are necessary for not only humans to have societies, but also animals around the world. It's obvious that humans and other animals such as wolves, coyotes, etc that are mentioned in the article will have some differences on what is right and wrong, but is it possible that at the most basic level, our different species can agree that some things (like random murder) are just wrong.

I think that if it was just you...you were the only person in the world, then nothing could really be right and wrong. It's up to you, you're the only person who can decide. But once you start introducing other people into the mix, then it becomes important to decide on a few basic rules that will govern society. That's not to say that everyone will follow them, but everyone NOT following them will lead to the destruction of the society. Therefore, from an evolution standpoint, there is basic sense of morality that is in everyone of us. Our ancestors decided to form groups and have basic societies. So maybe it ends up that the little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you are doing the wrong thing is really your DNA telling you that you're doing something against the fabric of society. People aren't always going to follow the rules, but I think that everyone of us knows what the right thing to do is, whether or not we choose to do it.

On Virtues

Where do virtues come from? How do you know what is really right and wrong in this world? How could you truly know if an action was "correct" or "incorrect"?

I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues the other day about this. He didn't really end up telling me where he thinks our virtues as humans come from (he would probably say God -- which I deny). Before the church, and the Internet, and books, and newspapers, how did we come to settle on a group of ideals that people are supposed to have to be a "good" person.

As I was talking with him, it all became clear to me. It has to be related to our DNA and our evolutionary history. Because if humans our ancestors engaged in mass cannibalism, deceit, theft, etc. then a human society could not form. If you have an excess amount of people that do things to the detriment of others without even thinking about it, you won't have a functioning society. You'll have anarchy. So maybe in our evolutionary history, certain traits (we call them virtues) have been selected for and as a result, most of us inherently understand these virtues, because accepting these them has helped form our society. I think that most people know what the "right" thing to do is, but acting on it is different.

So then what becomes "right" and "wrong"? Something that is "right" would have to be related to the virtues that lead to the formation of our society (ex: honesty) and something that is "wrong" would undermine those virtues.

I'll have to think about it this more.