Ask Lemmy

And if so, would that entail that the beneficial effects to the group can overwrite the wellbeing of a single individual?

Nope. This is contradictory with your earlier definition. If morality can't exist without humanity, then that means morality is subjective. If it were objective, it would apply across the board.

But if morality is also "Doing what is best for the group, even at the expense of the individual" then you've just defined it as objective, not subjective.

The reality is, morality is subjective. But it's not chosen. It's part instinct that derives from us being social animals, but it's also part custom, tradition and culture. There is no objective morality, sure, but that doesn't just mean that folk get to remove other peoples agency and claim the moral high ground.

How can you find certainty in what’s morally acceptable and what is not?

You can't. You just have to listen to your own sense of right and wrong. If it's too much at odds with the rest of society, you'll know about it...

Occasionally i hear the phrase “there is no morality outside of human society”. I believe, what is meant by it, is that you cannot say whether something is morally right or wrong in nature, if it isn’t part of human society.

More or less.

It depends on who says it,. but the general idea is that since morality is defined by humans for humans, we cant really apply morality outside of that.

For example, when a turtle eats a bird (here’s a video about it), you cannot say whether these deeds are “good” or “bad”. It’s part of nature, it’s part of the circle of life, … if these things didn’t happen, the bird couldn’t be alive in the first place.

Correct.

Now, i’ve had some interesting talks yesterday with a close friend about what “morality” really means. They very certainly assured me that morality is simply the construct and the set of rules that society uses to organize itself to make itself more successful. In other words, morality aids the fitness of the group, but not necessarily of the individual. Do you agree with this view?

No, this is a really bad "understanding" of morality. Morality is a system of code about behavior which involves evaluative judgments about actions and the people taking them, and specifically about if a behavior is "moral" or "immoral" with "moral" generally equating to "good" and "immoral" generally to "bad".

To make it simpler, morality is a collective judgement about if something is "good" or "bad" based generally about how a majority of a population can be expected to react.

And if so, would that entail that the beneficial effects to the group can overwrite the wellbeing of a single individual?

By your friends definition, sure.

Where do you draw the limits?

Very very much depends on the population.

Like if some republicans claim that some women cannot decide themselves who they are/should be in a relationship with … does that derive from that view of morality?

Yes, because by the republican judgement, women having a choice is bad.

When you are speaking about morality, you need to clearly define what group is making the judgement.

What do you respond to that?

Its pretty well known that republicans think women having a choice is bad.

I’m seriously wondering because all these discussions make my head spin and sometimes i wonder truly whether i even know anything at all… How can you find certainty in what’s morally acceptable and what is not?

You cant, Morality is subjective, more or less by definition. What is "good" or "bad" will always depend on who you ask.

Some groups like to make lofty claims about how morality is for the greater good, notice how those people never seem to decide that morality decides they should sacrifice for "the greater good," and how "the greater good" always seems to mean "what's good for this specific in-group"

social codes of behavior for group living.

it does exist for other social species, and in cross-species relationships. it's just not expressed in language.

There’s a lot of chatter in thread about humans, but there are studies on apes & chimps having a sense of justice. Justice is not morality, but they are closely related.

My guess is that, from an evolutionary standpoint, animals & early humans that could work together had a better success chance. Collaboration requires some rules, even if that’s monkeys getting grapes or cucumbers.

Is there some physical material evidence of morality? No, probably not. However, there is likely more to this story than “We got all our own morals, maaaaaan. It’s all relative.” There’s also concepts like “love” without a perfectly material understanding. Doesn’t make it less important. 🤷

It entails exactly what you see in the world. Humans trying to come up with some universal good and evil and then fighting each other because they believe their definition is better.

"Morality" in itself is a human concept, like every word in general.

This realization often entails a kind of nihilism too, unfortunately, as a sort of rebellious backlash against any ideas of harmony with others.

Vast majority of people don't want to directly cause suffering to others. Then there's a lot of opinions on how much you "should" (a thinly veiled callback to universal good and evil again) endeavour to reduce the indirect suffering you cause, and also how to define suffering.

Ultimately it's always just people's personal values clashing and best you can do is figure out what your values are, and find people who share them. You can't really force people to value anything they don't - you can only teach it if they are willing to learn. Or you can force compliant behavior despite their differing values - if your value system allows forcing. If your values allow for forcing compliant behavior on others, then you must of course accept that others will try to use force as well. If you don't allow forcing, then you pretty much need to be prepared to die for the ability to live according to your values.

Now, i’ve had some interesting talks yesterday with a close friend about what “morality” really means. They very certainly assured me that morality is simply the construct and the set of rules that society uses to organize itself to make itself more successful.

In other words, morality aids the fitness of the group, but not necessarily of the individual. Do you agree with this view?

Oh and animals have some sort of morality as well. I've seen a video of a lion/cheetah refuse to eat a newborn something after trying to eat its mother. Animals care for each others young and share food when possible.

And if so, would that entail that the beneficial effects to the group can overwrite the wellbeing of a single individual

Like if some republicans claim that some women cannot decide themselves who they are/should be in a relationship with … does that derive from that view of morality?

How can you find certainty in what’s morally acceptable and what is not?

You have to trust yourself. And if you don't trust yourself... go to church (or similar. It's a metaphor.)

First category: people choose their morality. Every generation looks at the world and chooses a morality they think will help them succeed. Could call this "popular morality".

Second category: systems of morality that are basically a generation that wrote down what they think worked well for them. Could call this "traditional morality".

Then I guess the third category is "philosophical morality" but the philosopher can't completely separate themselves from their traditional and popular views. The other categories like to pretend they are philosophical, absolute, certain, scientific, etc.

There is some weight to this perspective. One way to define "morality" is as a set of rules governing human behavior, especially behavior towards other humans.

We can have a thought experiment - imagine if you were the only human in existence. Actually the only person in existence to eliminate hypothetical aliens and AIs. How would you derive any rules of right and wrong? Nothing you do would have any impact on anyone else.

Maybe you would extend the rules to encompass natural systems - supporting certain kinds of ecosystems over others. But determining a moral base for those decisions is much trickier.

Now let's go back to a society. As soon as you start relating to other people, deriving rules of right and wrong becomes much easier. We might disagree on what those rules are, but we agree that there must be some kind of rules.

Disclaimer: This is all based on guessing of a human who lives in a human society. I have no way of knowing how an existence without society might be like.

Morality is a human construct, nature doesn't need to enforce what humans perceive to be moral.

The only morality is what the masses enforce/tolerate, and that exists in every social animal, and even most solitary ones.

Humans aren't special snowflakes.

So "morally acceptable" is just what the majority accepts. There's no innate morality, we have to put the effort into socializing kids or gestures broadly all this shit happens....