"Who am I to say rape and slavery are wrong?"

[Chris.Roth]

If you mean "who am I to decide moral imperatives?" I agree, just as you may not decide what are NOT moral imperatives.


In MY daily life, such things such as rape, murder and sodomising altar boys are immoral. The majority of people in my society seem to agree with me.We even have laws with very unpleasant consequences for people caught doing those things.

However, I do not recognise any external or transcendent moral authority. The principles of my moral values are based on self interest,pragmatism, utilitarianism and conscience.When push comes to shove,self interest usually wins.(as I believe is the case with most people most of the time)

I think moral authority is a very interesting thing to cover in this discussion. Lets say religion had never existed. (I know, crazy world, right?) Morality, for me, seems to have come from great philosophers such as Socrates who had examined society and said "hmm...we feel better when we do these things and don't do these things." Is it possible to use neuroscience to track the happiness of ones brain, and determine morality that way? Is this a fallacy? Is this in some way inadequete for establishing morality within modern science?