Morality: Where do you get yours?

[Angrboda]

Hmm... Morality... What is it exactly? Is it even exact enough for us to define it as such?

Well, I personally think people place too much thought into morality. Is it universal? Is it objective? Here's my question... Does any of this actually matter? Are you going to change if you find out that some of your actions aren't objectively/universally moral?

Briefly, ethics involves more than just serving as a personal guide to how to behave as an individual.

Some important uses are:

1) Deciding whether or not to allow certain research and medical practices or not, from stem cell research, to pain management ethics, to testing new medications or procedures, to curtailing psychological research that may be inappropriate.

2) Ethics is important for determining how groups should and should not behave. I like to say that political philosophy rests on the back of ethics. If we don't have a sound justification for condemning some government or its practices, such as allowing honor killings and Sharia law, what are you going to use to persuade people to support your politic viewpoint? Pretty please with sugar on it? How do you determine whether a law is just or unjust without ethics?

3) If atheists do not have a solid foundation for their ethics, they have no rational basis for advocating for atheism, skepticism or whatever over and above a religious framework. Again, what will your argument be? I think you should stop persecuting homosexuals because it bothers me? One of the organizers in our state humanist organization readily admits to not knowing how to justify her ethical positions, but feels it necessary to assert an ethical platform — I find that not only silly (and a bit hypocritical), but dangerous; she's a humanist embarrassment waiting to happen.

4) I gtg, but in another thread, the question of whether so-called "Generation Ships" for interstellar space exploration are acceptable ethically. How are you going to decide without ethics?

5) Moral judgements are a major feature of our minds. We will never fully understand how the brain gives rise to mind without understanding how ethical judgements arise. I doubt you can get there from here without going through the land marked, "understanding ethics".

Anyway, gtg.