Why do we need morals?

[Darkstar]

Well, presumably, if stealing were not seen as immoral there would be no reason that people would assign a negative value to the act.

Well, this almost sounds like "people wouldn't think stealing was immoral if they didn't see it as immoral" unless I misunderstood you. One would think that any person, aside from a communist, would assign a negative connotation to stealing without being told to.

We do have examples o this between cultures with the varying and counter-running taboos...as well as things that are considered amoral.

The man from the land of neat sock drawers asks the native of disorganizia their opinion as to whether or not mismatching socks is immoral. The Native stares at them blankly, wondering what could possibly be moral or immoral about mismatching socks.

Yeah, I would see organization of socks as amoral. Is the sock organization/disorganization hurting anyone? Is it infringing on basic human rights? Though, I suppose there could be an extremely unusual society that thinks organized socks are a basic human right...but I don't think sock organization is a self-evident/innate right (i.e. any normal person would find a right to life to be self evident, sans culture. At least I think they wouldn't kill somebody without thinking twice...).