Why do we need morals?

[Darkstar]

The whole part of what is natural is not interchangeable with what is "right" sort of puts the lie to the idea of "innate rights" from the outset. You have life, that's natural, it's valuable to you (but perhaps not to another) and so calling it innate (not quite the same as inalienable, granted) is murky.

Well, life is innate, and the desire to live is (usually) innate. If it is not of value to another, then by their own system, you need not value their life, which is a situation where everyone loses (unless one of you is both suicidal and homicidal).

When something is valuable - for a given end- is is not objectively valuable, it's subjectively valuable. If something were valuable to all given ends it might be called "objectively valuable", imo. Property is a human right, in many places, but not innate, or objective. It's granted, established, maintained, enforced (and sometimes encroached upon). Goals and means, goals and means.

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have said not that certain things are considered human rights, but rather than the justification for considering them as such is self-evident, whereas the justification for property would require at least some explanation.

Well, already mentioned a bit about this above..however, you can assign very little value to the life of another and morality still holds very well within the group you belong to (we're good at this). Its more likely that you have assigned a value to your own life - and then extended that value to the lives of others (in my case by again referencing the value I place upon my own and the consequences of denying the same to another), -and- a reason to value another's. Again, this isn;t something we're born with uniformly, and it wouldn't matter if we were.

I strongly agree with the bolded section. One would think that this extension comes from empathy, which is usually seen as innate, but I suppose that you are probably right in saying that whether or not something is innate does not necessarily reflect whether or not it is moral. (As for assigning little value to the lives of others, this is just a selfish double standard)

Perhaps some confusion I have had is that when I say "objective morals" I mean something supported by good reasons, rather than some magical set in stone code of laws. When one asks what constitutes good reasons, it becomes trickier. We know objectively both that animals are capable of suffering (which, from our experience, is a bad thing to happen to someone), and that organisms tend to innately value their lives. Other than these...it gets messy.

I can;t speak for Apo, but I think you do very well.

Thank you. You aren't doing so bad yourself. I tried to have a discussion like this one with jstrodel and, well...it didn't work out.