(September 3, 2013 at 1:55 pm)Chas Wrote: OK, but what? What is it describing? Remember, we are talking about a solitary human. What is 'morality' in this context?
Here's a joke I found which illustrates the relevance of morality with respect to a solitary human.
Quote:An ambitious yuppie finally decided to take a vacation. He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life... until the boat sank!
The man found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no supplies... Nothing. Only bananas and coconuts.
Four months pass and he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to him. In disbelief he asks her: "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
"I rowed from the other side of the island," she says. "I landed here when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he says. "You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."
"Oh, this?" replies the woman. "I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island; the oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."
"But-but, that's impossible," stutters the man. "You had no tools or hardware. How did you manage?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replies the woman. "On the south side of the island, there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools and used the tools to make the hardware.
The guy is stunned.
"Let's row over to my place, " she says.
After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As the man looks onto shore, he nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead, dumb-struck.
As they walk into the house she says casually, "It's not much, but I call it home. Sit down please. Would you like to have a drink?"
"No thank you," he says, still dazed. "Can't take any more coconut juice."
"It's not coconut juice," the woman replies. "I have a still. How about a Piña Colada?"
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk.
After they have exchanged their stories, the woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom."
No longer questioning anything, the man goes into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet, is a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened onto its end, inside of a swivel mechanism.
"This woman is amazing," he muses. "What next?"
When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines and a shell necklace – strategically positioned – and smelling faintly of gardenias.
She beckons for him to sit down next to her.
"Tell me," she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, "we've been out here for a very long time. You've been lonely. I've been lonely. There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing right about now, something you've been longing for all these months? You know.. " She stares into his eyes.
He can't believe what he's hearing. His heart begins to pound. He's truly in luck: "You mean...", he gasps, "...I can actually check my e-mail from here??"
The difference in work ethic of the woman and the yuppie made all the difference in their respective lives. While one lived in relative comfort, satisfying her desires and ensuring continued survival, the other lived like an animal, accomplishing nothing beyond basic survival. That is where morality comes in.
