(August 21, 2014 at 12:26 pm)DramaQueen Wrote: What is moral? I believe that hurting people physically and deceit to be immoral? But what about religious indoctrination? And what about not teaching a child how to swim? How do we define what's moral?
I'm not really good at this (yet), so feedback is very welcome.
"Morals" are often derived from "first principles". So, establish a general statement, and analyze your actions in accordance with that general rule.
The term "morals" and "ethics" are kind of hazy terms, and are more often used as adjectives than nouns, they're usually used in reference to the quality of an action or stance, rather than being a "thing" by themselves.
For instance, us Libertarians claim as a first principle the "Non-Aggression Principle", which basically says this: "Don't be the guy who starts the fight, either with words, actions, or other powers." This is usually applied to government, and gives us a nice soundbite to explain our Anarchic tendencies. Specifically, this can be applied to personal interactions easily, "Am I directly harming someone through this action or inaction?" If you refuse to teach your child to swim, and prohibit others from doing so as well, then that can be quite detrimental to your child's immediate health if you live near significant bodies of water. However, if you are in a desert community with no pools for miles around, then it's not that big of a deal. Eventually, your child will become an adult and move out, and can then learn how to swim on their own.
Religious indoctrination has been shown to be severely detrimental to children's mental health, having the "gun" of "hell" shoved in their face everytime they disobey is damaging to their psyches, and can thus be considered immoral.
