@Moral Orel,
I apologize if this doesn’t cover everything. I think it will come close. Rather than address various concepts (as I hold them) piecemeal, I will attempt a treatise that covers it. I don’t think this’ll be too long, but we’ll see. To the extent that it seems I’m lecturing, I apologize; it’s how I organize my thoughts. Also, for the purposes of these discussions, this post supersedes my previous attempts at explaining myself. (I hope I don’t have to retract that.)
Fundamentally, we are a social species. That is how we evolved. Social species evolved as such because for that species cooperation is an (the) effective means for the survival of that species.
We are hardwired for cooperation. (Of course, individuals vary in how much this is a factor in their makeup. Just as we are all various shades of brown, we are all various “shades” of cooperative.)
A discourse could be had here about what does it take to determine whether something is objectively true or not. I have determined that my judgment is sufficient to say it is objectively true that there is a rock in my front yard. That emperor penguins are a “social species” might requires a meta-analysis of papers of those that study them. The consensus of these experts is inter-subjectivity. For things fuzzier than “a rock in my front yard”, it may be as close as we can come to objectivity.
I would suggest that it is fairly beyond question that we are a social species. I think it is just as much beyond question that this is a result of our evolution.
I have said before on these fora that experience of “objective” morality is the experience of a breeding we can’t escape. We are humans; we are social; we are moral.
I think then that we are moral to the degree we are cooperative with the social groups in which we find ourselves.
So who are we cooperating with? Well whatever social group in which we find ourselves. This can vary from time to time and place to place. I’d be hard pressed to disagree if someone found that my behavior at work toward my co-workers was different than my behavior at home with my family.
I would suggest that morality exists within a context, the context of whatever group we’re in. Why is this important? Because I doubt anyone in Attila the Hun’s empire thought that their armies raping the women of conquered tribes was immoral. Until one tribe finds the repercussions from killing a member of another tribe consequential, that society doesn’t find it immoral. Until we discover that slavery has negative consequences even for the slave owner, we don’t find slavery immoral. This is why I say morality exists only a set of agreements among a recognized group. Sure, I'd like to think that were I to have existed say 500 years ago I'd have found slavery reprehensible. But that is me
here and
now. I cannot help be a product of my society.
As the world gets smaller and our groups get larger, we find the need for things like the UN, the Geneva convention, and watchdog-type organizations such as Amnesty International and the ACLU.
So at a personal level, we respond to the groups we decide we are part of. We feel guilt when we fail to cooperate. We are going against our nature. However, if we perceive some people as “other”, we feel OK about treating them badly.
The world is now a small place. The challenge for “moral” thinkers is to convince their fellow humans that there is only one tribe, that treating anyone badly, regardless of sex, sexual-orientation, color, social status, etc., is fundamentally harmful to the survival of the human race as a whole and has significant negative consequences for each individual involved.
Of course, 1000 years hence, should this post survive, readers might find me hopelessly naive.
