Morality in my view is a commonly accepted system based on vague concepts.
"Right" and "wrong"
Not in a factual sense such as 2 + 2 = 4 is right and 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong.
But more along the lines of "is it right for me to perform action A?"
People make such judgement calls. To the same question some people might answer "it is right", some might answer "it is wrong" while others might answer "it is neither right nor wrong, it is neutral"
e.g.
- some people might say it is morally right to give a diamond ring as an engagement symbol, they might consider the symbolic traditions of love and a show of offering value to a person you love as the right thing to do.
- Others might consider it morally wrong, considering the way diamonds are mined and trafficked and the materialistic nature of showing off wealth.
- Others might consider it a neutral choice, doesn't really matter, just do what suits you as a couple.
Typically for whatever reason people determine "right" there will also be others that also determine "right" but they might be determining this same answer for different justifications. They are all lumped into the "right" basket on this particular question, but the roots of their moral justifications could be completely different and so on other questions the same people might differ from each other.
To have a morally relevant event, it appears to me you need the following conditions:
1.
Moral agents - conscious beings who are judged by the "moral judge(s)" as being capable of making personal judgement calls on whether their own actions resulting from their own free choices are the "right thing to do", "the right thing to do" or "neutral". It is assumed that these moral agents should be prioritising on doing the "right thing" (but is the "right thing" what the moral agent determines as "right" or what the "moral judge" determines as right?)
2.
Moral judges - conscious beings who subscribe to and are willing and capable of making personal judgement calls on whether actions resulting from choices are the "right thing to do", "the right thing to do" or "neutral". This is the person making the judgement call either of actions and choices made by themselves or actions and choices made by others.
3.
A free choice to be made by the moral agent. If the moral agent had no choice, or was tricked or coerced/forced under high duress then there was no free choice.
4.
A moral framework for the "moral judge". People don't pick "right", "wrong" or "neutral" at random they base it on some kind of framework or perhaps on a mix of different things. e.g. idealism, religious beliefs, learned behaviour, empathy, altruism, priorities etc.
5.
A moral judgement made by the "moral judge"
6. I don't think it is necessary for the "moral agent" to actually have a moral framework, it is just assumed by the "moral judge" that the "moral agent" does have a reasonable and acceptable (acceptable by the "moral judge") framework. - This is a matter of judging others based on your own personal standards and beliefs as if those others should be behaving as if they hold your own standards and beliefs.
So drilling into the "Moral framework"
Where do we get our moral standards from?
Humans are social animals who interact with each other and live together in societies. Because of this we can and do often make choices and take actions which affect others. Sometimes we do things which are detrimental to ourselves, sometimes we do things which are detrimental to others. Sometimes things that benefit ourselves are also detrimental to others. We are forced to live in a reality of limited resources, this forces us to compete against others for those resources (be it land, money, education, love etc)
So from early on in our young lives, our parent teach us the concept of right and wrong. They want us to have successful lives, they typically want to be proud to have brought up children who contribute positively towards society. This is a form of idealism.
On a practical level we also learn a form of morality. At a young age a kid might think that they see a toy that they want. They don't care that another kid is playing with it, so they reach out and snatch it. But then the other kid might snatch it back, or they might hit the kid that snatched it, or they might cry and an adult comes by and tells the snatcher "how would you feel if someone snatched a toy from you?" So pretty early on we learn that we have to be considerate of and nice to others, we can't just do whatever we want.
We are also drowned with stories about moral lessons from tv, books and movies and some people are brought into organisations such as religious ones who have a strongly defined set of "moral rules and concepts"
Over time, as the world has globalised many or us have learned to include all sorts of people into our moral framework. Initially it might have been wrong to do anything detrimental to people in our own village but OK to pillage from our neighbours, but then all our neighbours banded together and attacked our village, so we learn that we need alliances and need to include the idea that it is wrong to do anything detrimental to our neighbours, so we then went into expansion, we gathered our neighbours, formed an army and attacked foreign lands. But then foreign countries banded together and attacked us. Over time we learned to include not just our village, our countrymen, our "race", but all of humanity in our ideas of who to be nice to.
But anyway, it is hard to exactly pin down moral framework because
each person differs with regards to their own moral framework. No two people will agree entirely all the time.
Myself, I'm a moral nihilist. I don't believe their are any moral truths and I don't believe a person telling me my actions are "morally wrong" have any clear meaning. The vagueness of such statements makes them virtually useless.
