Simply put, why should people be moral?
Explain your answer, and please think carefully before replying
Explain your answer, and please think carefully before replying
-
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
-
CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
Why be moral?
- Thread starter Prometheus_ash
- Start date
ChristianCenturion
Veteran / Tuebor
- Feb 9, 2005
- 14,207
- 576
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Republican
Prometheus_ash said:
What's your definition of 'moral'? Total morality or only partially? According to Christian morality or secular?
There are many serial killers that fit the description of very moral... up until the point you include that little part that makes them a serial killer.
Upvote
0
nadroj1985
A bittersweet truth: sum, ergo cogito
See my sig; if you're trying to decide whether to enter the moral sphere or not, the decision you make is not a moral one. If it was, you'd already be moral, and your choice would be redundant.
Upvote
0
One is moral because of the assumption that all humans are alike in their ability to feel pain and loss. One is moral in the hope that it leads to morality in others. A functional society is better for everybody.
Upvote
0
Prometheus_ash said:
These seem like 4 valid reasons to me.
1. God.
2. Empathy for others
3. Combination of 1 and 2.
4. They shouldn't. They should get away with much as they can while assuming the least amount of risk for doing so.
Upvote
0
Being moral is doing the loving thing. If you do unloving thing you suffer consequences that are not pleasant.Prometheus_ash said:
Upvote
0
It's not that we SHOULD be moral - it's that we inescapably ARE moral. We all act according to our morality, because that's how we evolved.
Upvote
0
FSTDT
Yahweh
The question is nonsense. The question presumes that defining a moral principle falls short of providing sufficient reason for why one should follow that moral principle (for example, a person conceding that stealing is wrong but feels no compulsion to refrain from it). But when you define a moral principle, providing reasons for why people should follow it is exactly what people do, you really wouldnt have a moral principle at all if you tried to define it without saying why people should follow it.Prometheus_ash said:
So, what it comes down to is that the question "why be moral" is, at the very least, utterly superfluous, its comparable to asking why someone should want to do things that are desirable or like asking for reasons for why someone should want to be rational.
Upvote
0
Eudaimonist
I believe in life before death!
- Jan 1, 2003
- 27,482
- 2,738
- 59
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Private
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
Prometheus_ash said:
Because it's good for them -- people need morality. It's in their best interests as intelligent living beings who have to select life-nourishing values over other values with a rational process in order to achieve all forms of health and well-being. This is, as I see it, the bedrock ethical justification for morality, and no deeper ethical principles need be appealed to, only an investigation into the facts of human nature that give rise to metaethical concepts such as "good".
Upvote
0
morningstar2651
Senior Veteran
- Dec 6, 2004
- 14,557
- 2,591
- 41
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Pagan
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Others
Upvote
0
The question is essentially pointless:
Q: "Why do something you know is right?"
A: "Because I have found it is right."
But if I answer according to what I know you mean, the only reason for secular people is the stability of society. Society would collapse if no one found the urge to follow their inner moral compass.
For Christians, it should be the desire to please the one who set the morals in the first place: God.
Q: "Why do something you know is right?"
A: "Because I have found it is right."
But if I answer according to what I know you mean, the only reason for secular people is the stability of society. Society would collapse if no one found the urge to follow their inner moral compass.
For Christians, it should be the desire to please the one who set the morals in the first place: God.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
