A world where your desires and fears turn into ghosts and where those ghosts turn into flesh and blood.
At the risk of sounding less poetic: What is the relevance of this question?
Because human societies are social in nature and require stability. If murder was okay, it would be much much harder to form a stable social structure, because any member of your social group could be murdered by another member, without consequence. Power struggles would erupt, potentially critical manpower could be depleted, and the tribe would just have a hard time functioning as a unit.
That explains in how far it is
useful to handle murder as something inherently bad. It however doesn't make it so. To the contrary, this reasoning makes murders not something inherently bad, but a mere tool to organize society.
I.e. - it wouldn't be bad to murder at all - wasn't it for the phenomena of fairly widespread murder and its consequences for society at large.
Which is precisely the ideology I adhere to.
I think that morality has several sources. There is a bunch of stuff that seems to be almost hardwired into our brains: Do not eat babies.. Do not murder your parents.. Do not pour molten lava on your neighbours for no reason.. These seem to be almost primal instincts and probably things that have been with us for many many thousands of years.
"Several sources"... yes you embark on a interesting distinction here. You differentiate between as you put it "almost hardwired into our brians" or "almost primal instincts" on the one hand and on the other "complex morality that probably evolved side by side with the emergence of more complex social structures". I agree with this general distinction as an useful one. There are moral concepts which rests on hardcoded emotional responses and there are moral concepts which rest on circumstantial social responses. Though doesn't this "complex morality" rest on "hardwired" responses all the same? That appears to make the circumstantial moral concepts an - in the end - superfluous category, doesn't? After all, if all morality can be traced back to emotions, why bother with the symbols civilization as brought forward? Civilization will only be a particular manifestation of hardwired emotional urges. Hence, those hardwired emotional urges will suffice to explain primitive
as much as civilized cultures. And accordingly, moral concept will - while being adapted to a particular social environment - remain rested on primitive/hardcoded emotional urges.
But I am afraid all this misses completly the point.
You describe the genuine origin of humans caring about morality.
I seek to desctibe the genuine origin of morality
itself.
No. There are fundamentally and inherently good and bad acts. Rape is inherently bad. Caring for the sick is inherently good.
This is not limited to the emotional realm as you posit. Rape may be emotionally cathartic for the rapist, but the emotional benefit received does not somehow change the inherent vileness of the act.
That is so because...? Oh - you didn't bother to substantiate your point. I see... Thank you for... demonstrating your ignorance?
You say "No" (again, one hopes this time with some backing) to the by you quoted claim of mine that "They can only be as good or bad as they relate to the only known realm of the existence of good and bad - so only as good and bad as the emotions they cause."
Then you go on to say that "We can never know the ultimate consequence of an action because we have imperfect knowledge." That is correct. It however doesn't make my initiative claim false, it merely is a statement regarding its usefulness.
So, again your "No" is totally disconnected to your argument.
Therefore we can never know the morality of an action
Correct.
regardless of the emotional status
Regardless? This is where you stopped to make any sense (besides saying seemingly randomly "No"). So far all you have been saying rests on my reference to emotional statuses. Suddenly, you say "regardless of the emotional status", without further explanation.
This makes no sense.
Consequently, a knowable morality can never exist even within your emotional realm.
Again correct.
However, you have failed to substantiate your "No" in any way whatsoever (did I mention that already?). You have merely bothered to concern yourself with the implications of my argument instead of refuting it, as your "No" implies.
There it is again. This is getting tiresome very quick. I hope now you finally start to actually argue in support if your "No."
And I have to wonder - you actually do!
You argue that because emotions were irrational in them themselves, one could not rationally analyze them.
As much as I am delighted that you have finally actually attacked my argument, as much I am disappointed, as your attack is as easily blown away as a leaf is by the wind.
Note how I have given criteria to rationally judge good and bad. I did so by saying that feeling good is good and feeling bad is consequently bad. What we can witness here is that morality embodies irrationality in so far as it embodies emotions in so far as it embodies "good" and "bad".
Now, as soon as we can assess preferences, as soon we can act rationally. Rationality is about the pursuit of goals. And goals are about preferences. Preferences are about the distinction of desirability. Desirability is in essence about irrationality.
Rationality can by definition only concern itself with irrationality. Hence, you pointing out that this was the case with my view of morality is not an argument that this view was falty. On the contrary - it is a fundamental necessity of logic.
It's not inherently bad to kill at all. Indeed, provided it's not members of your own group, it's almost universally been seen as a good thing.
If it was ever a good thing to kill members of one's own group, that would be tantamount to gene suicide for the killer. And, hey presto!, those individuals with the suicide gene wouldn't get to pass their genes on to the next generation, and the lineage comes to an end.
For me, the taboo on killing anyone comes about because I see them as being members of my own group. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't feel the same way.
As warpus, you embark on the emotional / evolutionary angle of moral behavior. As warpus, very much correct and very much besides the point.
To me, discovering morality is like discovering a good diet. If it's good, it works and things are healthy. If it's wrong, things are unhealthy
You now follow the path of warpus and Borachio to another depth - not concerning yourself with generalized patterns but submerging into the personal experience of it. Which I find impossible to conclusively comment on as I can not possibly
know what your personal experience of "good" entails.
However, knowing your posting history to some considerable degree, I can say that I admire your moral experience (assuming it is genuine).
I felt that was enough reply for one post.