What is morality? Is it absolute?

[Hevneren]

I've been wondering about people's take on morality. I had a brief discussion about morality in another thread, where it was suggested that morality is absolute and not dependent upon laws or or what we personally agree or disagree with.

I wondered how morality could be something constant and absolute, when society's views on right and wrong have changed a lot. We abolished slavery in the West not long ago. Was slavery moral when it was legal, but it isn't now, or was it always one or the other?

If there is such a thing as absolute morality, then who gets to decide what that entails? There are things most human beings can agree on, like not killing each other in cold blood or not raping children, but then there are matters such as loans and interests (moral?), abortion in the case of rape (moral?), letting 10 strangers die to save a loved one (moral?), using stem cells from fetuses to help severely ill people (moral?) etc. There are many things for which the conventional wisdom of past centuries have no answer.

If absolute morality doesn't exist, does that mean that morality is arbitrary and doesn't have any kind of framework upon which to build upon? Does it mean that our actions are not determined by right or wrong but by what we feel to be right and wrong? And if that's the case, then how great is the disparity between what we personally think and feel, and what the "rule book" says?

I think my personal perspective on morality is that we form our morality based upon what is good for the greatest amount of human beings, and that we form this morality based on this understanding and based on our own conscience. What is your perspective on morality?

[Saturni]

Morality isn't a "thing in itself." It has no independent existence. It is simply a thought.

Contrary to what some religious minded folks will like to tell you, there is no universal morality, no cosmic model of good and evil, no summum bonum/malum residing out there in ether.

Nietsche, I think, summed up all moralities best when he wrote,

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

[Curtis24]

Morality is "whatever does the most good for one's community". Behaviors associated with morality can very drastically depending on the environment.

For instance, in ancient Greece it was considered highly moral to aggressively attack a city-state, enslave its people, and enrich and empower one's own city. Men who could pull this off, were considered the moral equivalent of Gandhi. Of course, in the modern day, such actions are atrocities and violation of international law...

[Hevneren]

Morality isn't a "thing in itself." It has no independent existence. It is simply a thought.

Contrary to what some religious minded folks will like to tell you, there is no universal morality, no cosmic model of good and evil, no summum bonum/malum residing out there in ether.

Nietsche, I think, summed up all moralities best when he wrote,

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

So, power is always good and the lack of it always bad? How about the notion that power corrupts?

[Sturmgewehr]

Morality is a concept just like rights they are imaginary cute concepts but that is about it.

Morality is relative just like everything else in the universe except god if one believes in god.

What could be moral for a culture can be immoral for another culture.

Take polygamy, in the Middle east it is a Normal thing it is moral and no one is gonna call u crazy if u practice it, ok I know u would say it is a muslim thing but no it is not true, take European Muslims like Albanians, Bosniaks, Pomaks (Bulgarian Muslims ) and Torbeshs(Macedonian Muslims), all this ethnicities consider polygamy immoral and if u practice polygamy here you are insane so it is all up to cultures and people's mentality and morality differs from place to place and so on.

[Oreka Bailoak]

I don't like it when all faith in a universal morality is cast in doubt, all morality relativized, and all simple contentment destroyed, by those who abstractly criticize just so far as to question the most basic foundations of social order, but not so far as to uphold them.

If there is such a thing as absolute morality, then who gets to decide what that entails? There are things most human beings can agree on, like not killing each other in cold blood or not raping children, but then there are matters such as loans and interests (moral?), abortion in the case of rape (moral?),

There's obvious universal morals and there are grey moral areas. Both can exist at the same time.

If absolute morality doesn't exist, does that mean that morality is arbitrary and doesn't have any kind of framework upon which to build upon?

It exists in some areas and not in other areas.

Does it mean that our actions are not determined by right or wrong but by what we feel to be right and wrong?

Depends on the situation.

And if that's the case, then how great is the disparity between what we personally think and feel, and what the "rule book" says?

There is no rule book.

I don't understand why people keep talking about a single moral code for everything- like it can only be an extremely abstract moral code or an extremely definitive code- why not multiple moral codes depending on the situation.

Contrary to what some religious minded folks will like to tell you, there is no universal morality, no cosmic model of good and evil, no summum bonum/malum residing out there in ether.
Nietsche, I think, summed up all moralities best when he wrote,

So when you see a hurt child and you have the option to help him and there are no other effects, not helping him isn't evil? No, this is a case when an obvious universal morality comes into play- either good or evil.

Nietzsche was a mad man.

[Saturni]

So when you see a hurt child and you have the option to help him and there are no other effects, not helping him isn't evil? No, this is a case when an obvious universal morality comes into play- either good or evil.

Nietzsche was a mad man.

Nope. Nor do you have a legal duty to help anyone in distress.

Universal morality is the stuff of Sunday morning sermons. Each man is the maker and breaker of his own morality.

As for Nietzsche, he was a prophet,if there ever was one.

[Saturni]

So, power is always good and the lack of it always bad? How about the notion that power corrupts?

And just who came up with the notion that power corrupts? Certainly not the power who are exercising that power.

[Magister Eckhart]

Morality is absolute and eternal. Morality is by definition the sense of righteousness that descends from Truth, above which there is no else and besides which there is nothing purer. It is derived from what is eternal within a man; to will against it derives from what is unhallowed and mortal in man. No argument against morality is therefore valid or can be made without utter and absolute denial that man has anything eternal in him, and no argument for morality can be made or is valid which does not recognise the eternal in man.

Morality is unchanging and untouchable, no matter what a man does morality does not change, no matter what he feels or how he thinks or what he opines will touch it, for feelings and thoughts and opinions may touch the eternal but do not belong to that species of things which are eternal. To make an argument based on what society views as "right" today and what society viewed as "right" a century ago is therefore not a discussion of morality, but a discussion of sentiments and opinions which, though they may touch the eternal, are ultimately unhallowed and as corrupt as any man to whom they might occur.

This of course creates a problem, for how does one detect the difference between that which is eternal and that which merely touches the eternal? History and tradition have handed down to us living today an answer to this in the means by which Uncreated Truth contacts Creation, which has been called the λόγος; the singular being and person which could be this λόγος is Christ; the answer therefore resides in the faith and teachings of he who is called this, namely Christ Jesus.

I'm not expecting much agreement with any of the above, as most respondants to this thread are as a stubborn and pig-headed in their hatred of Christianity as I once was. Only time, reflection, and education can ever overcome the wilful ignorance that produces anti-Christian sentiment.

[Breedingvariety]

In absolute sense- morality is absolute. In relative sense- morality is relative. Absolute is more true than relative.