Howdy Tentative, all…
I think there are three layers to morality with regard to people:
[i]As moral as you were made to be.
As moral as you could be.
As moral as you can be.[/i]
To start with - In my view, there is only one moral fundamental - from which all the others are derived. “Do not cause/allow suffering.” not “do not kill”. Think of someone related to you dying slowly and agonizingly in a hospital bed, conscious/semi-conscious, an expression of utmost suffering upon their faces - the morphine ain’t cutting it, and the doctors are throwing up their hands. At some point - “do not kill” goes out the window. Think of someone tortured, fingers crushed, eyes put out, guts twisted out on a spike - irrevocably damaged. Mercy, they cry with what’s left of their tongue. And you give it to them. You do not through inaction, prolong their suffering.
Do not be the cause of suffering ripples out, to do not kill, to do not harm physically, to lesser suffering causals, do not take the possessions of others, do not lie when in doing so you would cause others to suffer, do not envy - for that is the precursor of theft/physical conflict, do not commit adultry, do not break a vow when others are depending on it/you… Then it ripples out more - to include those not of your species - animals, and then perhaps to anything that you can convince yourself, can suffer. It all stems from the basal.
Made to be:
So - I say we are made to be moral, only in that we are preconditioned with an aversion to activety that causes expressions of suffering on the faces of those with whom we’ve formed strong emotional bonds with from infancy. Note I do not say family - a baby/infant will bond with whoever (or in extreme cases - feral children for example - whatever) protects them and cares for their needs. This allows some flexibility, ie: the possible suffering of yourself and of those you regard as intimate to you, outweighs the suffering of those you do not - you may cause pain and suffering to percieved competitors/enemies of yourself and/or the group, with a relatively clean conscience, at least at this primitive level of morality.
Could be:
The most rarefied level of morality known and described - but not necessarily yet achieved - by the society you find yourself in. The tippity-top of the moral iceberg, a state of responsibility/empathy for everything within your possible sphere of effect. A life choice in which the individual tries to preserve physical self without directly causing harm to anything, nor allowing those/that which they are able to aid to suffer. An impossible, and frankly damn near inhuman pinnacle, only slowly being approached/made possible in real terms with the aid of technology.
Can be:
This is the compromise position where we all live. We get our moral conditioning at first from those we accept as family and friends, then later from the various institutions/factions of society we come into contact with/are influenced by. Then we adapt and rationalize the morality we have absorbed: Grey it, bend it, completely disregard portions of it, over-emphasize others - dependent on our personality to some extent: For the hawkish some the amount they think they can safely get away with, and the percieved levels of risk involved with the consequences should they fail. For peacock others - the moral level at which they wish to be perceived by others as living. And for the more sincere few - the level of morality which they think they can achieve for an acceptable level of personal sacrifice.
For some the decision to live at a chosen level of morality is taken out of their hands - a man, or woman may cut moral corners for the furtherment/maintainace of their family - the primitive moral code, almost always overwhelming the social. very few would deny their sick child treatment out of principle, and a great number of people would do almost anything, however immoral - to gain the wherewithal to aquire that treatment.
Our ‘can be’ moralty is also dependent on our social/material status. We cannot all be Stoics living in barrels - each of us have our comfort threshold. Their is a personal limit to what we are prepared to sacrifice for a clean conscience. It is easy to live a moral and socially upright life - if you have the material wealth to insulate you from having to make moral choices. The richer you are, the easier it is to live a lifestyle which, at least on the surface, harms no-one. What you may or may not have done to get to that point of material wealth is another matter. The richer you are, the easier it is to give significant portions of that wealth away to help others.
But scrape away people’s creature comforts and you also scrape away the moral swaddling of the majority of them. Make them compete harder for limited resources, and you will find the higher levels of morality get lost along with struggle to survive.
Scrape harder - take away all comfort, shelter, food, water, and even the most primitive levels of morality get dissolved - and you end up fighting your brother to death over a bacon sandwich. Well, maybe not your brother, but certainly a nasty part of your brain will be thinking about it.
Anyway -
I’d give my definition of abstract morality as the point where the basic “Do not cause/allow suffering” becomes so diffuse as to involve pretty much everything. More mundanely - Morality is a system of checks to free-will, to guarentee the survival of the group/society at the expense of the indivdual.
I’d say “Do not cause/allow suffering” though not universal at the moment - is the way it’s heading, at the pace of technological advancement in the case of the masses, and much faster for the very few.
Ultimately, morality is defined personally and sits at the point where the “made to be” meets the “could be” in any given individual, dependent on their variables of material wealth/beliefs/responsibilites. Rather than being fixed - this definition gets updated constantly. The boundries of anyone’s definition contract and expand according to their ability to act effectively upon the abstracts they choose as moral, and still preserve self image, or, at the extreme - their physical self. No-one wishes to hate themselves for any length of time - so rationalization of moral boo-boos brings an eventual downgrading of moral values back to a workable threshold, should a transgression be consciously made or forced.
The consequences of moral actions (judged as right by self) - are emotional well being and peace of mind, the consequences of moral actions (judged by society of one of its members) acclaim and praise/material gain, and possibly - a greater likelyhood of procreation.
The consequences of immoral actions (judged as wrong by self) - is initial mental anguish, fading along a time period accordant with the perceived magnitude of the wrong , the consequences of immoral actions (judged by society of one of its members) denigration, shunning, loss of freedom, loss of privileges available in said society, lowered certainty of procreation.
(Though of course, the consequences of immoral actions, undetected/overlooked/illicity condoned by society, can be extremely beneficial to the individual involved. And thus the little devil on our shoulders never loses his silver tongue)
Time for bed.
)
, am I.