Morality (from the Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages, have inherited and moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal meanings.
In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of or proper practices for an individual or organization. Related concepts include ethical codes and honor codes or a set of beliefs distinguishing between right and wrong behaviors. In its descriptive use, morals are arbitrarily and subjectively created by philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language, religion A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth. Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art,, and/or individual conscience Conscience is an ability or a faculty that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It can lead to feelings of remorse when a human does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to such norms. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and. An example of the descriptive usage could be "common conceptions of morality have changed significantly over time." The arbitrariness of morality stems from the observation that actions that may be deemed moral in one culture in time may not be classified as such in others or in a different time. The subjectiveness of morality is shown by the observation that actions or beliefs which by themselves do not seem to cause overt harm may be considered immoral, e.g. marrying someone of the same or opposite gender, being an atheist or a theist, etc. Descriptive morality does not explain why any behavior should be considered right or wrong, only that it may be classified so. For the most part right and wrong acts are classified as such because they cause benefit or harm, respectively. However, this is not by any means an all encompassing criterion; it's possible that many moral beliefs are due to prejudice, ignorance or even hatred.
In its second, normative and universal sense, morality refers to an ideal code of belief and conduct which would be preferred by the sane "moral" person, under specified conditions. In this "definitive" sense, claims are made such as "Killing is immoral." While descriptive morality would not necessarily disagree that killing is immoral, it would prefer to say, "Many believe that killing is immoral." A refined adherence to this latter position is known as moral skepticism "Moral skepticism" denotes a class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal, claim that moral knowledge is impossible. Moral skepticism is particularly opposed to moral realism: the view that there are knowable, mind-independent moral truths, in which the unchanging existence of a rigid, universal, objective moral "truth" is rejected.[1]
In its third usage, morality is synonymous with ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts like good and bad, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc. Ethics is the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain.[2] Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics Applied ethics is, in the words of Brenda Almond, co-founder of the Society for Applied Philosophy, "the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment". It is thus a term used to describe attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics Normative ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when we think about the question “how ought one act, morally speaking?” Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics because it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics Descriptive ethics, also known as comparative ethics, is the study of people's beliefs about morality. It contrasts with prescriptive or normative ethics, which is the study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act, and with meta-ethics, which is the study of what ethical terms and theories actually refer to. The following), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being ethical theory and applied ethics. Ethical theory and applied ethics make up), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Some use the term "moral psychology" relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. However, others tend to use the term more broadly to include any topics at the intersection of ethics and psychology . Such topics are ones that involve the mind and).[3]
In applied ethics, for example, the prohibition against taking human life is controversial with respect to capital punishment Capital punishment or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" . Hence, a capital crime was originally one, euthanasia Euthanasia (from the Greek ευθανασία meaning "good death": ευ-, eu- + θάνατος, thanatos (death)) refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner. According to the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, the precise definition of euthanasia is "a deliberate intervention undertaken with the, abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo, resulting in or caused by its death. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced, in humans and other species. In the context of human pregnancies, an abortion induced to preserve the health and wars of invasion An invasion is a military offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory, forcing the partition of a country, altering.
In normative ethics, a typical question might be whether a lie told for the sake of protecting someone from harm is justified.
In meta-ethics, a key issue is the meaning of the terms "moral" or "immoral". Moral realism This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of cognitivism. Moral realism stands in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism, including ethical subjectivism , error theory (which denies that any moral propositions are true), and non-cognitivism (which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all). Within moral realism, the two would hold that there are true moral statements which report objective moral facts, whereas moral anti-realism In philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality of entities of a certain type or the denial that verification-transcendent statements about a type of entity are either true or false. This latter construal is sometimes expressed by saying "there is no fact of the matter would hold that morality is derived from any one of the norms Social norms are the behavioral expectations and cues within a society or group. This sociological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors." These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to follow the rules can result in severe punishments, prevalent in society (cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887:); the edicts of a god (divine command theory This makes divine command theory a subjectivist yet universalist form of cognitivism. Divine command theory stands in opposition to other forms of ethical subjectivism , as well as to moral realism (which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts, independent of anyone's attitudes or opinions), error theory (which denies that any); is merely an expression of the speakers' sentiments (emotivism This makes emotivism a form of non-cognitivism or expressivism. Emotivism stands in opposition to other forms of non-cognitivism , as well as to all forms of cognitivism (including both moral realism, and ethical subjectivism)); an implied imperative (universal prescriptivism); or falsely presupposes that there are objective moral facts (error theory Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the meta-ethical view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong. This view can lead to amoralism). Some thinkers hold that there is no correct definition of right behavior, that morality can only be judged with respect to particular situations, within the standards of particular belief systems and socio-historical contexts. This position, known as moral relativism In philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect universal moral truths . Instead, moral relativism makes claims relative to social, cultural, or historical circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Relativistic, often cites empirical evidence from anthropology as evidence to support its claims.[4] The opposite view, that there are universal, eternal moral truths are known as moral absolutism Moral absolutism is the meta-ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, devoid of the context of the act. Thus lying, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done to promote some other good . Moral absolutism stands in contrast to categories of ethical theories such as consequentialism and situational. Moral absolutists might concede that forces of social conformity Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. This influence occurs in both small groups and society as a whole, and it may be the result of subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity also occurs by the "implied presence" of others, significantly shape moral decisions, but deny that cultural norms Social norms are the behavioral expectations and cues within a society or group. This sociological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors." These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to follow the rules can result in severe punishments, and customs A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom define morally right behavior.
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Michael Wade
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:49:00 GM
There are so many substitutes used in our society-- substitutes for eggs, substitutes for wood, substitutes for diamonds-- that perhaps we should not be too surprised to find substitutes for . morality. as well. One of the most widespread ...
Q. From where do we derive the ideas that we define as morally correct and incorrect? I have always assumed it is religion, but have recently began to ponder over another possible source, the conscience. Is morality something that is inherent in human beings, or is it something that has been adopted from religious doctrines?
Asked by bigmac - Sat Mar 1 13:44:44 2008 - - 10 Answers - 0 Comments
A. G*d.
Answered by Capt. Mark - Sat Mar 1 13:56:29 2008
