IP_SEC wrote:How can morality be explained? There are some things that we universally see as right and wrong. Do we all agree that murder is wrong? Rape is wrong? Child abuse is wrong? Do we all feel a disgust for people who do these things?
Every system of morality is dependent on assumptions. As PeacefulPete noted, even if you're a theist and you believe that morality comes from God, then your morality is based on the assumption that God is moral.
Altenate assumptions for morality are a) that one should seek the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, b) that one should avoid causing any suffering when it is not necessary to avoid greater suffering, c) that one should only do something if one wouldn't mind everyone else doing it as well, d) that one should seek one's own long-term happiness and fulfillment, e) plenty of other possibilities.
The key is that whether you assume that God is moral, or you assume any of the purely humanistic postulates I listed, it is impossible to prove that your assumption is correct. All you can do is choose whatever foundation seems best to you, and build from there.
If we are merely machines, animals with some strange permutations, what is right and wrong? What mechinism decided to plant the alteration in us that some things are acceptable and some arent?
Long story short: morality is a product of natural selection. Morality enables co-operation, and people who are able to co-operate survive better, and hence reproduce more, leading to long-term evolutionary success.
But the evolutionary purpose of morality is survival, not moral consistency. That's why our moral sense is generally more acute when there are consequences, and why we often tend towards a self-serving morality that minimizes our own fault at the expense of others.
A funny thing happened on the evolutionary road, however. When humans' language ability combined with our moral instinct, we actually got the ability to reason through moral issues, and thus be more consistent than our moral instincts would lead us to be. That's how morality became larger than its evolutionary origins.
