Where do morals come from?

In my World Views and English classes we’re doing things on morality/human dignity.

I like how my school ties together different subjects at the same time, but that’s another post.

We, as humans, have a heightened sense of morality. As children we know when something unfair or unethical has been done to us.

Humanists believe that these morals come from past experiences. I forget if it was past experiences in an evolutionary kind of way, like moral values being passed down genetically, or experiences as you are alive. I’m guessing a combination of both?

Post-Modernists believe… well what they want to believe.

Christians believe that after we were created by God, that we instinctively know what good and evil is from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (should I capitalize that? It is a title, right?) after our ancestors ate from it.

Also, it is thought that “morality” genes exist. So, according to Christian theory, that tree would have been  the fastest-acting and first gene-modifying drug 🙂 . According to Modernist theory, that gene is evolving with every human experience. Again, Post-Modernist believe what they want to believe.

But a major thing about morals is upbringing. Would a boy that was brought up in a cannibalistic village think that there is anything wrong with killing another human and eating him/her? No! On the other hand, some of us might feel like puking at just the thought of it.

Still that child may feel like their human dignity has been violated when something dear has been stolen. At our core, we know what is wrong. We just learn to ignore what is wrong through our upbringing. I could give countless examples but that’d be pointless.

I have a project due soon that’s supposed to contrast what is wrong with different crimes according to what belief, and I’m having a hard time with Post-Modernism. I mean, everything is different according to the person, right?

That’s what is wrong with Post-Modernism. Developed as a response to “there is only one truth” Modernism, most people born after 1970 have PoMo tendencies.

But, even Post-Modernists have to agree that there is something wrong with killing. One Post-anarchist said that it’s fine to commit a crime if it makes the offender feel good. But what about the victim? I really doubt that that anarchist would be saying “Hey, it’s cool with me if you’re enjoying yourself” while being stabbed to death.

I, too, am a Post-Modernist. I identify with that. I want to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs, and a result find it hard to share my faith despite the Bible telling me that I should be telling people about Jesus.

But I try to follow the moral code given to me by the Bible, and I know that at least 95% of humans on this earth would agree that the 10 Commandments are a good basis for law, except for ya know, that part about coveting what a neighbor has. It’ll be impossible to enforce, and how are we supposed to live out the American Dream without a goal like attaining the wealth of, say Bill Gates, and we are in fact coveting Bill Gates’ wealth.

What I’m trying to say: we as humans all have morals. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from, it matters that we have it. As a result of experiences we may learn to blatantly ignore those morals, but we still have them buried somewhere deep.

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