Do Christians Actually Have Any Morals?

[chefranden]

 

This goes also to answer chefranden: the internal discussion I proposed was an escamotage to better delineate the context and specific situation. I don't assume that amoral people just have such monologues on a regular basis.

 

However, being amoral does not mean being illogical. An amoral individual would understand the risk and unpleasantness in ending up in prison, knowing that prison ultimately means the impossibility of doing a lot of things when you want and how you want.

 

 

The examples I would tend to prefer would be would be based on "amoral – neither moral, nor immoral", - "immoral, not or the opposite of moral".

 

Therefore my examples of an amoral being would be a lion or a Jackal capturing a baby antelope and eating it alive while it screams. Neither right nor wrong as there is no framework of right or wrong and as the animal is doing what an animal does.

 

People cannot be amoral. People are social animals and are therefore moral beings. People can be wired badly or suffer injury to the moral wiring bits, but very few of those are entirely with out moral feeling. Moral behavior includes what we call immoral behavior. Lets call it positive and negative moral behavior. Positive behavior contributes to the well being of the scocial group, negative behavior detracts from the scocial group's well being. As such I doubt any moral behavior is absolutely good or bad, but depends on the context.

 

Lions and Jackals are social and have their own social norms. Capturing the baby antelope would be positive moral behavior for them, because it promotes the well being of their social group. For them capturing a baby antelope is not an amoral act.

 

Logic is not a factor for an amoral animal. It does not have to consider the social consequences of its actions towards other beings of its species, because there are none. Your example had the fellow contemplating social consequences of eating a baby. An alligator will not worry about eating an alligator baby in the way your example did, because the gator's peers won't give a damn one way or the other.

[Asuryan]

People cannot be amoral. People are social animals and are therefore moral beings. People can be wired badly or suffer injury to the moral wiring bits, but very few of those are entirely with out moral feeling. Moral behavior includes what we call immoral behavior. Lets call it positive and negative moral behavior.

 

 

Exactly. This is what I said in my firsts posts in this thread I was talking about the improbability of the existence of a truly amoral human being. The examples I made were to show that it is much easier to be Immoral (or, negatively moral) than to be Amoral (without any morals at all).

 

 

 

Logic is not a factor for an amoral animal. It does not have to consider the social consequences of its actions towards other beings of its species, because there are none. Your example had the fellow contemplating social consequences of eating a baby. An alligator will not worry about eating an alligator baby in the way your example did, because the gator's peers won't give a damn one way or the other.

 

That goes without saying. I almost completely agree here: logic is not a factor for amoral animals, it is a factor for humans, because our brain enables us to understand and use it; however, there are some moral animals. And, yes, even animals that can get preoccupied with the social consequences of their actions. Now I'm thinking about certain species of monkeys: but I don't want to post about them without researching a bit more about the topic first, so eventually I'll come back to the topic with more about moral monkeys.

 

However, I don't think that morality is only about suffering consequences towards other beings or your own species. Sure, shame and social rejection have a part in it, but they're not all there is to following morals. Much of our moral sense is interiorized: I would feel disgusted by the idea of eating a child even if no one would be around to discover it, ever. You call it Interiorized "Other" or Superego, as you like most. The others teach us morals while we grow up, but once we are grown up those morals have become a part of our behaviour even without anyone around. Not always, mind you, and not for *all* moral or immoral acts - it is much easier for someone to see a wallet on the ground and grab it for themselves, than it is for someone to actually take a bite from a child after slowly roasting it in an oven.