Posted: Apr 18, 2016 12:26 pm
Hobbes Choice wrote:zoon wrote:
To say that each person can have their own moral code makes about as much sense as to say that each person can have their own language. There is individuality in the details of each person’s use of language or of morality, but unless they are primarily shared enterprises with agreed-upon rules, both morality and language are useless.
This is a category error.
I like the analogy though. it does illuminate the discussion.
Agreed that within a single society individuals have very different moral codes - so the sharing is much more incomplete that one sees with language, but as you say yourself - individuals develop their moral code in response to the society they grow up in, modified by their personal experiences and probably a host of other unknown factors.
However, as with language - society functions because there are accepted codes of behavior. Stray too far from the accepted code and reactions follow - not consistently as in the prescriptions of law, and indeed varying according to the relative power of the enforcers v the transgressors.
No one that I can see is suggesting that morals are entirely hard wired, however the point I see is that there is some basic level at which social behaviour mandates aquiesence to general principles. This may explain why moral codes are universal among humans.
The question then is whether research can determine what the basics are. As I have outlined above - not harming others is fairly widely shared. There also appears to be a hierarchy of how this is applied - family first, clan second, shared belief group, nations etc. However, that is not a reason to dismiss such a principle - rather to see if this could be validly applied more widely.