Can a person have morals

Killing the offspring of the king is not within the bounds of what I consider to be morality even if it is something that human do.

I guess the question then as far as my discussion with you is would humans develop morality as a part of evolution. Survival of the fitest is the mantra of evolution is it not? Does morality not often espouse helping the less fit to survive?

 

I denote morality and virtue to be standards of behaviour that are adopted through learning by example (rather than by adopting standards through a process of intellectual analysis of the choices available).


Morality in any age is the sum of socially-accepted desires and values in that age. These values are a part of language; they can be articulated and so can be made the object of rational analysis.

Society creates morality. Society is more than a collection of people ; it is a set of communal values and individual meanings. I consider values to be objective, and meanings to be subjective. I use this opposition of objectivity and subjectivity to denote the process whereby subjective criteria are created first within the imaginative person, and then become objective criteria once they are shared among the community.

 

In a way this is a chicken and the egg argument.

 

"survival of the fittest" is actually an economics term that was sort of applied to evolution as a short hand. it's not that cut and dried. we're talking about tendencies and trends. plus "fitness" would need an absolute measure of which there is none -- aside from perhaps survial, but that's getting a bit circular.

morality certainly seems to help the less fit survive. however, those that are helped are generally of the same genetic background as those helping. so genetically, it's still a benefit to your genes, even if only remotely.

but this brings up an interesting adjunct to religion and genetics -- natural selection of religion. there are plenty of instances of religious individuals seeking out the less fortunate who are completely unrelated to them, simply to help them. this flies in the face of what i just got thru writing, but in this case, we are substituting genetics of our being with the "genetics" of our ideals. by helping those of our same faith or with the goal of turning them to our faith, our religious programming supercedes our genetic programming and attempts to pass on our religious "genes" instead of our biological ones.

and for what it's worth, just because something is a detriment, doesn't mean it won't happen naturally. animals have eaten themselves to extinction, for example.

 

Like I said before all you really have to go off of is the experiences you have observing humanity. I do not think people tend towards morality. I think they have to be pushed in that direction by something powerful like religion. I can not prove that and neither can you prove morality is a part of evolution. I guess this just another piece of our individual world views.

 

Survival of the fittest is indeed an economic term

Darwin never used the term himself and is often misquoted

Survival of the most adaptable(which doesnt mean the fittest)


Morality has nothing to do with religion
Morality and religion were seperated as long ago as the Renaissance
If not before.

 

yeah. just explaining how i reached my world view.

 

I'm agnostic. I cuss, drink booze, smoke cigars, gamble and have sex even though I'm not married. Other than that, I'm a pretty moral guy. I hope I added something helpful to this riveting thread.

 

In answer to the original question


yes, a person can have morals without religion

Religion is just politics

 

A person can have morals without religion but by accepting morals they are accepting a portion of a religion whether they know it or not.