Ask Lemmy

Occasionally i hear the phrase “there is no morality outside of human society”. I believe, what is meant by it, is that you cannot say whether something is morally right or wrong in nature, if it isn’t part of human society.

More or less.

It depends on who says it,. but the general idea is that since morality is defined by humans for humans, we cant really apply morality outside of that.

For example, when a turtle eats a bird (here’s a video about it), you cannot say whether these deeds are “good” or “bad”. It’s part of nature, it’s part of the circle of life, … if these things didn’t happen, the bird couldn’t be alive in the first place.

Correct.

Now, i’ve had some interesting talks yesterday with a close friend about what “morality” really means. They very certainly assured me that morality is simply the construct and the set of rules that society uses to organize itself to make itself more successful. In other words, morality aids the fitness of the group, but not necessarily of the individual. Do you agree with this view?

No, this is a really bad "understanding" of morality. Morality is a system of code about behavior which involves evaluative judgments about actions and the people taking them, and specifically about if a behavior is "moral" or "immoral" with "moral" generally equating to "good" and "immoral" generally to "bad".

To make it simpler, morality is a collective judgement about if something is "good" or "bad" based generally about how a majority of a population can be expected to react.

And if so, would that entail that the beneficial effects to the group can overwrite the wellbeing of a single individual?

By your friends definition, sure.

Where do you draw the limits?

Very very much depends on the population.

Like if some republicans claim that some women cannot decide themselves who they are/should be in a relationship with … does that derive from that view of morality?

Yes, because by the republican judgement, women having a choice is bad.

When you are speaking about morality, you need to clearly define what group is making the judgement.

What do you respond to that?

Its pretty well known that republicans think women having a choice is bad.

I’m seriously wondering because all these discussions make my head spin and sometimes i wonder truly whether i even know anything at all… How can you find certainty in what’s morally acceptable and what is not?

You cant, Morality is subjective, more or less by definition. What is "good" or "bad" will always depend on who you ask.

Some groups like to make lofty claims about how morality is for the greater good, notice how those people never seem to decide that morality decides they should sacrifice for "the greater good," and how "the greater good" always seems to mean "what's good for this specific in-group"