Morals are the rules by which a society compels its members and
associations to behavior consistent with its order, security, and growth.
Knowledge of history stresses the variability of moral codes. They
differ in time and place, and sometimes contradict each other. They differ
because they adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions. If we divide history into three
stages—hunting, agriculture, and industry—we see that the moral codes of one
stage were changed in the next. In the
hunting stage a man had to be ready to chase and fight and kill. When he had caught his prey he ate to the
full capacity of his stomach, being uncertain when he might eat again;
insecurity is the mother of greed, as cruelty is the memory of a time when the
test of survival was the ability to kill.
The death rate in men, so often risking their lives in hunting and war,
was higher than in women; some men had to take several women, and every man had
to help women to their frequent pregnancy. Pugnacity, brutality, greed and
sexual readiness were advantages in the struggle for existence. Every vice of today was once a virtue in the
past. Man’s sins may be the relics of
his rise rather than the stigmata of his fall.
When men passed from hunting to agriculture, the new environ and
challenges demanded new virtues, and changed some old virtues into vices. Industriousness became more vital than
bravery, regularity and thrift more profitable than violence, peace more
victorious than war Children were
economic assets, birth control was made immoral. On the farm the family was the unit of
production under the discipline of the father and the seasons, and paternal authority
had a firm economic base. Each normal
son matured soon in mind and self-support; all that he needed was aland, a
plow, and a willing arm. So he married early, almost as soon as nature wished.
As for young women, chastity was indispensable, for its loss might bring
unprotected motherhood. Monogamy was
demanded by the approximate numerical equality of the sexes. For fifteen hundred years this agricultural
moral code of continence, early marriage, divorceless monogamy, and multiple
maternity maintained itself in Christian Europe and its white colonies. It was
a stern code, which produced some of the strongest characters in history.
Gradually, the Industrial Revolution changed the economic form and
moral superstructure of European and American life. Men, womn, and children left home and family,
authority and unity, to work as individuals, individually paid, in factories
built to house not men but machines.
Every decade the machines multiplied and became more complex; children
no longer were economic assets; marriage was delayed, premarital continence
became more difficult to maintain. The
city life offered ever discouragement to marriage, but it provided every
stimulus and facility for sex. Women
were “emancipated”, i.e. industrialized; and contraceptive enabled them to
separate intercourse from pregnancy. The
authority of father and mother lost its economic base through the growing
individualism of industry. The
rebellious youth was no longer constrained by the surveillance of the
village; he could hide his sin in the
protective anonymity of the city crowd. The progress of science raised the
authority of the test tube over than of the crosier; the mechanization of
economic production suggested mechanistic materialistic philosophies; education
spread religious doubts; morality lost more and more of it supernatural
supports. The old agricultural moral code began to die.
In our time, as in the times of Socrates (d. 399 B.C.) and Augustus
(d. 14 A.D.) has added to the forces making for moral laxity. After the wars of
Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey, Antony and Octavius, “Rome was full of men
who had lost their economic footing and their moral stability: soldiers who had tasted adventure and had
learned to kill, citizens had seen their savings consumed in the taxes and
inflation caused by war; women dizzy with freedom, multiplying divorces,
abortions, and adulteries. A shallow
sophistication prided itself upon its pessimism and cynicism. It is almost a picture of European and American
cities after two world wars.
History reminds us that sin has flourished in every age. Even our generation has not yet rivaled the
popularity of homosexualism in ancient Greece or Rome or Renaissance Italy.
Prostitution has been perennial and universal, from the state-regulated
brothels of Assyria (25th century BC) to the night clubs of West-European and American cities today. We
have records of 16th C.E. that tell us obscene literatures were
found a ready market; the immorality of our stage differs in kind rather than
degree. We have noted the discovery of dice in the excavations near the site of
Nineveh; men and women have gambled in every age. In every age men have been
dishonest and governments have been corrupt; probably less now than before. The
pamphlet literature of sixteenth century Europe groaned with denunciations of
wholesale adulteration of food and other products. Man has never reconciled himself to the Ten
Commandments or the Gospels.
We must remind ourselves that history as usually written is quite different
from history as usually lived: the historian records the exceptional because it
is interesting and because it is exceptional.
Behind the red façade of war and politics, misfortune and poverty,
adultery and divorce, murder and suicide, were millions of orderly homes,
devoted marriages, men and women kindly and affectionate, troubled and happy
with children. Even in recorded history
we found so many instance of goodness, even of nobility, that we can forgive,
though not forget, the sins. The gifts
of charity have almost equaled the cruelties of battlefields and jails. How many times, even in our sketchy
narratives, we have seen men helping one another? Who will dare to write a
history of human goodness?
So we cannot be sure that the moral laxity of our times is a herald
of decay rather than a painful or delightful transition between a moral code
that has lost its agricultural basis and another that our industrial
civilization has yet to forge into social order and normality. Meanwhile history assures us that
civilizations decay quite leisurely. For
250 years after moral weakening began in Greece, Hellenic civilization
continued to produce masterpieces of literature and art. Roman morals began to decay soon after the
conquered Greeks passed into Italy (146 BC) but Rome continued to have great
statesmen, philosophers, poets, and artists until the death of Marcus Aurelius
(189 A.D). Politically Rome was at nadir when Caesar came (60 BC); yet it did
not quite succumb to the barbarians till 465 AD. May we take as long to fall as did Imperial
Rome!
Morality consists entirely of behavior; every time, place, and
circumstance have their own propriety; he that observes the proprieties of each
occasion attains the rank of a man of integrity, and he that neglects the
proprieties is far removed from the rank of righteousness. The meaning of this
is akin to the dictum of Sufism, “that Sufism is not composed of practices and
sciences, but it is morals,” i.e. if it consisted of practices, it could be
acquired by effort, and if it consisted of sciences, it could be gained by
instruction: hence it is morals that is not acquired until you demand from
yourself the principles of morals, and make your actions square with them and
fulfill their just claims.
A root question: Is morality attainable by religion only or by
secular humanism also? Most religions have an ethical component, often derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance. Some assert that religion is necessary to
live ethically. There are those who would say that we can only flourish under
the umbrella of a strong social order, cemented by common adherence to a
particular religious tradition.
The first ethical will or
testament is found, giving a summary of moral teachings, with the Golden Rule, "Do that to no man which thou hatest!" as the
leading maxim. There are even more elaborate ethical teachings in Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism,
Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Secularism influenced by Hellenistic influence.
Ethics in Buddhism are
traditionally based on the enlightened perspective of the Buddha,
or other enlightened beings who followed him. Moral instructions are included
in Buddhist scriptures or handed down through tradition.
Christian ethics in general has tended to stress the
need for love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness
because of sin. Christian ethical principles are based on the teachings
within the Bible.
The guidance of Islam for ethics and morality has
been laid down in the verses throughout the Qur’an, which identify the
believers as those, “who enjoin good and forbid evil and observe the limits set
by Allah” (Q.9:112).
Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism emphasize the maintenance and propriety of relationships
as the most important consideration in ethics. To be ethical in Confucianism
and Neo-Confucianism is to do what one's relationships require. Notably what
you owe to another person is inversely proportional to their distance from you.
In other words, you owe your parents everything, but you are not in any way
obligated towards strangers. This can be seen as recognition of the fact that
it is impossible to love the entire world equally and simultaneously. This is
called relational ethics, or situational
ethics.
Religion and morality are not
synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion but most religions contain
guidance on ethics. Religion and morality "are to be defined differently
and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in
principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of
value systems or action guides."
Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious
value systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks. Modern
monotheistic religions, such as Islam, Judaism,
Christianity, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism, define right and wrong by
the laws and rules set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted
by their religious leaders within the respective faith. Other religions tend
to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism, the intention of the individual and the circumstances
should be accounted for to determine if an action is right or wrong. In
Hinduism, "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the
categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners,
who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism, this
relativity of values and obligations is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult
to understand".
A number of studies have been conducted on the empirics of
morality in various countries, and the overall relationship between faith and crime is unclear. A 2001 review of studies
on this topic found "The existing evidence surrounding the effect of
religion on crime is varied, contested, and inconclusive, and currently no
persuasive answer exists as to the empirical relationship between religion and
crime." Phil Zuckerman's 2008 book, Society without God, notes that Denmark and Sweden, "which are probably the least religious countries
in the world, and possibly in the history of the world", enjoy "among
the lowest crime rates in the world and the lowest levels of corruption in the
world".
Dozens of studies have been conducted on this topic since the
twentieth century. A 2005 study by Gregory
S. Paul, published in the Journal of Religion and
Society stated that, "In general, higher rates of belief in and
worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and
early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the
prosperous democracies," and "In all secular developing democracies a
centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows.”
A complex relationship exists between religiosity and homicide
with some dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions
discouraging it.
Some studies appear to show positive links in
the relationship between religiosity and moral behavior. Modern research in criminology also suggests an inverse relationship between religion and
crime, with some studies
establishing this connection. A
meta-analysis of 60 studies on religion and crime concluded, "religious
behaviors and beliefs exert a deterrent effect on individuals’ criminal
behavior.”
An ethical
dilemma is a complex situation
that often involves an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives, in which to
obey one would result in transgressing another. Perhaps the most
commonly cited ethical conflict is that between an imperative or injunction not
to steal and one to care for a family that you cannot afford to feed without
stolen money. Under an ethical system in which stealing is always wrong and
letting one's family die from starvation is always wrong, a person in such a
situation would be forced to commit one wrong to avoid committing another, and
be in constant conflict with those whose view of the acts varied. There are no
legitimate ethical systems in which stealing is more wrong than letting one's
family die. Ethical systems do in fact allow for, and sometimes outline,
tradeoffs or priorities in decisions.
According to some philosophers and sociologists, e.g. Karl
Marx, it is the different life experience of people
and the different exposure of them and their families in these roles (the rich
constantly robbing the poor, the poor in a position of constant begging and
subordination) that creates social
class differences. In other words, ethical dilemmas
can become political and economic factions that engage in long term recurring
struggles.
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