Morality

What are morals? Morals are a set of rules that are passed through the generations like smoke posing as concrete. How many times have we heard activists protesting against the immorality of an action? How many times have we agreed with them? We are all perfectly capable of justifying our opinions, boiling them down to a set of basic principles which are socially accepted as constants, but what happens when  try to follow the trail to the end? Each moral can be condensed into one simple concept – the benefit of the individual. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ - the sixth commandment; this is a perfect example – an individual who persuades others to invest in this moral is one who will benefit from survival. The widely accepted ethic that one should honour ones elders can be traced to the reliance of a child on a parent and the rudimentary animal fact that an unprotected infant cannot stay alive. World peace is also not as unselfish as it is renowned to be, as one who encourages peace wishes, at their most selfish level, for safety.

When a youth commits a crime, they are rarely held wholly responsible. Instead it is the parents of the child who are viewed as those at fault, as they have failed to instil a proper sense of morality and respect for the law in their offspring. However, one must then ask the following question; why does the maturity of the adult lead to guilt? Surely they too have learnt morality from their own parents, as have their parents and ancestors before them? In that case, is there such thing as blame? We may place blame on the choices made by an adult, but essentially it is the upbringing and influence of society which determines the outcome of such decisions. Is society to blame? No, society cannot be blamed, as fundamentally this would involve blaming the pillars of society – morals – who rapidly dissipate into dust when scrutinised.

Morality is circular and highly contradictory. Altruism is praised and encouraged, yet those who act with altruistic intent do it either for the warm feeling of honour and decency or because they believe that they should – so the act, in essence is not altruistic. It is committed in order to achieve these good feelings, or the good feelings resulting from society’s approval. This tarnishes the term ‘unselfish’ at its very deepest as the only truly unselfish act would be selfish, or else grudging and therefore not in following with the moral in any case. Humanity is selfish; each individual lives to please only themselves and morals are unfounded rules which aid this process.