On morality…
Laws and norms and social codes (as in unspoken rules operating in the background) guide or actions, tell us how to behave whereas morals tell us why we should behave.
Man does not have morals, men have morals.
All are human constructs. As such, there is no universal morality.
A shared morality however is necessary for long term social interaction.
Societal acceptance depends on the obedience of a societal framework, a set of rules to play the game, which along with customs and traditions essentially creates a ethical morality.
For Nietzsche, morality is to be understood through the lens of culture and historical formation, rather than through that of purely rational necessity or divine revelation.
“The boldness to do wrong at first, changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear.”
– Thomas Paine, Letter to the Addressers
When a person aligns their traits with that morality, to ‘seem tolerable to the world’, they mitigate the process of individual individuation in order to conform to social expectations.
There is no good or bad, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story of what we tell ourselves about it.
“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.”
~ Cormac McCarthy
We don’t apply moral agency to animals...man is also an animal controlled ultimately by unconscious drives and instincts.
Perhaps there are so many “good people” in our society not because they have some solid moral framework, but because our basic needs are so abundantly filled. It’s easy to “be kind” when you’ve never been hungry.
Some surmise that if morality is subjective then morality is the first step to insanity. The belief that there can be no absolute certainty as to the nature of good and evil can lead down a dangerous path.
Kant was troubled by Hume’s moral philosophy: that good and evil are based on our feelings towards a certain outcome (thus making it good or evil, depending on how one feels towards a certain outcome). Kant saw the very relativistic and human-centric ground on which Hume placed morality. Under Hume’s system, morality changes from place to place and from age to age. Kant said no — morality is objective, always.
To resolve the issues posed by Hume’s position, Kant developed the categorical imperative which states that one should act in such a way that one wills that it shall become a universal law — that is, one should act in such a way so that the action becomes law for all people across all ages, irrespective of how one feels towards the outcome. For Kant, unlike for Hume, will — intention — behind action is core.
"Just as man needs bodily rest for the body's refreshment, because he cannot always be at work, since his power is finite and equal to a certain fixed amount of labor, so too is it with his soul, whose power is also finite and equal to a fixed amount of work."
~ Montaigne
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
~ Nietzsche
Nietzsche is critical of this notion of moral equality. He believes there are "higher" men, those who are supremely creative and original, who do not require such a morality. Moreover, equality does not really exist in reality. Someone who is vastly superior in some area operates with different rules than the average person. What is true to the virtuoso pianist is not true to the average person plunking away at a piano. The virtuoso has a different set of values than the beginner.
Nietzsche believes this moral equality is dangerous because it drags down the virtuoso to the level of the masses, which prevents the virtuoso from developing their talents into unique, creative works. This is bad because Nietzsche believes that great works are what pushes humanity forward.
Conversely:
“The shoe that fits one person pitches another, there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”
~ Carl Jung
“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
~ Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality (1841)
“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
~ Ayn Rand
"Morality is not imposed from outside; we have it in ourselves from the start - not the law, but our moral nature without which the collective life of the society would be impossible."
~Carl Jung, CW7, On Eros Theory, Page 27.
"There is no morality, no moral decision, without freedom. There is only morality when you choose, and you cannot choose if you are forced."
~ Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 262.
It should never be forgotten - and this the Freudian school must be reminded - the morality was not brought down on tables of stone from Sinai and imposed on the people, but it is a function of the human soul, as old as humanity itself."
~Carl Jung, CW7, Para 30.
"We need more psychology; we need more understanding of human nature. Because the only real danger that exist is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil."
~Carl Jung
Theory of relativity….is morality relative?
Humans are very distinctively tribal creatures due to a variety of factors, requiring an extended family or tribe, to successfully survive and breed.
This has shaped our ingrained morality. What is beneficial for the tribe is moral and what is detrimental to the tribe is evil.
Relative morality
Could the concept of ‘live and let live’ perhaps be a universal moral principle in that no animal should harm anything or anybody except in self-defense or as an item in the food chain?
Even one universal moral principal would disprove the subjectivity/relativity of morality.
“So it comes about that there are many neurotics whose inner decency prevents them from being at one with present-day morality and who cannot adapt themselves so long as the moral code has gaps in it which it is of the crying need of our age to fill.” “…are born and destined rather to be bearers of new cultural ideals. They are neurotic as long as they bow down before authority and refuse the freedom to which they are destined.”
~ Carl Jung, Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis
“Flight from life does not exempt us from the law of age and death. The neurotic who tries to wriggle out of the necessity of living wins nothing and only burdens himself with a constant foretaste of aging and dying, which must appear especially cruel on account of the total emptiness and meaninglessness of his life.”
~ Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation
“The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by his desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence. But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live – in other words, he must commit partial suicide. Only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated, and the whole future is condemned to hopeless staleness."
~ Carl Jung, Theory of Psychoanalysis
Morality versus legality
What's moral is not always legal and what's legal is not always moral. You're a double minded man. If you don't agree with a law then why? Is the law immoral? Or is it irrelevant? If it's immoral you have a moral obligation to ignore it. If it's irrelevant then it's immoral to punish people for breaking it and therefore it's immoral. What's responsibility and immorality do not equate either.
Is morality is bypassed in war?
“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”
~ Sherry, Michael (September 10, 1989). The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon, p. 287 (from "LeMay's interview with Sherry," interview "after the war," p. 408 n. 108). Yale University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0300044140.
“A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.”
~ Curtis LeMay, The World at War: the Landmark Oral History from the Classic TV Series, p. 57
“Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.”
~ Curtis LeMay
“I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting.”
~ Curtis LeMay