Society Survives through Morality (part 1)

My mind was hard pressed today, between all of my classes. I would have posted this earlier, but the boulder wall called for me.

In my philosophy class, our topic was Nietzsche. We were discussing his views on morality, in that morality is relative to one's cultural upbringing; what this idea means is that your morals have all been taught to you and that they are not innate as a human.

In a very general sense, this is true, as nature (personal qualities/ things you're born with) is further defined in nurture (one's upbringing). An example we were presented is when we were children, we were taught to share because it is just the right thing to do, as our parents were once taught, and their parents, and so on.

Here's my expansion of this. I will start with my theory and attempt to explain:

"The morals that exist within a society are held for the sake of the society's progression."

Here's what I mean. First I'll speak on the level of general social morals:

Take the concept of sharing: Why are we taught to share? Certainly "Because we are supposed to" should not be enough explanation for a person with any sense. If you've never thought beyond this generic reason, think of the kids in your elementary school class who did not share; they were snobby little brats that no one enjoyed playing with. As for the kids that did share toys, other kids wanted to play with them too, probably including yourself.

I'm speaking in a very general sense, so bear with me if you're looking for a retort to every idea I have; there are always exceptions for every rule.

At this point, let's put the morality of murder into question: Why are we taught to spare lives and not just kill everyone we don't like? Once again, accepting "Because we are supposed to" is an ignorant choice and you probably are one of those people who needs to actively focus on not biting your tongue every time you eat. Think about the news and whenever you hear that there is a murderer in your community. They have a physical description of the person and a sketch. If you were to go out into the last place this murderer was reported to be and you were to see this person, you would most certainly turn the other way and run like you just pooped your pants at a prom.

This is because you don't want to be killed yourself and, therefore, you want nothing to do with this person (except to have them put behind bars).

For the sake of brevity and your potential interest, I'll continue this idea in a couple more posts, either later today or throughout the week.


Thank you for all the views so far! It's very exciting to see that people are actually reading these!