Morality, really?

Let me say that there is hardly a topic that more people wouldn't touch with a barge pole than this one. This is a highly emotionally charged issue if there ever was one, and the starting points for the discussion cover an exceptionally wide range ... or do they?

That's the common conception, but it needs just a bit of fine tuning. Right at the onset, we have to make a very important, but very fundamental distinction: morality and religion are not the same thing. One's moral views may be based on one's religious beliefs, but even non-believers and atheists can be moral, so morality must be an area of our make-up that goes beyond the merely religious (and I don't mean "merely" in any condescending way). Morality itself is the placed that believers and non-believers can get together and talk about something that matters to both of them. That was the point of my post) half-a-year ago. This time around, I'd just like to approach it all from a slightly different angle.

Morality has to do with what is "good" and "right". We can generally agree more quickly on what is "good" than on what is "right" simply because the latter term is where we start crossing over into the legal domain, so I'll focus more on the former. What is "good"? What's good for me may not be good for you. I handle sweets and chocolate just fine, but if you're a diabetic, you need to watch what you eat. Of course here we're only talking about a matter of degree. In more absolute terms, a bullet to the head isn't doing either of us much good, unless one of us is suicidal and likes guns. That would be a special, and certainly controversial, case. You are most likely starting to realize that morality, what is moral, is a bit difficult to nail down. It's a somewhat fuzzy area. In general terms, what is "good" is what brings benefit, not just for oneself but for everyone; what stimulates positive feelings and emotions not just for oneself, but for everyone; what makes life easier or better in some way, not just for oneself but for everyone.

Funny, but it's impossible to talk about morality without involving others. Whatever we consider "moral" apparently applies to everyone. If anyone is excluded, then we can question the morality of the decision, act or circumstance. Morality isn't democratic, it's not a matter of the majority deciding, rather morality is an absolute, and it would seem either all of us are involved or it just doesn't matter. And this is the very reason, I believe, that we avoid the topic like the plague. How can we possibly agree on something that is utterly and absolutely applicable to everyone? Truth be told, though, we more or less do: I don't know anyone who believes that killing, stealing or harming others is OK. (And for those who claim they allegedly do, at the latest if anyone tries to do any of these things to them, they're the first to complain.)

Don't misunderstand me, please. I know full well that there are people who will kill, steal and harm others. I'm not unrealistic, but we all agree, that such acts are morally wrong. If we don't have laws and mechanisms in place to deal with these circumstances, we have a problem as a society. But here comes the rub: there are too many people running around who think that whatever it is that they did, it wasn't exactly any of the things mentioned. You think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. The next time, I'll start looking at some of these cases. Let's see where that takes us.