Philosophy Now Forum

Is there a basis in nature for morality? Is there such a thing as a natural right, natural law, or natural justice? Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)? Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality? Is there such a thing as a natural right, natural law, or natural justice? Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)? Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

This is basically Locke's position in his, "Second Treatise on Government". Locke takes up the idea found In the political writing of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes claims that men and naturally aggressive and war like if left to their own devices. This is why Hobbes believed that men require themselves to submit to a monarch. This way every individual is granted the right of self-protection. Humans give up certain rights in exchange for protection from the monarch and protection from other individuals. This takes the form of a social contract.

Locke disagrees with Hobbes on the essential nature of humans when left to their own devices. Locke see humans as naturally rational and recognize the benefits of being co-operative. Locke, calls this, 'a state of nature'. In this state of nature there will be occasions when men transgress and the injured party have the right to justice.

Locke also recognizes that in a state of nature men make their own judgements of right and wrong and this can lead to a situation where most are biased if favour of their own situation. Clearly there is a need for a common judge to make fair and reasonable decisions over disagreements.

To cut a long story short Locke sees men organizing themselves into a society for the purpose of obtaining this benefit. In other words, a society with institutions capable for carry out this role. So yes, Locke would probably say, that it's our ability to reason that leads to the type of society we have today.

If you are an American, then you would probably see that it was Locke's political philosophy that is important for the implementation and maintenance of your Constitution and Bill of Rights. Like most Enlightenment thinkers of the age Locke was at pains to make sure government was grounded in reason and NOT grounded in religion.Overall we can say that society is grounded on the idea of a 'state of nature' -a condition of man that existed prior to there being an organized society to grant such things as natural rights.

Some people take 'natural rights' and 'natural law' to be one and the same.

Thank you….I'm taking intro to phil and need help to grasp these concepts.
I appreciate your time in answering….

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality? ...

Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

Welcome to our forum, R2D2

Yes, there is a basis in nature for morality. Our brains are hard-wired to create value: everything we say or do we think will be the way that brings us the most benefit at the time we say or do them - if maybe not at another moment in time. We all aim for the Good. Plato and Aristotle believed this since more than2500 years ago. And it still holds. Brain neurology shows though that we may incur an Amygdala highjack - to use a term from Goleman who wrote the book on Emotional Intelligence. This is bad for us and often results in Immorality.

The answer to your second question quoted above is: Both. Everything is realtive to everything else; we are influenced by the culture into which we were born. However, many manage to transcend that culture. {Reecall the movie Fiddler on the Roof which centers on the shedding of old traditional ways, as individuals and societies modernize, and become more civilized (and often, in the process, more ethical.)}

I wrote a thread on these issues which you may find helpful, and enlightening. See: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9512
Also, there is one here, by prof, with the title What is Morality? that gives a new, a 21st-Century, meaning to the word. Look it up. ...if you want a different angle on the topic.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10207&start=0

Also, once you get past the technicalities, reading BASIC ETHICS may help you succeed in school. Check this out too. http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf

Thank you very much Prof!

I'm taking intro phil on-line....I don't know what I was thinking !

But I'm super stoked I found this forum! I can't believe all the help I'm getting

MUCH APPRECIATED!

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality?

Of course there is. Survival of the species. Every species with a brain has rules of behaviour that enhance its ability to perpetuate its kind. Every social species has rules of behaviour that places the long-term interest of the gene-pool above the short-term interest of the individual.

Is there such a thing as a natural right,

No; "right", both as the opposite of wrong and as what an individual is entitled to, are human concepts. They do not exist in nature prior to their expression in human language. However, many species that predate humans have social organizations, status structures, prerogatives and obligations, hierarchies and pecking orders, leaders and followers, allowable and unacceptable behaviours according to one's position in the social structure.
A right is whatever an individual is able to do that the rest of the group allows him or her to do. The group might be a family, a clan, a tribe, a city-state, a nation or a federation of nations. The laws of the larger organization generally supersedes the laws of the subsumed smaller organization, but sometimes local self-government is accepted.

natural law,

Yes: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology.

or natural justice?

Do well, you live. Do badly, you die. Hard winter, you probably die anyway, even if it's not your fault.

Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)?

Since they're having to invent it year by year, situation by situation, reason would be a far better aid than religion, which is some long-dead guy who probably couldn't even write dictating (through intermediaries with their own axels to grease) rules from a whole different continent, climate, culture and time period to people he could never have imagined.

Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

Social systems are bigger than individual cultures, but they all have some aspects and requirements in common. Lots of people who are not blood-related, and maybe don't even like one another much, have to live in close proximity and interact daily, without excessive bloodshed. The basics are universal; the details are mostly BS.

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality? Is there such a thing as a natural right, natural law, or natural justice? Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)? Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

Depends on how you see it, if there's any genetic memory, then no, but human mind is very flexible and adaptable.

No there is no natural law of morality, it is a constructed concept based on human civilisation and thusly according to nature and evolution and concerns about death, natural phenomena such as earth quakes and so on. God or gods likewise are constructed in the same manner often reflecting what men cannot comprehend about reality. Hence Thor was in fact right, that ferking hammer is bloody heavy. Odin refused to comment.

HexHammer wrote:

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality? Is there such a thing as a natural right, natural law, or natural justice? Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)? Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

Depends on how you see it, if there's any genetic memory, then no

Genetic memory aka instinct you mean?

but human mind is very flexible and adaptable.

So's clay what is your point?

Insitnct is a part of genetic memory.

The term instinct is a predecessor to the scientific term: "genetic memory", why you can see creatures with very elaborate behaviour that hasn't been taught. The kuku hatchling will instinctivly push all competetors out of the nest, due to genetic memory. Creatures and their elaborate mating rituals, etc etc, all due to genetic memory.

Blaggard wrote:

but human mind is very flexible and adaptable.

So's clay what is your point?

We can be taught highly irrational behaviour that may contradict our inherent natural behaviour.

R2D2 wrote:Is there a basis in nature for morality? Is there such a thing as a natural right, natural law, or natural justice? Can human beings know something about right and wrong through the use of unaided reason (i.e., without the help of revealed religion)? Is morality relative to culture, or does it transcend culture?

1) yes, but most people use metaphysical basis for morality, which are relatively easy to loose faith in
2) yes. Natural Right is that which when all things considered shows itself as being case when things are sufficiently satisfying, usually with respect to an individuals wishes, but when people share thoughts it can be with respect to the group's sufficient satisfaction. Natural law are the base rules which cannot be broken even if you want to, it has nothing to do with morality though. Natural justice is the even distribution of goods according to some criteria found by looking into a person's sense of natural right. In judiciary the natural justice would be the principle that all are equal before the law, in politics, depending on your angle and viewpoint, it could be that all are equal to pursue and/or that all should equally be granted any specific number of goods.
3) yes. You can know that a situation is wrong by being physically affected by it. For instance, seeing somebody sick or dying or desecrated can cause you to feel nausea. This is a natural alarm against the appearance of bad things in your experienced world, and you can treat this nausea by applying notions of what's "proper" or "right" or "necessary" or "good" etc. Anything from sending the sick to a leper colony to helping them get doctoral aid.

"hell is other people."

Sartre.