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Morality

Essay by   •  October 17, 2016  •  Creative Writing  •  468 Words (2 Pages)  •  835 Views

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All morals are merely the imposition of societal norms by authority figures. We are born with primal instinct alone, and without the presence of established ethics, we would never come to adopt the accepted views of "good" and "bad". Absolutes, in this world, don't hold any bearing in nature, for the circumstances in nature are so volatile that any singular moral system would fail within a short period of time. Instinctual reactions to environmental stimuli with the end goal of survival would prevail.

Our minds, at birth, are merely a substrate on which the various people in our lives plant and grow ideas about right and wrong. Political and religious views come as a result of upbringing, with those who maintain liberal ideas having a generally more liberal childhood, while those who maintain conservative views having a generally more conservative childhood. In a sense, parents and other prominent figures in a child's life inadvertently, or perhaps even intentionally, brainwash the malleable mind of the minor into having a certain perspective on the world. A person raised in a household with same-sex guardians is much more likely to be accepting of homosexuality than if the same child were raised in a household of strict Catholics.

Remove the premise of society entirely, and there is little foundation for any moral objection to any actions. If all people living now were to be placed into a state of nature, such effects would not be as immediately obvious, for the residue of a prior moral system would still exist, only to eventually be replaced by a code that revolves around survival.

A child, therefore, left completely to his own devices at birth (assuming they could somehow receive proper nourishment without violating this rule) would be forced to develop his own code predicated upon what would be best for self-preservation. When an obstacle of any sort arose, he would be forced to resort to this code to decide what to do. If, for example, he needed food and found another person, he would most likely kill and eat this person, having never been told that killing and cannibalism are morally wrong. In the interest of self-preservation, they are very acceptable.

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