Morals....
Its a strange subject (to me), but I wanted to throw it out and see what others think about it. And I'll try to talk about it without getting all "social-sciency" about it.
For me, the idea of values falls into different categories. There are ideals -- those concepts and beliefs that are fixed, over-arching (and often universal) that we strive for, but often never reach because the variability of human nature makes it impossible for the vast majority of us to achieve them.
Morals are the values we take with us when we deal with people day-to-day. They are subjective and variable and we are able to regard or disregard them as is necessary for a given situation. We are capable of acting in ways that are contrary to our given morality (and some do so regularly), but it doesn't negate the fact that we value whatever it is we're negating/disregarding.
For example: You know a person who hates gossip. They rarely engage in talk about people they KNOW, but spend a large amount of time reading gossip magazines or watching shows on TV that purport to report the "news" about famous people. The talk avidly to their friends about famous people and make judgment calls about their sanity, relationships, clothes, etc.
FOR ME -- a person like this dislikes gossip only when it is about people that they know, for strangers (or famous people), it is okay. (Maybe this isn't the best example, but I'm going to let it stand....)
This is not to get down on folks who star-watch OR the person who enjoys the occasional juicy piece of gossip...but I'm trying to illustrate that "morality" is variable depending on the situation.
What do you think?
[There's more detail to this story...maybe I need to flesh out the context a little more...]
For me, the idea of values falls into different categories. There are ideals -- those concepts and beliefs that are fixed, over-arching (and often universal) that we strive for, but often never reach because the variability of human nature makes it impossible for the vast majority of us to achieve them.
Morals are the values we take with us when we deal with people day-to-day. They are subjective and variable and we are able to regard or disregard them as is necessary for a given situation. We are capable of acting in ways that are contrary to our given morality (and some do so regularly), but it doesn't negate the fact that we value whatever it is we're negating/disregarding.
For example: You know a person who hates gossip. They rarely engage in talk about people they KNOW, but spend a large amount of time reading gossip magazines or watching shows on TV that purport to report the "news" about famous people. The talk avidly to their friends about famous people and make judgment calls about their sanity, relationships, clothes, etc.
FOR ME -- a person like this dislikes gossip only when it is about people that they know, for strangers (or famous people), it is okay. (Maybe this isn't the best example, but I'm going to let it stand....)
This is not to get down on folks who star-watch OR the person who enjoys the occasional juicy piece of gossip...but I'm trying to illustrate that "morality" is variable depending on the situation.
What do you think?
[There's more detail to this story...maybe I need to flesh out the context a little more...]