Before we talk about why morality changes, there's two things we need to understand first:
1)
Morality in a Darwinian context. - You guys made it here yourself and I'm proud of you (particularly Bacon Guy). Whenever we ask anything about ourselves that reaches as far back in time as morality, it has to make sense in a Darwinian / evolution / natural selection context.
Evolution and common sense tell us humans who are able to cooperate with one another have a tremendous advantage over humans who cannot. Athena pointed out that morality is present in other mammals and not just bonobos, but all apes, whales, canines, some felines, dolphins and elephants.
Our morality has evolved, but we've leapt far ahead.
2)
The proper timeframe. - Biologically, we're little different from our cave dwelling ancestors who would have seen fire and stone tools as "technology". The small group of hunter/gatherers. The pack. The extended family unit.
That is what our morality has evolved to deal with.
Actions which harm the group are negative to us. Actions which benefit the group are positive to us.
The more complex our society becomes, the more room for interpretation there is in our morality. The "group" becomes amorphous; family, co-workers, neighbors, neighborhoods, cities, counties, countries, sports team fandoms, etc. We all belong to dozens of groups and often what's helpful to one is harmful to another. Spend time with your family or go down to the corner to hang out with the guys at the bar?
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Quote by: Tinybear I disagree. If moral values are genetically based, how come they can change from time to time and are so dependent on external and often man-made factors? |
As I stated, our morals didn't evolve to deal with a society as complex & sophisticated as our own... so we spend a lot of time arguing and being unsure. Does the death penalty protect society by eliminating a deviant or harm society by deliberatly ending a life?
We make interpretations of these basic genetic morals. Societies base their morals on the collective interpretations of their members.
Consider the bombings during WWII and the bombings during Gulf War II. In GWII, Chenney and Rumsfeld are seen as warhawks... men who want to wage war. By WWII standards, these two would have been seen as bleeding heart liberals. Both men were repeatedly on television making apologies for (compared to WWII) "small" numbers of Iraqi civilian casualties.
In WWII, we the American people knew that we were bombing the hell out of civilians and we were
okay with that. "Some kraut lives next to a gun factory? Guns that are killin' our G.I.'s? Screw 'em! Darn kraut prolly works there..."
Our morality does change. Why and how it changes are matters of speculation. There really isn't one specific thing that changes our morality. From the time of WWII to GWII, warfare became far more precise. Now, there's no reason to have tons of civilian casualties... so in that instance our morality has changed due to reason and facts.