(U.1) Standards of behavior or beliefs
consciously held by an individual concerning what is and is not emotionally
acceptable for them to do we shall call personal morals.
Standards of behavior or beliefs held by a society of individuals concerning
what is and is not acceptable for those in the society to do we
shall call ethics or societal morals. Personal
morals are those either formed or adopted by the individual
while ethics or societal morals are those
adopted by the society to which all individuals within the society
are expected to conform. Personal and societal
morals may conflict with each other. When spoken of conceptually
as acceptable standards of behavior or belief for humans they will be called morals.
Both personal and societal morals are
subjective and exist as nimbus of the mind but
may be codified with language which makes then subject to
misunderstanding among individual members of the society.
(U.2) Being nimbus and not corpus,
morals are not governed by the laws of nature. No evidence
exists that they are a part of nature or are encoded in nature.
No evidence exists of a set of natural morals. Morals are
entirely the product of the brain, existing only in the mind.
(U.3) The acceptability or unacceptability of a moral we
shall call its virtue. The emotional value
of a virtue ascribed to a moral is determined
each unus based on the perception of action on
which the moral is based. Morals are the offspring of emotions
of individual unus and their virtues are
not universal among all unus. However, a society may
collectively ascribe a value to each of the societal morals
which comprise its ethics that may or may not coincide with that
of the value of corresponding personal morals of
the individuals in the society. The virtues of societal
morals are often codified as law by the governing authority
the society. These laws typically have a punishment
for noncompliance of individuals in the society associated
with them.
A society may collectively ascribe
a value to each of the societal morals
which comprise its ethics that may or may not coincide with that
of the value of corresponding personal morals of
the individuals in the society. The values of societal
morals are often codified as law by the governing
authority of the society. Conflicts in valuations
between individuals and laws are common.
(U.4) Emotions are acquired through exposure of
unus to actions or by transfer of knowledge of
actions by means of language from others. The media
of that language may include words, images, sounds,
gestures, and combinations thereof.
(U.5) The valuation of the virtue of actions as
a moral action in time present can change
acceptability with exposure to actions in time
future. Morals, both personal and
societal, are not immutable.
(U.6) Morals are not a universal part of is.
The definition of, and acceptability of, any specific moral associated
with an action can be different for each unus.
Emotions are not an element of the laws of nature
but the laws of nature do govern physical actions
arising from them. That is, morals are based on emotions and
the emotions each unus experiences in
response to any specific action can vary widely between unus.
Rather, emotions are subjective creations of
processes in the physical brain which is governed by the laws
of nature. That is, all personal morals, including those
acquired initially by learning, are subject to change as
a result of experience.
(U.7) No moral has universal value of
acceptability or unacceptability. The virtue of
morals is determined solely by each unus or, in the case of ethics,
by the society in which unus lives.
(U.8) No moral is absolute. Any moral may
be overridden by an emotion not a part of the creation
of that specific moral. As an example, a moral commonly
held by both individuals and societies are that no human should
kill another human. But a moral holding that a unus or society
may kill in self defense is also common. The value of
the moral ascribed to the action of
self defense thus subjugates the value of the moral against
killing another human in that particular case, i.e. no moral is
absolute. Societies pass laws sanctioning
the action of self defense against another person and the
government can declare and perpetrate war on their enemies. Further, some
individuals hold that capital punishment is an acceptable moral action
against those who kill others and some societies pass laws
permitting it. Morals create a multiplicity of conflicts both
between individual and within the society in which
they live and leaves it to the brain of each unus
to decide which course of action to pursue by means of biological
determinism. The unus neither consciously decides
the emotion and its virtue nor the decision of
the course of action to be taken. Consciousness only
provides awareness of them.
As a further example conflict of morals on
an individual level, most would not hold that telling a lie is moral action.
And most would also hold it as moral that one should do unto others they
would have other do to them. But suppose that a person walks into the building
where you are employed carrying a gun and threatening to kill a fellow employee.
He demands that you either tell him where to find the fellow employee
or he will kill you, thus creating a moral dilemma for
you. Do you tell him where the fellow employee is to be found and thereby
contribute to their killing or do you refuse tell him or do you apply the moral
to do to others what you would have them do to you and let yourself be
killed? And what if you were your fellow employee and vice versa? No moral is
absolute. No moral is absent the possibility of
conflict with another.
(U.9) Morals may be in conflict to some
degree with each other and can give rise to biological determinism
of the action taken. The resolution of the moral dilemma
in the preceding case is an example. Does your life end with your killing or
does it continue following employees the killing of your fellow employee? The
remainder of your life and that of those who come into contact with you
thereafter are forever altered by the decision made in your biological brain.
(U.10) Morals are not a creation of the USB but
are a part of the USB by way of morals being
a nimbus of unus and of unus being
a thing coexisting with and being an inseparable integral part
of USB. That is, morals are phenomena
we experience as a subjective aspect of the
mind, produced by the brain, and having no material
properties. They can, however, be communicated with language in
terms of acceptable and/or unacceptable actions. "Thou
shalt not kill."
(U.11) Morals are therefore not created by any
transcendental god or gods. They are solely
the product of the human brain.
(U.12) No morals are dictated by the laws
of nature but the laws of nature do dictate the
electrochemical processes in the brain which give rise to morals
as well as the emotions on which morals are
fomented. As an example, the morals of those with conditions of
the brain enabling schizophrenia, a mental condition in
which those afflicted interpret reality at one extreme of
the spectrum of perception, are typically very different than
those of most. This is manifest as large differences in moral evaluations include
complete moral inversion in some cases. Those with schizophrenia
do not accede to generally accepted moral values and make
their own evaluations based on the emotions elicited by
their own experiences in the same society and material
world experienced by others. They do not accede to the communal
ethics of any community in society in which they
live. Bayesian models of brain functioning have link
abnormalities in cellular functioning to symptoms of schizophrenia. Both
hallucinations and delusions have been suggested to reflect improper encoding
of prior experience thereby causing expectation to
excessively influence sensory perception and the formation
of beliefs. Schizophrenia is commonly treated with chemical intervention of a
wide variety of psychotropic drugs that are active in brain chemistry.
But, in the end, schizophrenia is “hard wired” in the chemistry of
the brain as a permanent generic defect and has no cure. It is
just a different configuration of the brain, producing different perceptions of
reality, different emotions and, subsequently,
different morals and behavior. Indeed, to a person
suffering schizophrenia, a “normal” person is the one who is nuts,
living by an absurd set of personal morals. In a society of
persons suffering schizophrenia, the “normal” person would be the
outcast living on the fringe of that society. Morals are
what the brain of each individual makes them to be. And
biological determinism results in each brain being
the unique physical entity that it is and functioning in the
unique way that as it does. While brains are similar in material
configuration and function, no two are alike.
(U.13) Nature possesses no natural morals or
valuations of them. Morals are entirely a
nimbus of the mind of each unus as
a result of mental processes of the material brain. Indeed,
if morals were an aspect of nature, would not every unus have
the same morals and make the same moral evaluations and
exhibit the same behaviors? Would not all unus be
like a pile of rocks, responding in exactly the same way without mental process to
their environment? Would they not be like an amoeba which behaves
in exactly the same way as every other amoeba in response
to the physical world around them? Would natural
morals not be as inviolate as the llaws of nature and
no more subject to human intervention than are the laws of nature?
Would not a moral be a moral in the same sense that
the force of gravity is the force of gravity and we can do nothing to change
that fact of nature?
(U.14) Man has long been myopic with respect to mankind itself. We
tend to anoint ourselves with a great deal more significance than we deserve in
the grand scheme of reality. We humans are about 8 billion
“things” here on earth in a universe with about 2
trillion galaxies each with an average of about 100 million stars in each
galaxy and an untold number of planets circling around the stars just as the
earth circling around the sun. Each day light from a blue supergiant named
'Icarus' reaches the earth after astounding 9 billion years of travel at the
speed of light (186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second in the
material void through which it travels). That is it, the light reaching
earth today left ‘Icarus’ some 4.5 billion years before there even
was an earth, some 6 billion years before living things first appeared on
earth, some 8.994 billion years before our Homo genus of animals first appeared
on the plains of Africa, and some 8.9997 billion years before the Homo
sapiens species that is us first appeared. Is will little note nor
long remember that our species of animal ever existed for a brief moment upon
the stage of reality. Life is a happy accident on a planet
circling a medium star in an average universe. And that Homo sapiens still
exist (unlike other Homo species) is a happy accident. Indeed, we were down to
less than 100 breeding pairs of adults and facing extinction about 70,000 years
ago. But, alas, we adapted and reproduced and have now multiplied to that sum
of 8 billion individuals threatening to overwhelm the planet. While “reality”
dictates how we survive as a living species, reality neither
exist for our exclusive benefit nor makes moral dictates of
how we must live our lives. Reality is bound only by the laws
of nature. And we as humans are bound by reality.
We are but passengers aboard ‘The Good Ship Change & Time’
sailing on the ‘
(U.15) So if morals are not a fundamental part of nature
as are the laws of nature, then what is their origin?
This philosophy posits the source of morals to be the
process of life itself or, more specifically, the biological
imperatives of life to (a) live to long enough to reproduce and (b) to
sustain life of the species to which we belong in order to
reproduce. These imperatives are the sole purpose for existing
as living entities. But the probability of
sustaining the species in time future is quite small. About 90%
of all species of living things that have ever existed are now extinct and Homo
sapiens are the only still surviving species of the 5 known human-like species
of genus Homo. It is only a matter of chance until we, too, are extinct. Reality was
not created for us. We were created from reality by nature following
the laws of nature by the process of evolution from the
first accidental “living” entity as a part of reality.
In the grand scheme of things, we are unique but not special.
(U.16) So it is that the fundamental driving force for all that we experience
as morals is nothing other than the emotion of desire
to survive and the fear of death itself is perhaps our strongest emotion? That
is, humans are fundamentally driven by self interests to thrive
and survive. That begs the question of where in our evolution did what we
experience as morals emerge. Certainly not in the first
evolutionary step of a biogenesis in which organic molecules, following the
laws of nature, underwent replication and polymerization. That process occurs
in thousands of chemical interactions every day without resulting in the
creation of life. Indeed, we use these kinds material in everyday life as
polymeric "plastics" like polyethylene terephthalate (Dacron
textiles, Mylar food storage bags, etc.), polyvinyl chloride (Vinyl coatings, paints,
etc.), and polystyrene (Styrofoam packaging material), to name a few.
But none of them have evolved into living things.
In the second step of evolution, polymerized molecules of
ribonucleic acid (RNA) developed by happenstance following the laws of nature
simply because they chemically could in the unique environment of
the earth either at or near the interface between earth and sky or in the
bodies of water between sky and earth, and at a temperature just above the
freezing point of water at which the organic chemicals necessary for life are
most stable. Indeed, the average temperature of the universe at -454.8 °F
is far, far colder and the temperature of the surface of the sun at about
10,000 °F is far, far hotter. From that environment of the earth emerged
metabolism and cell membranes (cellularity). The process of life formed a
physical barrier between the chemical processes that sustain it and those of
its environment. That is, biological entities emerged. Science
has yet to find any biological organism, including viruses, not
containing RNA.
The third step of evolution involved the development of the
polymer we call deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which carries genetic
information for the development, functioning, growth and
reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses. This enables
multicellularity and cellar specificity of the functions all of those cells in
the organism. But is the single-cell amoeba guided by some morality encoded
in their cellular structure? How about rotifers, the smallest of all known
multicellular animals, having about 1000 cells? Indeed, like humans, they
have DNA directing the development, functioning, growth and
reproduction of the organism; a mouth, a stomach, an anus for
obtaining energy from food; motive appendages (feet) for mobility; and a
cerebral ganglion, the connection between sensory neuron and neurons that
provide sensory signs for motor control of the organism in response to their environment.
If not at this stage, were in evolution at process does what
humans perceive as morality emerge as an agent of
influence in the existence of living organism?
The choices are three in number. In the first case, what
humans perceive as morality is a function
of the mental processes of the brain which controls
our human behavior to some extent. The second case is that morals
are encoded in DNA as is all other information necessary for life of
the organism. The third case, is that morals are inviolate laws
dictated in the same manner as are the inviolate laws of nature
and for which their being is also unknown.
This philosophy rejects the second and third cases on the basis that morals
do not appear to be universal in nature but do appear to be subjective
outcomes to experiences in nature that depend upon
the actions of the humans that are involved. Indeed, few would
say that it is morally unacceptable for a lion to kill a human
for consumption as food or few would say that it is morally unacceptable
for a human to kill a lion for consumption as food but most would say that
it is morally unacceptable for a human to kill another human for consumption
as food. Indeed, every nation in the world has laws forbidding murder and
cannibalism.
Both humans and lions are carnivores and both require food
for continuity of life. Cannibalism is common throughout the animal kingdom.
Ritual cannibalism has been practiced by humans throughout history and even
celebration of the Christian Eucharist, which Roman Catholics deem to be
the body and blood of their Christ, is ritualized cannibalism. Yet we
expect our fellow humans to conform to the ethical codes of
their societies for killing and cannibalism of their fellow man.
.
The fourth step of evolution is the development of larger
and larger brains capable of processing multiple sensory
inputs to result in complex outcomes of biological actions
by the living entity in which it exists. In the
case of humans with arguably the most highly developed brain of
all animals, this enabled the development of both language for
communicating information between members of societies that formed to
better enable the survival of all members as well as the mental process of thought
and reasoning. It is within these societies that
what we know as morals came into being. And first among these was
the ethics that dictates that members of the society should not
kill other members of the society as a means of preserving the life of its
members and consequently life of the species. Similarly, a member of the society
killing anyone within the society was a morally unacceptable
action because it also went against the objective of society to protect its
members.
Killing as an ethically unacceptable behavior,
however, did not apply to others outside the society when it came
to food, shelter and security. Indeed, killing those who threatened you was not
only necessary but also a moral obligation.
These two most primitive of human morals still
prevail in all societies around the world
As human societies continued to evolve in to
increasingly complex societies, more and more increasing
complex morals emerged to protect the interests of
both societies and their individual members. But no common or
universal set of morals evolved as result of circumstantial
differences in societies. Indeed, the morals of societies formerly
separated by geography differ widely. These include the ethical sets of
Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceana, and the
The adoption of societal morals as personal
morals by the individual are dictated largely by the emotions of
fear of punishment and the pleasure of acceptance and reward by the society
in which they live. But all societal morals are learned.
Indeed, a newly infant has no concept of morals or the
consequences of morals arising from their individual actions.
These morals and ethics are largely taught by
parents and family in early life and later by social societies,
and especially religious societies, of which they become a
part. The acceptance of societal morals from those
brought up in the environment of, say, a functional family with
respect for societal morals of their broader society than
in a dysfunctional family with disregard for the societal morals
of the broader society in which they live.
Other personal morals not part of societal
morals may prevail in individuals and be acceptable to the larger society
so long as they fall within the bounds of the societal morals.
(U.17) Morals are stored in memory in
the brain and used as knowledge in making decisions.
Damage to an area of the brain behind the forehead, inches behind
the eyes, transforms the way people make moral judgments.
Those with injuries in this area of the brain express an
increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save the
lives of others. The chemistry and structure of the brain are
directly linked to the creation and use of morals.
(U.18) Both morals and the more primitive emotions
are conjoined by the brain in making decisions.
Emotions bypassing the necessity of thought can and
often do prevail over morals in the process of making decisions.
Indeed, we are ultimately ruled by our emotions.
(U) Morals are those personal
standards of behavior or beliefs consciously held
by an individual concerning what is and is not emotionally acceptable
for them. Ethics are those external standards of behavior
or beliefs held by a society concerning
what is and is not acceptable for members of that society both
individually and collectively. All morals comprising the ethics
of the society are learned. Morals
of the individual ethics of the society for
any specific action by the individual may
differ. Individuals who do not conform to the ethics of the society
are subject to punishment by the governing authority
of the society. Neither the morals of individuals nor
the ethics of societies are immutable and both are
subject to change.
Neither natural nor universal morals exist.
All morals are subjective phenomenon resulting
from mental processes in the brain, saved in memory,
and subsequently used by the brain in making biologically
determined decisions for causing the effect
of course of action taken as a result. The decision
itself is made unconsciously by the brain and perceived ex post
facto in consciousness. Any and all morals
and ethics may be subjugated by
emotions in time present.