Moral Theories

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Moral Theories

A. Morality comes from God. Therefore, moral behavior is that behavior that conforms to the will of God. Immoral behavior defies the will of God. The will of God is correctly interpreted by the Church. Rating: 6. I was feeling this one, until the last sentence. There are so many denominations, and the reason is that they disagree with one another. Many religions interpret what the will of God is differently, not to mention incorrectly. I do believe that a big part of morality comes from God.
B. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Rating:1! Ahhh, the Golden Rule-you gotta love it. I suppose the only problem is like the example in the book of the African tribe that eats their dead, if I died there, they would eat me because they would want to be eaten. Very tricky.
C. Be whatever you are; do whatever you want to do—just as long as you don’t hurt anybody. Rating:7. This sounds to me like humanism, although I’m not sure anymore if I know what that is. If this were something we lived our lives around, then it doesn’t sound like there would be many people helping out others, just themselves.
D. The end justifies the means. An action is “right” if it ultimately produces largely beneficial effects, “wrong” if it produces harmful effects. Rating: 2. I like this one, and I say it quite often (I’m not sure if that is good or bad). Someone used the example of war, and I agree with that.
E. There is no universal morality. Moral values come from the laws and norms of the society. Therefore, what is morally right in one society could be morally wrong in another. Rating 4. Doesn’t the answer to this one really decide if you are an objectivist or realist? My husband and I argued this one, and he is a strong objectivist. I am caught in the middle because I don’t understand how you can truly impose your beliefs on people that have no idea what we consider to be right. What if people tried to do that to us?
F. People never act immorally deliberately. When a person acts immorally, it is because he or she has a mistaken notion of what is truly good. Immoral behavior is ignorance or stupidity, not wickedness. Rating 9. Whoa, do I disagree with this one. I do believe many people do wrong things because of ignorance, but there are many people who do things wrong and they do it knowing that it is wrong.

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