What is your moral standards based on?

Utilitarianism.

Do the right thing. Period.

Pretty much the golden rule. Treat others how I would like to be treated. Other than that it’s based on my life experience, learning from people I admire as well as those I despise.

Basicaly, I take the whole “What ever floats your boat and don’t sink mine,” mentality.
and I stay as open minded as possible.

My moral standards are based on the accumulated weight of the things I have been taught, the things I have observed, the things I have experienced, and the things I have learned.

Standards? Who says I have standards?

Whatever seems right at the moment. And what syz said.

I try to be honest and kind and put myself in others shoes. If I am doing those things then I feel good about myself and whatever I am doing. It has seemed to work. I didn’t learn it from religion and don’t really know much about religion but I think they teach that in the bible. I learned it from social interaction because I have been surrounded by lots of people my entire life and I probably decided which things I liked about them and tried to do that. I don’t know because I think we have some sense of morality at a pretty young age.

relativism.

The Affirmations of Humanism:
A Statement of Principles

* We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
* We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
* We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
* We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
* We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.
* We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
* We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
* We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
* We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
* We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
* We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
* We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
* We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
* We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
* We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
* We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
* We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.
* We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
* We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
* We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
* We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.

A combination of these: my conscious, my religion, my friends, my parents, my knowledge, personal opinion, and common sense. The seven morals. This makes a reliable, almost mistake proof decision. Yet still, I and others ignore most of these so we can get or do something we want at the time or regret later, which is part of being human…making mistakes and learning from them…if you need to think fast, compare what you would do compared to Jesus or your great grandma or someone you greatly admire.

Yah most of that was from my grandma but anyhow

Live and let live.

My moral standards are based on the (crap load of) Dragon Lance books I read as a kid. I know that sounds crazy but they are what truly taught me the raw difference between good and evil and how one can sometimes fade into the other.

The greatest good for the greatest number (insofar as I understand it). We’re all in this boat, together, and it’s packed to the gills. Carefull how you move, or you’ll knock someone into the ocean!

so how does society affect your moral standards? does your moral standard change based on the society you live in? if we lived in another time for example, would we have to adapt the societal norms of that time?

Actually, morals are fairly universal. The same rules work for almost all people, no matter the religion, government type, or other beliefs. This is because morality is, above all else, practical.

Etiquette rules change from society to society, but the standard sense of morality remains.

@ daloon – i have to disagree. if moral standards are the same across societies, why is pornography, prostitution, promiscuity and others socially acceptable in some countries/ cultures and aren’t in others? why is it ok for some cultures to have gender bias and double standards and yet not in others?

@ petethepothead- “Utilitarianism” the doctrine that all actions are to be judged in terms of their utility in promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

is it socially acceptable for you for society to kill you in the event that you or a loved one you had were invalid and no utter use to society, but rather detrimental since keeping you or your loved one around is not as efficient to the whole scheme of things as just getting rid of you?

animals would be better off i think if we lived in a utilitarian world. its always seems easy to say to forget the needs of others when its not us were talking about… but i dont think thats a world i would like to live in, but maybe that’s just me…

@jac, I don’t know of a society where pornography, promiscuity and prostitution are socially acceptable, much less morally acceptable. Don’t confuse legality with acceptance.

I’m also not sure whether gender bias is so much a moral issue, as an appropriateness (or etiquette) issue. In societies that make women what we might consider second-class citizens, they claim that they are actually elevating the status of women.

In any case, I used “fairly” as a qualifier. I’m not saying absolutely universal.