Dear Saltpetre,

Anyone can act morally, but most don't want to.

Humans and animals are not different in essence: both are just a bunch of organic molecules which follow the laws of physics, so no morality is expected of either. However, morality can be expected of YOU, or anyone else who for the time-being happens to occupy a body.

If you rather work with "a collective 'whole'", then you prefer to work with a lie, or a false premise, or with blindness. This includes the delusion of "common interest".

That you value the survival of one body over another, or of one type of body over another is not a moral issue, but a personal preference.
While there is nothing wrong with having a preference, acting on preference rather than on moral principles, is what leads us down the garden-path.

The highest level of morality is to turn the other cheek; to avoid seeking any earthly justice, but instead to trust in God's justness and be equally content and thankful with whatever He brings into one's life. In fact the very highest level of morality is not to be born in the first place, but if for any reason or combination of reasons you are unable/unwilling to follow this, then there are lesser alternatives.

One reason why a universal moral-code is impossible is this multi-level morality. For those who cannot/would-not turn the other cheek, the next alternative is honourable defence only as a last resort. There are people whose natural and divine calling is to do just that: these are natural leaders and warriors, so they have their own code of secondary-morality. They are duty-bound and happy to sacrifice their life and limb for the well-being of others.

Modern society, however, is NOT led by the above who follow this secondary-morality. Modern society is led by greed, lust and darkness.

True leaders that follow secondary-morality are far between, so democracy unfortunately, which gives equal say to the masses, while preventing the worst type of dictators, also prevents true leadership by the above.

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For those who cannot/would-not follow even secondary-morality, there are lesser-still levels of tertiary-morality, including codes of honest-dealings and abiding by the laws set by the above leaders. However, that's not possible when society is not led by them.

Social-deviants are of two kinds: better and worse.
You only mentioned the latter.
Those who are deviants for the better, do not harm society, but typically seek a higher purpose rather than being part of it.

True leaders who follow secondary-morality do, in self-defence, rid society of the those deviants-for-the-worse, but revere those who are deviants-for-the-better, never suppressing them or ordering them around as they do for deviants-for-the-worse.

So in order for society to pursue even relative morality, the notion of 'equality' must be done with. We are not equal because some of us take greater responsibility and higher levels of morality than others.

We also need to let go of this victim-mentality: "I can't help it, it's my body...". If you chose to associate yourself with this particular body, then you ought to take responsibility for that choice of yours!

That's exactly my point, Saltpetre

>>Pericles, Would they not, or some at least, consider the annexation of their former tribal territories by an outside 'invader' to be immoral?<<

A society that allows people to own property clearly considers land ownership itself to be moral.

Theft - annexation, if you will - is usually regarded to be immoral.

Land ownership = moral; theft = immoral.

In the case of aboriginal land, it may well have been the situation that ownership of land was previously considered immoral in their societies, so they didn't practice it. However, in more recent times, they seem to have decided that ownership is not immoral after all.

Either that, or it was never immoral in the first place - they just hadn't thought of it before.

"Either that, or it was never immoral in the first place - they just hadn't thought of it before."

Could it have been a clever case of mystical logic similar to that in: What if it's trees moving that creates the wind?

What if it is the land (permanent) which 'owns' the people (transient stewards)?

Yuyutsu...?

Dear Trevor,

<<What if it is the land (permanent) which 'owns' the people (transient stewards)?

Yuyutsu...?
>>

Had morality been widely followed, then the need for ownership would not arise in the first place.

The reason we want to own things is that we feel unsafe, afraid that others will come and deny our needs, thus we use the concept of ownership to fortify against them.

It seems that in the old days aboriginals used to have other, if not better, methods to ensure that their needs are met, so ownership did not cross their minds. Now that they either lost access to those methods or those methods themselves lost their power, they recourse to ownership.

As for the earth, it has no needs to be denied (well, I do not believe in Gaia, do you?), hence it has no need to own anything or anyone.

Note that science discovered four elementary forces in nature (gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear and electromagnetic). Ownership is not among them!

"(well, I do not believe in Gaia, do you?)" No, because I see no reason to believe in it any more than Gaia believes in me.

"Note that science discovered four elementary forces in nature (gravity, strong nuclear, weak nuclear and electromagnetic)."

Yet I can't help thinking that is only because sneaky old nature doesn't want us to discover the other fundamentals... yet.

"Ownership is not among them!"

That does not stop me feeling sorry for all those molecules caught up in processes beyond their control and suffering involuntary theft of electrons by force.

I've heard it said that love makes the world go round, though I suspect it is gravity and that centrifigal force then makes it go pear-shaped