I've been pondering how morality would work if there was no absolute reference point like a god-ordained set of laws.
Morality essentially is about how we behave, either personally or towards others. Those who don't believe in god-ordained laws would say (I presume) that the personal aspect of morality is irrelevant as long as it does not harm the community.
So there is actually an absolute moral law here: the law of community preservation, and in an evolutionary sense this law is an extention of the self-preservation law. In other words, our prime drive is to survive, but we need community to do that long term, so we have to balance personal survival with community survival.
I have a slight philosophical issue with this survival of the fittest law. If there is no god, no eternal purpose outside this universe, then what we are just IS, and if we all implode into nothing tomorrow, then that also just IS. Neither surviving nor not surviving is to be preferred. The answer to this of course is that the law just IS, so we can't question it. I find that a little convenient.
But I digress.
So in the absence of god-laws we have a morality based on maximising the survival of the individual, and the society that supports that individual.
Unfortunately we have different societies, with different views on what is "right", i.e. what benefits the society and the individual. This means that one group has no right to judge another group's views. So Hitler's acts just ARE, neither good nor bad. Ok, our society might differ in opinion, but that's all it is: a different view. The fact that the Allies went to war reflected on (i) how strongly they believed their view, and (ii) their ability to go to war, i.e. their might as a "fitter" group. If the Allies had lost then the "right" view would have been Hitler's.
Its also wrong to think that the LATEST society is the also the most successful. Think of evolution like a maze: there are many possible branches and cul-de-sacs and even if you are happily walking along a long passage with no end in site, you don't know until you've reached the end whether your route is a dead-end or not. And even if you did last the longest, is that because you were successful or just lucky?
All of this is just my opinion, right?
