Chapter II - Amoralism

Ok so its time for Chapter II on why some of my foundational beliefs clash with those of the religious men and women of the world. This time the article is based on the nation that there does not exist a objectiv morality.

I for one does not believe that morals have no use. I absolutely think that morals and ehics are of great use but I lack a belief in the absolute existence of moral laws.

Religious people often claim that there is a right and a wrong way to conduct oneself. This set of morals derive from a static source, it does not change. This source is God, in their minds perfection itself. Using perfection to describe their God is a way to further claim that God is totally static. Think of it for a second. Nothing that is perfect can become less or else it wouldnt be perfect in staying perfect. If it were to ecome something more than it already is then i wasnt perfect in the first place. Now my basic premise is that all is change and I cant see how one can say that this change is perfect. Maybe perfect imperfection or alike is a better way to say it. It is nothing and it is all but neither by itself.

With this in mind there cant ever be anything static and this is also true of morals. Apart from my disbelief in any personal, anthopomorphic, concious gods or godesses this basic premise of the universe is in great conflict with the notion of static values.

My firm belief is that humans create values for themselves. Some of it is very similar all over the world, other things are area specific and some are even specific in a very small circle like a family. These can appear static but are always in more or less change. We are brought up with certain values some of which we cling to for the rest of our lives and some which we leave at a very early stage.

For Immanuel Kant the importance lies within how one acts and not what the result is. This is because he believed in a static morality and the action itself is regarded to be good or evil even before one can see the results. For me the value does not lie in the action itself, even if the intent can have a great importance too, but one really needs to see what the result is before judging. Christianity, islam and judaism are all filled with static morality that one even gets punished for breaking. Even a system which I think at its core is amoral like taoism does include notions of objective morals, or at the very least alot of readers have made interpretations like that when reading the tao the ching for example. Hinduism is very multi-faced but does include alot of static morality as well, or morality derived from the gods.

Ayn Rand writes:

The clearest symptom by which one can recognize [the amoralist] is his total inability to judge himself, his actions, or his work by any sort of standard. The normal pattern of self-appraisal requires a reference to some abstract value or virtue—e.g., “I am good because I am rational,” “I am good because I am honest,” even the second-hander’s notion of “I am good because people like me.” Regardless of whether the value-standards involved are true or false, these examples imply the recognition of an essential moral principle: that one’s own value has to be earned.

The amoralist’s implicit pattern of self-appraisal (which he seldom identifies or admits) is: “I am good because it’s me.”

Beyond the age of about three to five (i.e., beyond the perceptual level of mental development), this is not an expression of pride or self-esteem, but of the opposite: of a vacuum—of a stagnant, arrested mentality confessing its impotence to achieve any personal value or virtue.

Do not confuse this pattern with psychological subjectivism. A psychological subjectivist is unable fully to identify his values or to prove their objective validity, but he may be profoundly consistent and loyal to them in practice (though with terrible psycho-epistemological difficulty). The amoralist does not hold subjective values; he does not hold any values. The implicit pattern of all his estimates is: “It’s good because I like it”—“It’s right because I did it”—“It’s true because I want it to be true.” What is the “I” in these statements? A physical hulk driven by chronic anxiety.

This is where I disagree. I personally regard myself as amoralist but in the sense that refer to a lacking that the concepts of moral right and wrong have any absolute and objective existence. This does not mean that there are no morals or that I dont have any values. I absolutely have values, morals and goals. I really look up to some of these values and try to shape my lif after what I think would be ideal, but that is what would be ideal for me. Not for everyone else or even for someone else. Morals are ever changing and subjective. To create a society the illusion of static morals are very much a necessity though. Somehow alot of people can seem smart when alone but become idiots in a group. Without any morals there would probably be raging chaos everywhere. But then again I do not believe that man can exist without creating morals and values for him/herself and everyone else. They may not be static but some way there will always be some kind of system to keep people in line.