During further research into topic of morality I discovered the following.
Per excerpt below which meshes with my current understanding, knowledge of “morality” is based on unchanging Natural Law(“Ground”) (essentially the Golden Rule) is restricted by who we are. Given that who we are fluctuates this adds even more variation into defining it. I’m not suggesting basic morality is relative to a person or culture but how we perceive it is. Applying basic morality to a current culture is another matter but first things first.
“In other words, the Ground can be denoted as being there, but not defined as having qualities. This means that discursive knowledge about the Ground is not merely, like all inferential knowledge, a thing at one remove, or even at several removes, from the reality of immediate acquaintance; it is and, because of the very nature of our language and our standard patterns of thought, it must be, paradoxical knowledge. Direct knowledge of the Ground cannot be had except by union, and union can be achieved only by the annihilation of the self-regarding ego, which is the barrier separating the “thou” from the “That.”” —Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 1945
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Here’s a perspective on current issues—social need driven answers to moral questions. Still, first things first I say.
“Moral questions may not have objective answers but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need. To bring reason to bear upon social relations, to define a rational answer to a moral question, requires social engagement and collective action. It is the breakdown over the past century of such engagement and such action that has proved so devastating for moral thinking.” —Kenan Malik, The Quest for a Moral Compass, 2014
During further research into topic of morality I discovered the following.
Per excerpt below which meshes with my current understanding, knowledge of “morality” is based on unchanging Natural Law(“Ground”) (essentially the Golden Rule) is restricted by who we are. Given that who we are fluctuates this adds even more variation into defining it. I’m not suggesting basic morality is relative to a person or culture but how we perceive it is. Applying basic morality to a current culture is another matter but first things first.
“In other words, the Ground can be denoted as being there, but not defined as having qualities. This means that discursive knowledge about the Ground is not merely, like all inferential knowledge, a thing at one remove, or even at several removes, from the reality of immediate acquaintance; it is and, because of the very nature of our language and our standard patterns of thought, it must be, paradoxical knowledge. Direct knowledge of the Ground cannot be had except by union, and union can be achieved only by the annihilation of the self-regarding ego, which is the barrier separating the “thou” from the “That.””
—Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 1945
[Start edit/add]
Here’s a perspective on current issues—social need driven answers to moral questions. Still, first things first I say.
“Moral questions may not have objective answers but they do have rational ones, answers rooted in a rationality that emerges out of social need. To bring reason to bear upon social relations, to define a rational answer to a moral question, requires social engagement and collective action. It is the breakdown over the past century of such engagement and such action that has proved so devastating for moral thinking.”
—Kenan Malik, The Quest for a Moral Compass, 2014