Origin of Morals, Communication
Fourth part of the series addressing the requisite and effects of communication for morals. For context please refer to the previous 3 parts:
Disclaimer: This part contains some pokes at religion. Please do not take this personally, I respect everyone's freedom of religion, that should not however mean that I cannot criticise the concept.
Origin of Morals, Communication
As we seen before, morals cannot be individual. First, that would invalidate the concept of moral: if everyone has different morals, then how can we reliably expect those entities to respect the rights and obligations that come with each moral issue? Second, the individual on its own cannot be a moral agent because he needs to reflect onto something else to formulate a moral. So, the issue of communicating morals is essential, between moral entities, locations and time.
Language, the transmission of information from one entity to another, is essential for morals. To be able to share experiences, to dialogue with another entity about values, about what is important to themselves, and eventually to be able to record this in language for the next generation to build upon past knowledge.
Morals are complicated to calculate. The necessary calculations are often abstract and may need new terms and expressions to be developed in the language before even attempting to communicate it to another being. The common principles of communications apply to the moral message: clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete, courteous. The efficiency with which a moral is communicated directly impacts the number of entities reflecting over it and hence increases the value of the moral.
Religious text and dogma just so happens to be a very efficient means to communicate morals. Quick and dirty pragmatic rules, self-justifying so you don’t have to think much before applying them, and plenty of use cases given by stories of messiahs and apostles to help you understand how to behave morally.
In a very real sense God did not create morals, but instead the need for morals created God.
Now one might be inclined to say: “Hey… so religion is awesome after all you atheists.”
Sorry to disappoint you, but no. Unfortunately religion severs a crucial connection: There is no longer a logic and reasonable path from a moral value and a prescriptive rule, there is only the scripture, the text that should not be questioned. So, the morals no longer adapt and grow according the environment and our knowledge of it.
This leaves morals in a static state, unchanging, unquestionable. Worst of all, it also leaves the text open to abuse, since the reason for the rule is no longer questioned nothing stops an ill intended individual to misrepresent rules or even add his own without having to justify their validity to anyone.
Religion was a necessary but flawed method of moral propagation. Philosophy and scientific methods are far more accurate and accountable for the determination of morals. Morals are the compilation of the life stories of millions of human beings over hundreds generations. The repetitions of situations of conflict between two or more entities are analysed. What was once campfire stories can now be more accurately portrayed by history and academic studies that observe the consequences of actions and behaviours. It is essential that those observations are coherent, so the scientific method can be a much more efficient filter than the trial an error of lifetime upon lifetime and of parents passing down their experience to children. Philosophy can then ponder into the future and infer the consequences of the morals as they are conceived, the definition and nuances of the text of the moral can be made more accurate and less ambiguous.
Ethical behaviour can travel much faster if each individual is not only assured, but can also find for himself, why exactly a specific moral is being proposed. The acceptance of the moral can be finally free from dogma if we learn how to communicate morals in a more objective way.
Morals require communication to be effective, and the effectiveness of the communication impacts the value of the moral. The scientific method and philosophy are the best known ways to improve morals.