He'll be right back. He had to go to the chemistry store to buy some human ingredients.

I think the debate drifted far off the original question here. The question was about the "existence of a 'moral code.'" Most on the previous pages was talking about the content or other characteristics of some codes or a universal code.

Starting with definitions:

"Code" is a set of rules, also called norms or principles, I don't think the direct wording matters here, which are prescriptive. Ie. Each rule should contain at least a prescription in which direction some behaviour has to move. I'd call this the SHOULD-characteristic.

This was fairly easy. The more difficult topic is to define "moral" resp. "morality." Apparently everybody agreed to the fact, that "morality" is a characteristic of rules that are directly derived from values and not from other rules. So I shall take this as its defining element. Mathematically speaking:

Be V a set of values and R a set of rules and m : V --> R a mapping that maps each value into a rule. This mapping is called "morality" and the image of V under m also m(V) is called "moral code."

To answer the question of KC:

As long as values exist, there exists a moral code.

Note, that the moral code changes when the values change and that this is no bijective relationship.

Further note, the values may or may not be shared among individuals, so there is a possibility for concurring moral codes. Assuming that any individual is consistent (which is not the case, I know) this implies that there are as many possible moral codes as there are individuals. To take inconsistency into account, there is not only one definite mapping m but there are card(P(V)) possible mappings for each individual.

So this sheer quantity leads me to the conclusion that the development of a SHARED moral code (which maybe overlapping with individual ones) is a matter of convergent evolution. If you look back in kindergarten or elementary school or talk to your children, esp. the very young ones, you'll notice this convergent evolution on an individual level, if one prefers grandeur, one can look at the convergences in the development of law or any other social thing.

Also, the existence of violations of a certain moral code does not negate its existence. but the whole framework above also demonstrates that there is no universal moral code (not even "survival" is a strong enough value).

Here's what Jesus had to say when he was asked what the great commandment is:
Matthew 22:36-40
New Living Translation (NLT)

22:36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Footnotes:
a. 22:37 Deut 6:5.
b. 22:39 Lev 19:18.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22:36-40

OK referring to my comment on the nazis and people not knowing what was happening, that's bullshit. Mein Kampf clearly stated Hitler's plan of killing the jews (the fact that he was going to kill them not HOW) and if you don't believe me READ IT. Whether or not they participated- statistics show that 98% of nazi households had mein kampf- they are still to blame for helping Hitler by putting him into power.

and to awgray saying that the radical muslims are being hated on by society you misunderstand. OUR SOCIETY hates what they are doing. OTHER MODERN SOCIETIES hate what they are doing. MY POINT is that THEY AS A COLLECTIVE believe what they are doing is right. I dont agree with it but they are a society that condones murder.

THIRDLY back to the point when awgray said that a 5 year period window cannot determine a society will guess what? it did. The Society of Nazi Germany (not all of germany only nazi germany) was defined in those 5 years.

LASTLY my first point was that some people are fine with murder in whatever degree and some civilizations are also fine with it.

my second point is that since nobody know what the purpose of existence and life is, one person's views cannot be proven wrong in comparison to another's. If you somehow found out the meaning of life then please post it so we can make a definitive statement about who's wrong and who's right.

@X3n0n

I agree with that statement completely, my problem was that ag7433 thought that
EVERYONE agreed on a single set of morals or at least most of them. I agreed with that to a point but arguing over wording brought us all to each other's throats.

I simply believe that when judging even the most radical views you must take into consideration that there morals are different than yours and you have no more reason to believe your ideas than anyone else. To keep peace and liberties safe morals can be formed based off of that but others may base morals off of fear and hate. All in all humanity over time has chosen the values which keeps them the safest to implement. I LOVE that they chose to otherwise the world would be chaos but I also see why others create different views.

Is there a set code of morals out there? maybe, but i dont think weve found it yet

I never said that every individual agreed on the exact set of morals.

I was talking about a group at large. If you haven't grasped that by now, then either you can't understand what I'm saying, or I'm saying it poorly.

<points at you>

I don't think we should be arguing over wording, so it would have been easier if you would have just went with it and we could have progressed the topic.

LOL @JamesYanik

You can't win this argument. Even with a the worst groups of people in the history of the world, they did not condone what ag is talking about in regards to murder. If I were walking down Berlin in 1940, I could not just shiv someone in the eye socket and not have a reaction. Therefore, murder was not accepted by that society.

Same holds true with ISIS. Random terrorist A can't just shiv random terrorist B in the eye as they're chanting death to America and not get some sort of punishment. Why? Because murder isn't acceptable.

Certain forms of it, sure, but murder being accepted because of what it is - just no.

And I laugh that you're twisting scenarios around to prove morality doesn't exist, when if anything these scenarios prove that even among the most twisted and evil groups of people in the history of the world - morality of some sort existed.

@ag7433 HERE IS YOUR POST FROM EARLIER:

Society is collection of individual people. If as a society (group of people) they all agree that Murder is wrong, and then you take the aggregate of multiple societies, and all of them agree that Murder is wrong, then it's acceptable to say there is a universal moral code against Murder.
INDIVIDUAL QUOTE "ALL AGREE"
also @awgray -what i was saying is a society that condones murder for whatever reason they have may to the rest of us it APPEARS senseless. EARLIER (this may have been confusing) TrPrado and I were making the argument that there were Psychopaths who were fine with killing people at random. Those are two different arguments and @ag7433 was trying to twist them into one That was not what i was saying

Society-->'murders' with a purpose, other societies disapprove
Individual psychos--> murder that has no purpose, all disapprove

ag7433 made it look like the societies i was talking about loved murder as a senseless action whereas that was for a different argument i had made

also @awgray Your last paragraph is wrong. Wrong!!! I said morality is formed around VALUES, such as a morality formed around peace and love and liberty, then there is one formed around hate and anger and death, The morals are different and (I personally prefer the first) neither can claim to be the 'correct' moral code because there is no 'correct' moral code. Only a nice one, a mean one, and however many other values you could build it off of.

variations of morals exist so the idea that there is only ONE moral code is misguided, remember the definition of moral

concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.

However what is right or wrong is interchangeable. my philosophy is: the right is niceness,love, caring,peace....... the wrong is violence,death,murder,war

others may have different ideals but those are their MORALS. The word itself can manifest into sometimes opposite forms

James: A societal moral code (the common assets of the moral codes of the majority of the society) applies to actions of that society's members. When applied to murder, it would be one member of that society murdering another member of the same society. Members of ISIS would not condone (as awgray pointed out) the murder of another member of ISIS. Similarly, Nazi Germany would not condone the murder of people who were German and not Jewish, disabled, gypsies, etc. The people they kill are part of other societies because they have a major sense of societal pride (nationalism).

Tristen, I understand what you are saying but if you think about the situation in the world today, I'm sure America has sent at least one assassin out there to kill someone but they deem it okay because it matches what their beliefs (however different from your idealistic communist beliefs) made them believe it to be necessary, whether one of those beliefs was greed or protecting freedom i dont know i just know that it can and probably has occurred. now if you'll excuse me im going to go eat candy before dinner like a responsible teenager

Abdulrahman al Awlaki seems like a good example for the sort of thing James is talking about.

James, if you add parenthetical commentary like that and keep a serious tone, people will assume that the comment is serious. I'm not a communist. Also, I'm not discrediting that, it's just that they justify it by saying they aren't "part of society" or that they were "a threat to society."

I think a good way to put it is this:

The vast majority of people do not condone murder when it happens to them. Therefore, to some degree, the vast majority of people do not agree with murder, at least when it applies to themselves.

TrPrado you dawg i earlier mentioned that we joked about communism READ DAMNIT

KingCyrus: Yeah, that is the best way of putting it.
James: I refuse.

So the problem seems to be not when someone murders, but when there's no clear cirterion to murder... is what some of you were trying to say?

But I wonder if that can be catalogued as morality. I'd bet that if you could made an experiment with chimps, where one chimp in the community started killing other chimps without reason, the other chimps won't tolerate him well.

And I would not say that chimps have morality.

What for me seems a big problem, is that, if I really want to kill some people, and justify myself from a moral point of view, why couldn't I invent a "valid reason" for which that guy should be killed.

I want to point out that there are cases in which murder among members of the *same* society is well accepted:

1. A turkish dinasty: when the head diead, the heir was not only allowed but obligued to kill all his brothers and even cousins, everyone who could have the minimmal reason to aspire to the big position. Of course, there was a good reason: you had to avoid any possible internal conflict for power and there would never be internal wars.

2. mexicas. If the astrologist said that you had to be killed, you had to, and, if that was said at the moment of your birth, it was not important what your position were in society, and you had to be happy cos your destiny after death was gonna be best one. Every now and then, the priests dictated a certain quantity of humans to be killed.Of course, there was a good reason. The Sun god needed human blood to feed and keep having energy to rise every day and allow plants graw and the majority of people could live thanks to that.

What really worries me is that, human being is the only animal that can invent "good reasons".

well said principians. I think this statement can close the discussion. And for those who desperately want to make the case that there is a clear cut moral code applying to everybody everywhere every time and every-sided, they should open a new thread. Because these arguments need a foundation in something ideological (be it religious or otherwise).

Arrogant and dismissive. Typical liberal -- be careful not to fall into the stereotype X3n0n.

If the majority of the collegiate body on the thread does not agree that there is an inherent code built in mankind to protect itself, it's family, and it's society, then we're at an impasse.

I'm not asking anyone to define this as God-given or anything. I'm sure you'll chalk it up to survival instinct, but the fact remains, there is this 'thing' in each of us. It's very easy to analyze because it's in each of us and is the one thing we can be sure about.

my problem would be with the word "inherant", I'd appretiate if you clarify it ag.
What exactly you mean by "inherant", something congenite, hard-coded in every individual?
Also, I'm not so sure that analizing things inside of us is as easy.

So we can chalk ag's opinion up to "natural." Can we take score now?

oh my god ag7433 you haven't read a damn thing I've said have you? Society I agreed that there is a set of morals where they are based off of the values of peace and safety and everything you said in paragraph 2 of your last post. My only point that I'm trying to get across now is that if morals are built around values then there are morals that condone murder, if the values they are based off of are hate, envy, and violence.

Society today may not be experiencing this (thank god) but it is possible. I can't say that there is a single core code that everyone must follow, because as sick as it sounds to us there are alternatives.

I know you agree James. That comment wasn't towards you. There are other respectful people seeking my great knowledge besides you.

@ ag7433but the principal of what you are saying still contradicts what i'm saying.

@TrPrado Have my baby

it's not 'great knowledge' it's elementary school thinking.

To think it only took 5 pages to figure out a scoreboard answer for ag.

one set of moral codes does not exist, there are an infinite set of moral values and in the world today we dont see one stand out above all.

ag7433- I'm starting to agree with ya but earlier when you said that EVERYONE agreed on a single code I just couldn't let that go.

TrPrado- the child is yours

@princ - inherant... I would say hard coded would be ok to use.

You're absolutely correct that analyzing 'things' inside of us is not easy, but the most easy thing inside of me that I am able to analyze is my unwavering commitment to protect my 4 year old girl, my 5 year old boy, and 7 year old boy from physical harm. I don't need to look far within myself to ensure that my wife is safe and protected.

This is on the micro level.

At the macro level, to keep them protected, if my country was being attacked and my home threatened, I would do all that I was able to make sure my country stood so my family wouldn't be harmed. My expectations for my neighbors is that they have the same hard wired code within them to protect their families and society. I expect my neighbors to support a government as means for this protection.

This is what I can understand within me. It's different than a group of chimps.

We're coded this way. Do you disagree?