Moral Values

Dammit! And all this time they had me thinking that Harry Potter was the devil. They really need to make up their minds about this shit!

But seriously, like others have been saying, you can't completely create your own sense of morality because you aren't living in a universe unto yourself (or in a vacuum as someone else said). Therefore, your morality is going to be shaped in some fashion by those who raised you and those you were raised around. But once you have that template, and you are of the mental capacity to do so, you should adapt it to suit your needs. Growing up, I was around people who believed the Bible was the infallible word of God, abortion and homosexuality were wrong, etc. When I got older I thought, " 'ang on a minute..." and I changed those views. Fortunately, I had parents who encouraged me to think for myself and didn't attempt to indoctrinate me too much. But I kept thinking things like murder, rape, and molesting children are wrong. So anyway, I just wanted to reiterate that it's inescapable to be molded in some fashion by other's sense of morality.

Morality is another label for something that doesn't really exist. I say follow thy instinkts.

Morality is another label for something that doesn't really exist. I say follow thy instinkts.

Agreed. I know what I like and I do as I pleas, and stick with it. No matter if it falls in line with any specific moral doctrine or not.

I have always wondered this as well. The best I could gather is that morals are what you think you should be because it is right, ethics are what you think you should do because it makes society, etc. function better.

But I could be way off.

But that is still a set of morals. You don't have to prescribe to some dogmatic belief, but no matter what you're going to have some moral code.

of course your moralit will be shaped - no morality would be valid out of context anyway...