What is the source of morality?

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What is the source of moral judgment in your mind? How do you determine what values are to be held higher and which ones lower? Why is this method of valuation valid? Why should you act in accordance to these ideas? Do you truly consider yourself beyond morality? Can you justify a belief that you are beyond any moral code? Poll included with following options:

Religious teachings/divine origin: A divine being tells you what is right and wrong and therefore right and wrong is because he says so, this is a variant of philosophy.

Morality is relative: Morality has no absolute truth to it, and my selection of a moral code is by its nature arbitrary and personal.

Conscience/Natural Law: Right and wrong is a product of what values your conscience seems to tell you, morality is inherent in man and buried in his nature.

Philosophy: You accept a moral premise as true and use it to derive the rest of your beliefs, this could be that individual gain is good, that the net gain of all people is good, that freedom is good, etc.

Beyond morality: You believe that you truly have no moral valuation system at all and run your life according to none.

Perhaps the options are flawed on some level as there is certainly a large level of overlap between some ideas, but I would like to see what argument is dominant. Hopefully I have most of the major categories, if not then screw it. At least this is a topic that isn't purely religion like so many are.

Morality is relative: Morality has no absolute truth to it, and my selection of a moral code is by its nature arbitrary and personal.

This is my choice, "good" and "evil" are fluid. What is "evil" today can be "good" tomorrow.

Including murder?

I voted "philosophy" but the truth of the matter is that I just don't know. When we start to overthink this particular issue, reality begins to appear too disturbing to handle.

Would you go back in time and kill Pinochet if you could?

The act of murder becomes "good" in this case.

Conscience/Natural Law but it is not perfect for example there are likely evolutionary reasons we treat others as we would ourselves but we also maintain alot of ruthless competition. That ruthless competition is where the real hair splitting takes place. Like one school of thought would make sociopaths the most adaptive and hence most moral. But clearly intuitively most people have a problem with such people which is a collective moral decision to. So morality is being competitive but not too competitive.

When it comes down to it, I don't think in such absolute terms. I don't think of "murder" as being good or bad. I think of particular murder scenarios as being good or bad. Such as "murder in order to avoid personal responsibility" or "murder for financial gain" or "murder to prevent further loss of life"... and even then, the details seem to matter.

Would I kill Pinochet? I don't know, honestly. Especially in a time travel scenario it seems particularly risky. But that was probably a rhetorical question.

But the disturbing nature of reality is something I want to get people to freak out about!

Aye, just a brief and impossible example.

One, because you killed Pincochet you never had to go back in time kill him so the action is undone.

Two, it's impossible to go back in time becaue all the matter in the universe would have to go in reverse, that includes you.

It's all fun and games until somebody brings out the Purple Kool-Aid.

Flagg, I used to go to a time travel forum and ask all these guys questions about their theories. They were probably nuts, but it was interesting to see what they'd thought up.

What about red Kool-Aid??

Slightly less deadly. The party continues but the bathroom lines are a wee bit longer.

If it is arbitrary what gives it value? If it is acting based upon whimsy what makes the whimsy so great? What meta-ethics justifies this anarchy of ethics you choose? Why not simply refrain from acting or choice making altogether?

I go by my own conscience. I have my own ideas about what is honorable and dishonorable.

Morality is determined by how many sentient lifeforms will be affected and how.

If every man follows his own conscience, how can anyone trust anyone else?

I'm in between philosophy and divine origin... I believe morality ultimately has a divine origin.

There is a God and he has expectations about how he wants us to act... however I believe that what God wants can be reasoned and figured out independent of religious texts or experience... just by honestly exploring human nature and thinking long and hard about it.

But it gets difficult reasoning morality... anyone who does runs the risk of being extremely self-serving. Even those with the most altruistic motivations run the risk of being biased.

I don't believe morality is relative... any situation can ultimately be reasoned if it's good or bad... blanket statements can't exist in a vacuum. There are some topics that are purely neutral though... like taste in music... and such.