Morality, how does it come about?
During the pre-historic times up to the ancient, the quest for the purity of heart and decency of life constitute the moral question.
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, maintained that a human being has a capacity of a rational behavior and rational behavior is the basics of ethics while morality is its object.
The Latin word for ethics is roughly “mos” which has been translated in English language as “mores”
“Mores” therefore has to do with the meaning of custom, character, behavior, inner nature, law, regulation, fashion and style of clothing.
Based on the Greek precedence and by making direct reference to aristotle; Cicero formed the adjective moralis (“moral”) from the word mos.
Not until late 4th century BC the Romans coined the noun “moralitas”, both Greek ethics and romans moralitas did not originate from people popular consciousness.
The each of the two term was an artificial term, which was created to give a name to a certain academic field, called ethics.
Then In medieval up to modern times was the term “ethics” and "morality" gained popularity throughout the Europe.
The two subject was dominantly implied as a religious charge and quest for chastity. But still used interchangeable to mean the same thing.
Ethics is said to cover a wide range of moral values and attitude such as; self respect, self control, obedience, humility, patience, fairness, Justice,sincerity, and commitment.
According to Plato, in order to discover morality or good life, men must first acquire certain kinds of knowledge; such knowledge can be achieved if these men are carefully trained in various disciplines. which however covers the aspect moral values and attitudes.
On the basis of this sort of reasoning, Plato went ahead to advocate the necessary censorship on what he called an ideal society. He felt it was necessary to prevent young people from being exposed to certain sorts of experience, if they were to develop virtuous habit and therefore, lead the good life.
later, he argued for the objectivity of the moral principles as opposed to philosophies, which maintained that morality is merely a matter of preference.
Enough of the history!
Now, I will be revealing how the so called moral has been re-defined mostly in our today's free society.
The moral question is far worse in the evolution of the social institution. Mostly within the capitalists society. Reason Is because with most capitalists society the question of moral is highly dependable or categorized based on the class position of those involved.
For examples; there are some set of vocabularies for abnormal moral behavior When it involves the people of the lower classes.
Thus for an identical conduct, A poor person is accused of stealing while a member of the elite is chided with embezzling or misappropriating.
girls from the lower class are branded as shameless while those from upper class are described as sophisticated.
Girls from poor background are charged of engaging in prostitutions; while the ones from a well to do family are merely portrayed to be having good times.
The poor commits adultery, while the rich have an affairs.
Poor woman give birth to bastard and illegitimate children while woman of the “High society” give birth to children out of wedlock”.
The poor patronizes prostitute while the rich keep mistress and girlfriends.
**Generally** speaking, morality has become a qualification for the rich, while immorality for the poor. And we constantly try to expose and condemn the “immorality” of the lower classes, but encourage not to poke our nose into the private affairs of the rich. And if on account of the fact that the “private affairs” of the rich or the upper class are refused to be accommodated by the “private” affairs of the poor, they stand charged with “jealousy” the most arrogant defense, the bourgeoisie had invented for it's anti-social privileges and foibles.
More so, morality in modern times has become a class tool for domination and subjugation of the less privileged of the society.
In contemporary times, the call for morality once again is on the mettle as an indispensable concept in life as recognized by various institutions.
In today's society, Such acts as “mixed nude bathing” are now practiced and equally show-case on reality tv shows, young men and women are now living together without being legally married to each other.
Philosopher of all times; Abd-Ru-Shin has this to say;
Look around you! Observe what people are reading, how they dance, how they dress! By tearing down all barriers between the two sexes; the present time is more than ever anxious systematically to obscure the purity of the infinitive perception and ultimately smother it.
The most confusing part of this, is that you find people speaking of the emergence of free independent of humanity, of a development of inner stability, of physical culture, the beauty of the nude, ennobled sports and of education and so on without consent to morality.
He however stressed that what is being preached Today under the guise of “moral” progress is nothing but a veiled encouragement of utter shamelessness, the poisoning of every higher intuitive perception in man.
References:
all about philosophy
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Nice post
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Wow! Thank you.