What about when being morally correct towards others comes at a high expense? (If a mother and father spend their retirement savings to pay for a heart transplant for their son.) Logically, the old couple would be physically better off having retirement money than their son, but the love for their son overrides their desire to minimize conflict in life.

Rational transference? A soldier in Iraq was engaged in a shootout when a grenade landed near his platoon. Even though he had time to escape, he chose to jump on the grenade and die in order to save the rest of the soldiers. You can try to say that anything can be rationalized and is only a biological reaction, but in my opinion self-sacrifice is not rational for any living being. Even the social contract theory would say that self-sacrifice is too much to expect from another human being, and is therefore not a part of our natural agreement to cooperate and mutually benefit.

Every known human civilization has speculated the existence of a higher power such as Morality and God. We are aware of ourselves in a way that no other animal has ever been. We make judgements about our actions and ponder on existential thought. But why do humans think this way? Why do we have an internal need to be morally correct people? And to be ironic, why am I asking this question?

What about when being morally correct towards others comes at a high expense? (If a mother and father spend their retirement savings to pay for a heart transplant for their son.) Logically, the old couple would be physically better off having retirement money than their son, but the love for their son overrides their desire to minimize conflict in life.

For starters, I believe that morals can be reduced to inherent emotions that are shaped by environmental influences.

It is an interesting comment. Emotions have historically been intentionally discarded due to subjectiveness. Yet I all I am familiar with is emotion based morals. Is there any benefit in emotionless morals? I am somewhat lost in this topic. Should the setting of morals be founded upon an emotional response?

I don't believe in emotionless morals. If you were to make it so that everyone would be emotionless, we would be some cold agents, and we would make purely logical choices. Some moral thinkers advise that you rationalize your emotions so that you can make sound moral judgments, but you should never completely suppress your emotions. For example, bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WW2 was logical, but many would agree that it was atrocious and immoral.

it would seem impossible to be emotionless. either emotion is expressed or it is repressed. (though i have know at least one person i would never see any emotion and swear it did not exist. maybe it is a sort of pathology, but rare.)

i really dont see why logic should not be enough to conclude what is ethical or moral and what is not.

as for your example, i dont believe bombing is ever logical. nor is war. and i find both to be immoral. how much do my emotions contribute to this opinion i wonder? i never thought about it before. i am certainly more emotional than most people, but lots of emotional people want to bomb the bejeebers out of everyone else.

this was something i thought about a long time, whether a moral system could be based totally on logic, i was working on it in blogs. i believe it can.

I agree that it's probably impossible for a person to be emotionless, but a person can learn to suppress their emotions. Also, keep in mind that not all emotions are gentle and caring. Let's not forget the emotions of anger and hatred.

I don't believe that a moral system can be based entirely on logic because emotions are the underlying forces behind moral judgments. Your belief that bombing and war is always immoral is strongly grounded in passive emotions. What if you knew that some really bad people were coming to kill you and your loved ones and the only way you could stop them was to bomb them? What about a war that could save thousands of innocent people from slaughter, like Sudan?

i would run and hide before bombing anyone in a personal situation. trying to take your questions seriously, what kind of bomb is there i could use that would kill these people without harming others as well?

and as far as sudan, that is part of the world i havent studied, so i am not sure of the situation. are you speaking about another country intervening and declaring war on a government that is killing its own people? if so, by the outside power dropping bombs they could not know who they were killing, and would only add to the deaths.

Every known human civilization has speculated the existence of a higher power such as Morality and God. We are aware of ourselves in a way that no other animal has ever been. We make judgements about our actions and ponder on existential thought. But why do humans think this way? Why do we have an internal need to be morally correct people? And to be ironic, why am I asking this question?

You could just plant a bomb in their hideout or something.

They would know who they were bombing because it would be based on intelligence information. They could also go into the country and do a ground invasion.

I don't believe that a moral system can be based entirely on logic because emotions are the underlying forces behind moral judgments.

you can put emotions behind the reasons for opinions and you can put reasons behind the emotions that lead to decisions. it is my contention that language may be the only separation here between human beings and the animals. what if we did not analyze verbally nor try to define conceptually...what if we could not?

I mention animals because most people assume they are devoid of both reason and emotions-and it would follow, also morals. we know there are instances of animals coming together to save one of their own kind from a predator, and we know a single animal will send a warning from a safe place in case any other of his kind is in the area if a predator is near. so what are these behaviors coming from? dont human beings have the same capacity to make similar decisions without the use of either logic or emotion? I realize that in order to thoroughly and efficiently defend my ideas I need to do more research on animal behavior. it has been brought to my attention that animals do things that would be considered unethical in human society. so the question to ask is whether the behavior patterns they have is ethical according to the kind of animal they are.

there is an ongoing debate as to whether there are absolute moral values. I prefer to contemplate the question without using the word 'moral'. it seems to me that at any given time in any condition if a decision needs to be made by any being there should be one best answer. isnt that an absolute? I have trouble trying to explain this. it is not relativism, because the answer comes from outside the mind of the creature asking it. it would be shared by any objective observer. but this answer often eludes us because we are a race (human race) that has become accustomed to deluding ourselves with all our faculties, as though that was their purpose.

how do I define 'best'? it doesnt matter, does it; I presume it to be the only answer, an absolute-all I have to do is find it. I suspect it is connected to what is known as instinct in animals, which in human beings includes, or perhaps is synonymous to conscience. what is unfortunate is that we have either intellectualized or emotionalized away whatever vestiges of it that remain.