There is No Such Thing as 'Right' or 'Wrong.'

I argue that morality does not exist. This includes both Objective as well as Subjective Morality. In other words, there are no universal moral rules (Objective morality). There also exists no personal views on morality (Subjective morality), meaning what we call moral intuitions, or moral feelings are a misinterpretation of other emotions. Before we begin the argument, we must define the terms "moral" and "immoral." I will define them in the way they are commonly used in our society. Terms like "right," "wrong," "moral," and "immoral" define actions. We would say "murder is immoral." Here, the term immoral means that the described action is something we "should not do." Something laudable, or "moral" is something we "should do." This is important because other words are often used to describe actions. For example, an action may "bring the maximum happiness" or be "harmful" or "beneficial." None of these words have the same definition as the terms "moral" or "immoral." Therefore, we cannot simply show that an action is beneficial to determine whether it is moral. We must then make the connection between something being beneficial and something being moral. I will make three main arguments: I argue that there is no such thing as actions being "moral" or "immoral," though there are such things as being "kind" or "unkind," for example. I argue this based on two arguments. One is that we have no conception of what it means for something to be "moral" or "immoral." In other words, there is no such thing as what we call a "conscience." And second, that there is no such thing as free will, and therefore morality as we know it does not exist. Thus, these two arguments say that there is no such thing as subjective morality. I also argue that we cannot know what is truly "moral" or "immoral," if such things do exist, based on the influence of evolution and natural selection, or atleast that they are not the same for all of us. Therefore, this argument says there is no such thing as objective morality. 1. Free will is a necessary aspect of what we call morality. We do not ascribe moral qualities to actions carried out by robots, computers, etc. Even if they have consciousness, the inability to choose for themselves removes any moral qualities from their actions. There is no evidence that we humans have free will either. Our belief in our free will is based on our own thoughts that we do, which gives us the illusion of free will. But this is unreliable because we are not conscious of all our brain activity. We do not perceive all the internal calculations carried out in our brain and thus do not understand how actually come about to the decision to perform certain actions over others. We do not consider other objects in the universe created out of the same elements as our brain, such a computer, to have free will, no matter how complex. When a computer commits an "error," we do not ascribe that to the computer acquiring free will. We blame it on a bug in the software or a hardware failure. As the brain is constructed from the same basic elements as a computer, it is likely that the brain is restricted in the same way that a computer is. It is possible that certain organizations of matter (our brain) have transcendental properties, but that is all, a possibility. The simplest solution in the absence of evidence is that the brain acts the same as a computer, without free will. And thus no morality, subjective or objective in nature. 2. I argue we have no "conscience." For subjective morality to exist, one must have what are commonly called "moral intuitions" or "moral feelings." Morality cannot be described in terms of matter or energy, meaning in the material world. The only access we have to its knowledge is possibly through our internal emotions. For example, you may say "Murder is wrong." I will say "how do you know?" You might say "Because it hurts people." I will say "How do you know that"s wrong?" You may say "Because people"s lives are sacred." Whatever the line of reasoning you take, you will not take it to infinity. That is impossible, as such reasonings are illegitimate for the same reason circular logic is not legit, as well as that you have not lived for infinity amount of time, so that cannot be why you think it is wrong. At some point in your line of reasoning, you will stop and have a gut feeling or emotion that whatever you just mentioned is just wrong. This is called a moral intuition, and is what people base what they believe is right or wrong on. I argue there is no such thing as moral intuitions. This will be the weakest part of my argument, only because I cannot look inside other people"s minds, and thus is the hardest to actually examine. This will also be the hardest for you to refute as well, however, since neither can you look inside people"s minds. My argument is based on the apparent non-universality of what we call morality. Early explorers to the Polynesian islands encountered villagers who employed a concept called tapu, critically different from our conception of morality. Tapu was a type of uncleanliness that came over a person from other objects or through his actions, such as insulting others. The islanders did not have a conception of one committing actions that intrinsically "should not be done." The concept of tapu meant only that filth would cover that person that had to be removed through rituals involving washing. Tapu and our concept of morality are thus different in that way, though they may serve the same end purpose. So how to explain our society"s concept of morality? Here"s what I propose. We have other emotions that are triggered in response to seeing someone perform a certain action, such as murder. These may be anger, sadness, horror, disgust, empathy, etc. In other words, other emotions apart from a "moral emotion." Over time, when we are children, through the actions of parents, society, etc, we learn to associate certain concepts such as right and wrong with certain of these emotions in certain situations. The Polynesians at the time did not have such a lifelong education and thus did not associate any such moral concepts with their internal emotions. Instead, they learned to associate this concept of tapu, or a type of ungodly uncleanliness with their internal emotions. 3. So what explains the widespread negative reactions in most societies to actions that are "destructive" and our elation of various sorts, whether of the moral or tapu variety to "beneficial" or "healthy" actions? This concordance is often attributed to the beneficial effects of such belief systems to the survival and thriving of societies, whether through the actions of natural selection or cultural "evolution." This is often mentioned as support for the reality of morality. I will argue that this is incorrect, and that further, this is in contradiction with objective morality. Objective morality means that the correct moral rules are unchanging. In other words, the validity of an action being moral or immoral is not dependent on the person/creature performing the action. Based on our assumptions, evolution and natural selection have selected for certain "morals" based on their beneficial or detrimental nature. If so, then different groups of people or animals have had different emotional reactions towards the same exact action in the exact same situation, yet one had the most beneficial reaction and survived while the other groups died off. It may be argued that therefore the best group survived. But the best group has been selected for by evolution, an inherently biased process which selects those who maximize survival and reproductive fitness. This is an arbitrary criteria. In addition, multiple groups could thrive and survive at the same time with vary different sets of moral guidelines, and still do today. While people generally do not advocate the eating or killing of children (atleast in theory), many other species do exactly that. A male lion will kill all small lion children when taking over a kingdom because it has apparently been selected for. If rape or infanticide was "beneficial" towards the overall survival of a group, it would have been selected for as well. It may be argued that we still would not commit such acts because we could use our "reason" to understand that such actions are wrong. But reason can only be used to create consistency between one"s already existing moral intuitions/emotions. If rape/infanticide were selected for by natural selection yet the rest of our morality remained the same, we may be able to correct through reason. However, if natural selection had altered not only our emotions towards rape/infanticide but a whole host of other actions, then that is no longer possible.