Human morality is universal

I will first present my own case then proceed to attack my opponent's. Seeing as no definitions have been proposed thus far, i will give my own: Moral-of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong (courtesy of Dictionary. com) Universal-present everywhere (courtesy of Dictionary. com) There is an intrinsic recognition of morals by all sane people. Morals are existent everywhere. In our everyday actions we apply basic morals to reach conclusions on what actions should be taken. The reason, however, that such conclusions are reached through universal morals is because there is a natural recognition of morality. As is asserted by Marc Hauser: When questioned on if a trolley came speeding off track and was about to hit and kill five people, but you had the power to push it to the side so it only killed one, would you do it? The majority of people come to the immediate conclusion that, yes, that is permissible. However, when questioned if 5 patients are suffering and will die if they do not get organ transplant immediately, and you have the ability to kill the next person that enters the hospital and save the lives of the other five, such action becomes unthinkable. There should be not difference; in one scenario you kill one to save 5, and its okay. However, in the other scenario, its inexcusable to do the same thing. The reason behind this difference, he states, is because there is a natural moral compass existent to virtually everyone, that justifies an action. Morality is universal because while there are exceptions, we all apply the same subconscious morals to determine the course of action to be taken. To justify such exceptions it is clear that we must recognize exceptions are existent to nearly every truth. (to further this point, i ask that my opponent gives me an example of anything that is "universal") Exceptions are existent for my case, yet morality is still universal. This is because in even the most unjust actions(murder, rape, genocide, torture), any sane person would have morality as the root justification for their action(kill an intruder to save your family, kill terrorists to save your country, even when a robber steals, they have reasoning behind it such as getting money to provide food for their family. ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attacks C1:Morality is dependent upon others. Morality is, as defined, the ability to recognize what is right or wrong. I would first like to point out that my opponent is blatantly wrong;to rape and torture an animal, even without other humans around, would still be marked as immoral in my book. C2: Morality is different in different societies. (with the example of African tribes) This point is flawed largely because the justification behind such sacrifices is an example of morality itself. These tribes kill(i'm presuming because no examples have been offered thus far)for religious purposes to ultimately bring safety to their fellow tribes people and family. Ergo, they kill to save life which seems to be a reoccurring theme in the social standards brought up earlier^(killing one to save five). And while modern societies aren't as radical as this, we apply the same moral standards. We have the death penalty to punish someone while simultaneously providing safety to the rest of us. C3:Modern Issues change rapidly. (with the example of gay marriage) While it is true that public opinion shifted very rapidly on this, and i'm sure many other, morally related issues, the fact of the matter is that gays were persecuted because they were a minority group, and minority groups tend to scare majorities. Take, for example, any intelligent females in the early colonization period of America. Smart girls, because the majority group(guys) felt threatened by their emergence, were claimed to be witches and persecuted as such. Our society tends to extenuate opinions of what it is unaware of, which is an entirely unrelated topic to morals themselves. The persecution of gays and smart girls in olden times did not radically change because our morals changed;rather it was because we came to accept these groups into our society and let them grow into the state they are today. 1. ). http://discovermagazine.com...=