A Question Of Morality

Thomas Jefferson once said; Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

The concept of morality is always clouded, as it is the case of a lots of things. Debate on morality have been raging since the day of creation. we ask questions about Eve taking the apple as a moral question. We ask if intemarriages between their children could be asked within the parameters of morality? The fact to the matter is that, We will never know.

Morality affects us in every way,  Our idea for doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong became the basic dos and don’ts of our everyday life. we base our actions on concept of right and just. The same norm our ancestors based their daily life, It may have evolved through time but the basics are still the same.

The dabate on morality will rage forever but the bigger question lies on our idea on what is right and wrong.
Let’s take for example a culture in a village in Congo where a husband would offer his wife to a visitor to keep the visitor entertained. our Christian morals would tell us that the practice of sharing your wife to a visitor is immoral. But to them it is not, it’s their culture, its what they believe. Offering their wives to their visitor is the same as our way of offering coffee to our visitors. and how about the legalization of drugs and prostitution in amsterdam? is it immoral? certainly not to them, thir government legalized. it’s their culture. Could we judge them as immoral when their culture don’t? I think not.

Our religion preaches on morality as much as they preach about gods. are they of the same weight?   Psychologist Matt J. Rossano argues that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by expanding the social scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural agents. By including ever watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.

In parting, let me quote George Bernard Shaw, he said “The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is”. Let me then say that Morality is as vague as it is limited. Morality is not always right and wrong but conforming to accepted standards of conduct.