What creates morality is our need for morality. We are social animals, but
unlike other social animals we need to figure out how best to live together. A
particular myth or moral code may serve that function in a cohesive society,
but, like it or not, we are a pluralistic society that does not have a shared
mythology or a clear set of moral values. Morality, because of certain
contingencies and accidents of history, is for us a bootstrap operation. One
might insist that he or she holds the moral high ground and others should follow
but there are too many competing claims to possession of the hallowed ground for
us as a society to arbitrarily choose one over the others.
What may guide one’s own moral convictions in no way has a legitimate claim on
what should guide others. This may lead some to conclude that we need to develop
a common morality, but if a common morality is to develop it will do so on its
own through our acceptance of and tolerance for plurality and difference. It is
an ongoing cooperative effort in which any move to claim moral authority and
circle the wagons is antithetical.
Well, you could say that's what Politics is. Trying to find roughly consensual
ways to live together prosperously, fairly and harmoniously in a world which is
very unlike the one our ancestors lived in when our social impulses evolved.
Our social impulses were 'designed' to work at the level of small, tribal
groups, where you knew everyone personally and the evolved mechanisms for caring and cooperation would naturally kick in. These mechanisms tend to lose power over distance, and don't serve our huge interdependent societies of strangers so well. So we have developed institutions, laws, social mores to act in lieu of our up close and personal instincts. And we have the conceptualised principles of 'morality' which under-pin them. Along with, as you say, myths, traditions, religions, archetypes and assorted narratives which reinforce identity
(including moral identity) - who we are and how we do things.
Usually that's enough for nation states to retain a good enough level of
stability and co-operation. But now other, very different cultures are in our
faces, we trade with them, we arm them for geo-political purposes, we make war with them. Sometimes we 'intervene' on purportedly 'moral' grounds - sanctions, monitoring elections, humanitarian aid, invasion. There aren't the same bonds of shared myths and histories or institutionalised internal stabilising mechanisms in international relations. So it's very tricky. You can just say morality is subjective so anything goes, nobody has the moral high ground. That Progressivism is a myth, a modern myth. That cultural relativism should always be respected. Which is fine in the halls of academia, but you'd have to be made of stone to look around the world and say, hey it's their culture, it's fine!
Genocide? Not my tribe - fine n dandy. Apartheid, sure why not. Sufi - how
fascinating those foreigners are with their traditional ways! Chuck gays off
buildings - oh well. Execute heretics - it's just their culture y'know.
A different approach is to develop international institutions like the UN, and
to try to find a bench mark of shared moral values. The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights is just that. Rights based morality is a way to try to
recognise our shared common humanity, and provide a basic safety net in how we treat each other. Is it Objective Morality? Well not strictly, but I think the
sort of consciousness-based morality I outlined above gives it a reasonably good shout at claiming to be about as objective as you can get. Sam Harris sums it up as 'The well being of conscious creatures', and I'd say it's difficult to
argue with in principle. Even if it gets muddy (as all moral systems do) in the
detail. And most importantly, it gives people the basis on which to say
something shouldn't happen, no matter the local culture. Like murder and
genocide shouldn't happen. And that equal rights is something to be encouraged and striven towards. It puts the notion of Progressivism back in play. Tho of course you have to be sensitive to 'we know what's best' thinking, and blundering in to situations where you don't grasp the nuances and possible
consequences. (You'd hope that setting the Middle East ablaze might give the We Know What's Best types pause for thought in future).
So there's a balance to be struck imo, between plurality and human rights. And
I'd say a level of basic human rights which we can hold as a universal standard
is a good thing. And something like the UN is the way to go about it.
-- Updated November 11th, 2016, 5:47 pm to add the following --
Aristocles wrote:If we say morality is subjective as too is conscience, then are we saying much intelligible about the origin of morality?
In other words, it appears we are trying to make an"objective" claim regarding "subjectivity," namely what morality is consciously...
Science is already giving us a credible and intelligible objective account of how the building blocks of what we've come to call 'morality' evolved. It's still early and thin on detail, but the general picture is compelling.
It's not very romantic to have to re-evaluate something as evocative and precious as morality that way, but it's not all bad news. The more we understand how we work, the mechanisms of empathy, tribalism and so forth, the better we can avoid the inherent pitfalls. And try to adapt our societies to serve us better in view of those impulses and how they play out in the way we live now (very different to when they evolved). Hopefully.