A Few Thoughts on Morals

I think it’s instinctive in a normal healthy human being, if they are unspoiled by the pressures of our artificial existence, to act in a moral way with or without the guiding hand of a God figure. Surely, if we behave in a certain way because God or anyone else says so, then that is not a moral action – it is an action that we perform because we are told to do so but not necessarily because we feel it is right. We have our own man-made laws that are designed to curb any clearly unacceptable behaviour that harms others and I think it is our responsibility to hone and fine tune these laws to reflect broad justice and civilized behaviour across society as a whole.
Maybe the question of morals is a bit like being ill. If you are ill you just want to get better – you don’t need a purpose – your desire to get better is overwhelmingly powerful.
I think, in the same way, ‘good’ is better than ‘bad’ and so I think we naturally gravitate toward goodness – we just need to recognise when our soul is sick.
The ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, apparently believed that if an individual is armed with knowledge, they will behave in a temperate or 'good' way. Socrates has been criticised for being too simplistic or maybe downright wrong but I think he was essentially correct. It all depends on how we interpret this 'knowledge' and I suppose it depends on how absolutist we want to be.
Critics would probably say that bad people do bad things simply because they have bad natures.
Then we have to ask: How much of our nature is down to inborn traits or to societal, environmental and upringing influences? I would guess that all these factors come into play - but to what extent and in what ratio? Who knows?
I reckon that if an individual is properly educated to realise the importance and rewards of reciprocating favourably with others, then essentially, they will not behave badly. In theory, of course, this depends on other interdependent factors like the need to ensure that we are all nurtured to maintain our self-esteem in the face of the tough reality of human competition. This is for another topic, but it surely requires the recognition that most of us have various talents and contributions to make to society - what we lose on one, we can gain on another. We should not feel too important nor too unimportant in the scheme of things.