Moral Paradigms Part 1

“And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”

    If you asked your self the following questions . Did Cain committed the right thing when he killed Abel , is it righteous ?, did it came out of necessity ?, does the necessity justifies the means . Maybe by answering these questions we will reach to something . I think that some of us will agree that Cain killed Abel out of envy , and he was furious when god respected Abel offering , while his offering wasn't respected , and when god told him 

   “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

  Cain got more furious because misinterpretation of God's words , and killed Abel while they were walking in the field. Lets stop a moment on  the “ and it came to pass, when they were in the field ” . while they were in the field Cain had the time to think about the killing act since Abel was affecting his existence by being preferred in God's point of view . Cain reached to a conscious conclusion “if Abel is not there God will prefer me” , and so he killed  him based on this conclusion. 

    When we take a look at this incident , Cain didn't find any thing wrong by killing Abel , at least at the moment of thinking and killing . Maybe he felt guilty and regretful after god told him his punishment or before . We will refer to this subject afterward, but for the mean time lets have some conclusions  and if you agreed on this facts, you can't deny the fact that Cain acted based on very primitive and complicated instinct which i call it  “being preservation” , and this instinct contradicted the moral values for Cain and forced him to kill Abel by creating a convincing justifications for his behavior. Back again to what is called guilt and regret  . Usually guild precedes regret and without guilt their is no regret, but lets define guilt and regret before.

   Guilt is admitting the fact that you did something wrong or out of the ordinary, and the act of admitting has two faces ; one of them is against your self , and the other is against the society. What i believe the true guilt is something you feel against your self, while Regret is the physiological reaction of being guilt , and those reactions defers form one person to another. I just want to emphasis the fact which says : Guilt happens as a result of cognitional, while regret is a result based on  Guilt status and it is manifested as an emotional reaction. Sorry for that interruption but i found it necessary to define those two concepts.
  

   Lets back to Cain guilt and regret ..... to be continued  

Introduction to Moral Paradigms

    What is the thing that defines moralities ? . What is the set of values and behavior which makes mankind a moral species . Why there are a differences in moral codes between societies , and even between individuals within the same society, which causes an ideological conflict for a certain limit . How to judge morality ? And based on what criteria ? . Do we judge based on religious or cultural background, based on our emotional status , based on civil laws , based on the consequences of the behaviors , or based on mixture generated by summation of some or all the bases which mentioned before. Is there any difference between individual and social moralities, and why.

    Morality by definition at least from my point of view is a set of values or legislation, differentiates between what is good and what is bad for the society and individuals, from a social point of view, which preserves society and individual existence to a certain limit, but i think that this is a pretty vague definition , do you know what is missing in the definition ? No. The answer will be there is no place for individualism in the context of morality. You code have a moral set of values as an individual , but I'm afraid its not counted when comes to a greater good “the society” if the society didn't accept it, another thing ; what is the relation between moral set of values and cognition , does any one has a precedence over the other.

   Moral values have been changed predominantly or for a certain period of time across the history. This changes happened because of the religions, cultures, traditions, knowledge , or because of any extreme situations like wars , famine , diseases, or social and political status ; and here i couldn't stand the idea of not asking the following question . Why morality set of values should be changed any way? . Why there is no standards for something very important which has been there since the genesis of human species. In order to understand morality lets go back in time using the time machine or what ever available to us , and address it form the early beginning until recent days . This study will focus on the major changes on the morality set of values and what led to those changes , and why . I will impose my ideas at the end . So lets start.