Amoral Morality

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Evil?

Good men?

What are these preconceived notions that some men are inherently good, or that evil exists at all? People under the presumption of a guideline of morality can adhere to this guideline, but what is it that makes the establisher(s) of this ethical code good in doing so, and abiding by these regulations? Where is the starting point of what this concept of "good" is, and how can we know what the true essence of morality is—if it exists at all? This is a form of idealism that subjugates itself and the denizens that reside under it into the form of a code of conduct in society that every person capable of judgment and cognitive thinking must abide by in order to strive through the interpretation of the social paragon of what is presumed to be an unwithering axiom of humanistic decency and an outright expression of base morality in thinking and actions.

There is a fault in this design, in that this strict ideal of morality is subjective by something as simple as a change of surrounding. For instance, is the country of Yamen immoral for having an age of sexual consent of nine years old? Are Switzerland and Germany immoral for allowing the sexual intercourse of and the pornography of animals (who are, like the underdeveloped minds of small children, incapable of consenting)? This could very well be the case for anyone in the United States, where our moral guidelines contradict the above activity, but who are we to determine the ethical status quo of other people—or to deal absolutes about ethics in general? One cannot argue in the defense of these matters contrary to what they've been raised to believe - simply because there is a locational bias of ethics that parents place on their offspring.

For someone to know of what is moral would assume that there is anything in this categorization to speak of in the first place; if a lot of people subscribe to one set modus operandi, does that make it legitimate, or correct? Not necessarily—it could very well make all of those people equally delusional—which is often the case with many things. We are humans, and we are capable of conceptualization, judgment, personal reasoning and convictions, but let's assume you subscribe to the theory of evolution: did our hominid primordials, who were presumably incapable of any of these things, create such a guideline of morals that they followed? The safe answer is no, because how could they have? Just as we are humans whose minds desperately seek answers to questions that we don't know said answers to, we have established these codes.

Just as we've established these codes, we have established the laws to said codes which we also must abide; they're both two sides of the same coin. Don't think so? Consider: Slavery in the United States began in 1607, after British colonists settled Virginia, and lasted until the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was ratified in 1865. From the year 1654 until the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery was considered a legal practice—in fact, some would argue that it was immoral to let African American, lesser 'savages' go free as normal citizens. Was it an act of morality for the Philadelphia Convention to pass this amendment, or is was it an act of morality in the first place to keep the assertion of lesser humans as slaves to be controlled? While slavery in the United States has downgraded, would it be moral or immoral for men in Saudi Arabia to treat their women as slaves? There, where if a married woman gets raped, she is stoned to death for adultery. How is this not a base definition of slavery in itself?

What makes something moral or immoral, if anything?

Nothing.

At least, not as far as I can tell.

Consider: Is it moral or immoral for big-business corporations in America to seize control over prisons where people are convicted based off of minuscule drug crimes and, in some cases, outright racial discrimination? The NLRB does not protect prison-based labor, and the aforementioned corporations aren't even in any type of obligation to pay minimum wage. Among these corporations are J.C. Penney, Toys R Us (of all places), Trans World Airlines, and Victoria's Secret. These mandatory sentencing practices sometimes have the audacity of making the convicts pay for their prisonary room and board, which are cut straight from their wages, if any wages are even present. Ask yourself: is it much of a moral improvement for big businesses to gain the benefits of human labor - and for such minute charges? This is nothing more than a modernized system of obligatory labor—something that I'd call gradual slavery.

Ultimately it is up to you to decide what ethics and morals are.

Just be careful, because they might change.