Acceptable behavior is not equal to morality. The acceptable norm in one society is not the same in all societies; human or non-human. Cleaner wrasse are not bound by weaver bird behavior. Wolf packs are not bound by the norms in modern human society.
A huge topic
Caveat: I am not a neurologist nor do I claim to be an authority on the subject of brain physiognomy, brain states, morality or philosophy.
This will not be an exhaustive treatment of this very thorny issue.
Another caveat: Christians have a technical use of the word ‘objective’ much as they have a technical use of the word ‘belief’. To ‘Believers’ objective morality means ‘morality decreed by god’.
In the normal, colloquial sense, ‘objective’ means that it can be measured without subjective bias. (i.e. a board is measured as 3 feet long using a standard ruler. There is no subjective bias in the ruler.) Hence, objective morality does not exist as ‘morality’ cannot be measured without bias.
An observation: It seems that Theists always claim that if you don’t get your moral code from god (or the Bible), then you have no moral code. To believe that, one would have to assume that there was no human civilization or social structure at all before Moses brought the tablets down from the mountain. Apparently, theists have generally forgotten that there were other civilizations with moral codes, social regulations and formulated laws before Moses.
First off; what is morality?
“Morality is herd instinct in the individual.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.”
Christopher Hitchens
“If you feel pain, you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being.”
Leo Tolstoy
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.”
Alfred Adler.
“Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
Dalai Lama
Morality must be always for the greater good. The ‘greater’ is meant to mean the larger part of the population of the society. Acts not in the interests of the society are immoral. Generally speaking. Exceptions exists. Acts which benefit a single individual or social group but are to the detriment of the greater good are immoral. Oligarchy, Aristocracy, Plutocracy, and fascism are immoral systems as they act to the benefit of a single group and to the detriment of the greater good.
It seems that much has been debated about there being no basis for morality without the Old Testament or more vaguely, ‘god’. The Jewish, Christian and Islamist stance is that atheists have no morality without the Abrahamic god and the tablets of Moses. The theistic accusation is that atheists must only want to act immorally; to sin without facing the consequences of their affronts to ‘god’. One counter-point to this accusation is that in civilizations of all kinds – including those which pre-dated the Mosaic Laws - a moral code, as reflected in local laws and regulations, was a necessity. The Mesopotamian civilizations (Assyria, Sumer, Akkadia, Babylonia, etc.) Ancient China, Egypt, the other documented civilizations of Africa (e.g. Kush, c.1070 BCE), etc. would not have been possible except that the rulers of those kingdoms had rules.
The intention here is to introduce the idea that ‘morality’ is, not only an inherent characteristic of humankind, but one that is based in biology and is most probably shared by other social mammals (e.g. other great apes, monkeys, dogs, etc). This might seem a mighty slog but please consider the following.
In my estimation, the sense of morals and reciprocal altruism (or fairness) comes from the most basic small group organization of hominids; the family unit. Behavioral codes were developed in these small groups (e.g. don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t harm, do your chores, assist in the well-being of the group, ‘do unto others’, etc.). These injunctions and regulations are passed on generation after generation in the genetic code. If a member did not adhere to the group sense of altruism, then that individual would be chastened or expelled from the group. Expulsion from the group would mean that individual would not survive and his genes would not be passed on to descendants.
Successful small groups such as family and extended family led to larger groups; to tribes, to settlements, to towns, to cities, to countries and empire. All would then have a shared, pervasive ethical system which stemmed from the smaller family grouping and practiced by the majority of people; most of whom shared the family experience. Otherwise, there would not be - could not be - any of the groups listed. No cohesion of any sized group could be achieved if there was not an under-lying foundation of ethical, moral, acceptable behavior endemic among the population of the group.
Further, these generational codes of behavior are not limited to any specific species such as Homo Sapiens. Homo erectus, the hominid group which preceded man, which discovered and utilized fire, must have had a behavioral code in order to organize hunting parties, gathering parties, organize living quarters for the family group and the larger group of extended family, the nascent clan. Such organization, moreover, could not be limited to this single hominid group if one considers that all hominids share the same genetic make-up.
Further, these moral codes didn’t need to be written down, chiseled on stone or verbalized as litanies for memorization. My contention is that the rules that governed behavior within the group (i.e. morals) were engendered before language and without language. Moreover, as will be discussed later, the source of these moral codes and reciprocal altruism is a biological one: empathy, which is based in the structure of the mammalian brain.
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