Whether we behave morally or not is a factor not only of the morals we hold, but, as Vyazma and K suggest, other contingencies as well, such as availability of resources. Do we believe "cannibalism is wrong"? This is a commonly held moral among most humans. But given we are trapped with the Donner Party, we might not behave according to this moral. If we ultimately survived, and returned to civilization, we would probably still retain the moral, and probably feel guilty about having broken it. But the moral would likely still be in place. For the moral to change, on a societal level, there would have to be prolonged or repeated bouts of scarcity. In which case the moral might shift to "cannibalism is wrong except for these (fill in the blank) circumstances".
Thats what makes what is "moral" so difficult to determine. With different veiwpoints spanning the globe and cultures and situation always changing, it can
difficult to tell what is indeed truly moral.
As k mentions:
I think scarcity, as always, will drive groups to desperate and harsh behavior but I think technology is the fulcrum on which "nice" behavior teeters. Slavery didn't become reprehensible until machinery was widely available. Women's rights didn't really gain momentum until birth-control allowed women a measure of control. A shifting Zeitgeist seems to hinge upon the breathing-room a given group perceives themselves to have regarding their survival.
know wheter that is true or not I dont know, but it shows the problem of setting a general set of rule for everyone to follow.
Take gun control to reduce crime for example:
Scholars disagree over how much control of firearms should be allowed. See the Encyclopedia of social problems ]
Thus the "moral" choice is kind of hard to decide.
The way I see it is that it should studied which laws/ cultural norms allow society as a whole to function.
For the example above, I would say that since the gun control is controversial, we need to look at other aspects of American society to reduce crime such as
drugs, youth problems, etc.
Of course its not that simple, but I'd like to know what everyone else thinks
Abdul, I have viewed this thread as a discussion of what morals are and how they evolve, rather than what they should be (except for the implication that a scientific understanding of morals might have some sort of meaningful influence on our establishment and acceptance of any given moral).