Logics Origin of Ethics, Morals, Virtue, and Quality

     From the author -

     During the year spent writing the book, my purpose for writing the information was not originally intended for public use, but rather for family and other personal use. Only after the manuscript was near completion did I make the decision to publish it in its current form.

     The book's intended usefulness is to initiate thought of the individual by the individual, and to not rely on someone else to hand the individual mere answers that cannot be understood without first-hand experience. The book's general message was intended to point first at the use of logic, of how logic is the originator of all beliefs and conclusions, and the secondary message is that of the components that combine to create the things known as ethics, morals, virtue, and quality.

     The human mind acquires all of its information from Nature, and the mind's development depends on its ability to recognize the laws of Nature. The world's most popular biologist (Richard Dawkins) has commented "Perhaps it is our genetic inheritance that explains why... [we] still manage to ground ourselves in a moral consensus, which is surprisingly widely agreed." Humans agree on many things, including that rocks fall to the ground when dropped (unless a force greater than gravity is applied to the rocks), that a ball of a specific weight will travel through the air at a distance dictated by the quantity of speed and angle that the ball is thrown, and humans have developed numerous similar agreements including morals that are based on the humans' logical analysis of the observation of the laws of Nature. The difficulty, however, is that most people form their conclusions subconsciously, which explains why philosophical debates have not in more than three-thousand years arrived at the obvious answers.

     Nature is not so simple that a single thing can be the single cause of any action. Ethics and morals did not come into existence as single objects, nor do they exist as single objects. The nature of human psychology is built upon several foundations including genetics, sensory perceptions, level of conscious recognition of sensory perceptions, level of intellectual ability, level of memory retention, level of ability to apply logic to memories, environment, and numerous more that simultaneously combine to produce a behavior that is often termed 'morality,' and it is when a person reacts most logically to his/her environment that other individuals may weigh the person's conduct and conclude whether the person is behaving morally or immorally. An individual's system of beliefs will influence the person's conclusion of what is moral and immoral, but humanity will share a common general interpretation of morality simply because humans share a common interpretation and evaluation of Natural laws.

     It is a simple thing to reason that the governing forces of Nature (laws of Nature, physics) that created Creation created all things, and that nothing that exists can come into existence without it being governed by the laws of Nature. It is also a simple thing to reason that all things that exist will continue to exist while being wholly governed by the laws of Nature, including the creation and measure of ethics. When investigating the origins of a thing, it is necessary to begin at the origins, which will always and without fail be within the laws of Nature that created the thing.

     As the page on firsts discusses, all things have origins, and the thing that comes into existence early cannot be the creation of a thing that comes into existence later. Gold existed before barter, money, and systems of economics were invented to use gold. Animals existed before zoology was invented to study animals. Ethics and morals existed before religions and philosophies were invented to use and study ethics and morals. No religion or philosophy invented ethics, nor can any religion or philosophy lay claim of being the source or measure of ethics. (See also SesquIQ's Definition of Ethics or the archives' Definition of Ethics.)

     It is well known in physics that there must exist a minimum of three components before a new thing can be created. If a principle is valid in one field of study, whether it be physics or common sense, then the principle is valid in all fields, including philosophy and religion. Can you name three of the components that create an ethic?

     How did ethics come into existence? What is the origin of ethics? By what measure does an ethic exist? Why is an ethic an ethic? What are the components of an ethic? What creates a moral?