Treatise II: A case against morality

The question of morality has been difficult in every age. In this piece, I attempt to present my point of view on the pertinent issue. Before I proceed, I encourage reading Treatise I, if you already haven't, because it would help understand my thought process.It is interesting to note that historically certain things which were unmoral before are moral now; whereas, just the opposite is true for many other things. In the grand Colosseum, It was moral, or at least natural, to derive pleasure when beasts devoured men; whereas, nowadays, we believe any such act is "inhumane" or in easier terms immoral. But why was the action moral then and unmoral now? More importantly, what makes something moral or unmoral? What happens when something is moral? Most importantly, what is morality?In order to answer the above questions, I would present a more recent example. We feel that child labor is immoral. There are various organizations working to eradicate child labor. In fact, many of us condemn it. However, there is another perspective in the whole example. How is it possible that people who use children for work do not think of it as an immoral act or at the least do not feel strongly about it? What is it that we moral people have and the immoral people dont, on any specific issue? On closer analysis, it would become clear that when we "moral people" talk or work against child labor, we feel satisfied or it "feels right."It is important to define satisfaction here. From my point of view, satisfaction is a state where a person asks no more question and does not want to go beyond that state. In other words, satisfaction is a state where aspirations exist no more. Or, in statisfaction, the need to make a decision of good or bad exists no more. Every time a person asks a question or aspires for something else the state of satisfaction eludes him. And, subconsciously, when we strive for something we think "benefits us", we are striving for satisfaction because we want to get into a state relative to the object where we want no more of that object anymore. Take an example of a person who is thin and likes being thin or the way he is. The person aspires for nothing more or else, in other words, he is satisfied. On the contrary, a obese person would, probably, strive for a lean figure. Therefore, the obese person is not satisfied. (the issue of how we get aspiration will be dealt later) Going back to child labor, we see that we feel satisfied--that is dont want to know anymore, if its bad or not--when we advocate for the eradication of child labor while the immoral people are satisfied to have children work for them. In other words, we "moral people know" we will be satisfied when every child goes to school instead of not wasting or dangering his life working.For a second, just imagine, hypothetically, you were satisfied with child labor. You felt about child labor just like you feel about a child going to school. The feeling one has when a child works and when a child goes to school is completely same. In that state, would the issue of child labor be of any significance any more? My good guess would be, not really! It should not be hard to imagine because we already feel the same about many issues out there. For instance, we might not care about the Pakistani judicial crisis or cutting down the trees or wearing blue over black. But does that mean: these issues, or any other issues we dont care about, are not a moral issues for other people? Again, incontrovertible answer is: no. Just because we do not feel strongly about something, does not mean that other people might not feel strongly about it either. In fact, an issue for one as mundane as walking down the street could be as important as committing genocide for another for the simple matter that we can never be sure enough!Therefore, morality at the least has to do something about what we are not satisfied about or something we feel strongly about. Just like in the example of child labor. If we did not 'feel it was bad' we would not care about. But, we know, once we have managed to eradicate child labor we will be happy or satisfied. Nevertheless, I am sure everyone would agree with the simple phrase: moral acts satisfy us. Don't they?Therefore, morality is satisfaction. Moral acts are acts geared towards satisfaction. Some very interesting questions may arise after defining moral. For instance, does that mean everything that satisfies me, like getting blue jammies instead of red jammies because I like blue better, an issue of morality? How can an issue as mundane as getting chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, just because one satisfies me more than other, be grouped together with child labor or other "more important moral issues like genocide" under morality? My answer, rather in the form of a question, is: why not?I have already established that nothing becomes a moral issue unless we feel bad or unsatisfied about it. Therefore, if genocide or child labor satisfy me, it would be a moral act for me! The criterion for moral acts is nomore good or bad of other, its criteria is just the satisfaction of self. When a person talks about religious morality, he or she is basically refering to accountability in the hereafter which would lead to heaven and hell. Therefore, the sole purpose of morality in religion is to get person into heaven which is a place of eternal satisfaction. The element of satisfaction, thus, remains prominent even in religion.On the other hand, society defines its acts of morality as well. If we take society as a single entity, the problem of morality would be much easier. The assumption is that society feels satisfied in perpetuating itself and everything which negates that is immoral. Therefore, morals according to a society are just actions which help perpetuate it. As a result, everything against society's perpetuity would be considered immoral.In other words, conflict of satisfactions of different people makes things moral or unmoral. If a person A likes wearing black shirt on Tuesday, but person B hates when anyone wears black on Tuesday, then this situation would represent a moral issue because B feels wrong about the way A does his things. And the conflict on the color, would represent a moral issue for the two people.Moreover, it is important to realize that morality is not a beginning in itself. Rather, it is an outcome of several causes which might be religion, culture or other experiences. Therefore, morality is natural rather than something which could be built because nobody can change what satisfies them. Satisfactions cannot be changed, but can only be suppressed.Therefore, morality should be found within oneself, rather than matching up to some external standards.