There are so many things in your comment that point to the same thing that I won't bother quoting - I'll just get to the point: You seem to have established to yourself that society is a big machine that exists somewhere out there and controls us for what it's worth, as well as that we don't get to do something about it because we're doomed to fail due to the machine's sheer size. You know what? I'm not buying that. Look at people who've shifted history into the way we have it today. Gandhi freed India - a whole damn country - from the British rule and helped establish it as a country of its own. Not singlehandedly - he had a great crowd of supporters, ordinary Mohinders - but it was his philosophy and his thinking that started the movement and made it into what it was. Could he have done it had he relied on the kind of thinking you propose? Not at all; I imagine he'd rather weep quietly in the corner, crying to heavens about the terrible state of affairs and how he's helpless because the whole world seems to be against him. Yet, he didn't; yet, India is a free country. It's true that there's effort to standardize people in bigger, more capitalist societies like Russia or the US (you wouldn't think, but in this aspect, the two countries are very similar). It's true that standard-issue people are easier to control and manipulate. But you, armed with that knowledge, failing to do something about it on personal level? That's your choice, not some sort of destiny that the society has somehow "chosen" for you. It sounds to me that it's not morality that you're concerned with. It's with what we can or can't do, and how imperfect we are as a species and as a whole human culture. Moreover, it sounds to me like you're assuming way too much about how humanity works in justifying your thoughts on the matter. Take slavery. It ended "right around the era where mechanized labor becomes popular", you say? Well, here's the list of facts to counter. Some of the good ones: As much as I may be opposed to religion, that last one is a good one. And so on. So maybe it's not the issue of humanity-wide morality - maybe it's the issue of specific cultures that allow or tolerate such inhuman behavior. Maybe it's about people being humane to each other after years of figuring it out. Culture evolves, and we aren't perfect yet - perhaps will never be - but it doesn't mean it isn't getting better. Want a good example? Compare two thousand years ago and now. Five hundred years ago and now. Hell, hundred years ago and now. Perhaps you've forgotten that you're a part of the society you so heavily condemn. Even if you consider yourself to be a cog, one refusing to rotate is enough to break the machinery. But you choose to spin. Is it hypocritical of you? I don't know. Is it immoral of you? I don't know. What I know is that there are choices and consequences, and that things improve as you work on them. I'm not going to continue this conversation because it brings me down. If you'd ever want to discuss this issue in a meaningful manner later - feel free to PM me.1117: Slavery abolished in Iceland.
1214: The Statute of the Town of Korčula (today in Croatia) abolishes slavery.
~1220: The Sachsenspiegel, the most influential German code of law from the Middle Ages, condemns slavery as a violation of God's likeness to man.
1274: Landslov (Land's Law) in Norway mentions only former slaves, which indicates that slavery was abolished in Norway
I see society as an emergent entity, as the computer emerges from the transistor. Our decisions are not ones that are separate from the mechanics of the machine, but are a part of it, and those who make the strides in society, who push for great new things, are part of the mechanisms that allow society to adapt to new challenges, rather than people reaching out and truly creating change. The difference is subtle, but it is there. In the latter, it is driven by a drive for a true moral good, for doing what is right. In the former, it is an instance of society always picking what's best for it. Imagine society making a decision on some issue as a network of nodes, each node effecting one another's state. Each node observes it's variables and picks 1 or 0. However each node effects those around it. As variables change, the way people enforce each other to keep the same tends to resist the ability for rash or sudden action. However, as these forces cause some of the more sensitive nodes to swap sides, despite the input from their peers. Eventually, as the forces continue to increase, enough sensitive nodes change, and begin having enough force to overwhelm their peers that were enforcing the old standard, and thus the new ideal cascades through society and becomes newly enforced. It's a thinking machine distributed over continents, and each group of people holding similar opinions, who are connected to one another, and tend to change within this cascade form a "culture" such as "the west". Before technology it was a nation, and before that a tribe. That's what I refer to when you talk about the many times people have fought for change and brought it about. Yes, the change was good, and moral, but it only came about because the enviornment society was in allowed that change to become strong enough to "cascade". Without the industrial revolution changing our demand from hard labor to semi-intelligent factoryworker dealing with easily broken machines, the forces changed. When global warming starts effecting us, the forces will change. That's what I mean. My point is not at all that we cannot make change. No, it's important we have those people out there who are sensitive to things, who do shift before the group, and ignore the common ideal of morality. However, ultimately our opinions and goals are driven by our biases, and those are formed by what we see and learn are right and wrong. This means that practical/enforced morality depends more on what benefits society or what doesn't, rather than how the individuals in society feel.