Myriad (this is my attempt at a catchy name for a philosophical text)

            I’ve come to a conclusion that all justice, morals, virtues, and concepts of good and evil are completely relative. Not in the way that you can come up with whatever you want and be correct, but that they are determined by the social system in which they exist and not universal constants. This statement seems obvious after thinking about it for so long, but I guess I can still back it up with some discussion. Morals are going to get the most focus since they’re most commonly believed to be unchanging.

            The way I see it, it all starts with the social system. A social system is just any structure that human beings use to organize their interaction with one another, ranging from a nation, to a club. By my definition; within a society justice is beneficial action, virtue is valuable traits, morals are concepts for propitious behavior, and good and evil are labels for anything that is advantageous or harmful. Here’s an example. In my wider culture of the United States of America during the early 21^st Century, sex between an adult male and a young boy is considered to be very wrong. So much so that it’s considered justice to send those whom commit this act to jail, where they will be considered to have less moral value that murderers and thieves. Compare this to Classical Hellas, where love between a man and a boy could be considered superior to love between a man and woman (See Plato’s Symposium). Men would have a mentoring relationship with young boys and these relationships included a physical component. The boys were not damaged in any way since this was a completely accepted aspect of the culture, and they likely benefited since they learned stuff and a caring physical relationship can hardly be traumatic. A similar system also existed in Feudal Nippon, just to show it’s not a lone aberration. I realize that in modern times these relationships are typically conducted with additional antisocial acts like assault and kidnapping, but the sexual aspect is usually considered to be the most morally reprehensible part, and without the stigma against the relationships the violent aspects probably wouldn’t commonly exist (I assume here that being taught that one’s natural urges are wrong and need to be repressed might create an unstable and violent individual). This moral belief and others sex related morals (anti-homosexuality, condemning premarital sex, and denouncing all non-monogamous relationships to name a few) can probably be traced to this countries early Puritan roots. But how about murder, it’s always evil right? Well, I can come up with a social system that wouldn’t agree. Imagine a warrior society that believes in a concept of survival of the fittest and glory through combat. Killing others could be viewed as a way to prove ones worth and also as a way or removing those who weren’t valuable to the community. Hypothetical societies like this can be imagined for any act viewed as morally wrong in a culture, and also the opposite where good morals are viewed as evil.

             What I think can be taken away from this idea is that you can’t judge actions within another culture as right or wrong by your own cultural standards. It’s easy to view another society as inherently evil due to differences in the morals built into the social systems, and it’s harder to just accept and tolerate differences. Morals are not completely subjective though, and an individual can’t act in any way desired and claim to follow a different system. Citizens in a social system are obligated to act in the society’s best interest or expect repercussions. It’s only natural for a society to protect itself and encourage the behavior that benefits it, and this is where laws, police, moral education, and such come from. It seems like the problems are that social systems can’t be objectively measured as better or worse, and that many people live in systems that they don’t completely agree with. A solution to this would be to organize various parallel social systems that exist with free movement of their citizens. Diverse cultures could be created in something like city-states, and every member of a culture would be expected to be a willing participant. The more diverse cultures the better, with differences ranging from political organization to economic systems to whether or not people eat meat. Individuals who find that they don’t agree with the culture they live in could hopefully move to another that better suits them, and many morally influenced crimes could be simply punished with exile to another culture that doesn’t view them as crime. Thieves could be sent to the city where property doesn’t exist, adulterers to a free loving state, and embezzlers to a free market anarchy. Exile could be used as a punishment for all serious crimes, with those unable to fit into any group sent to uninhabited areas to create new groups (this isn’t really feasible with the current population on Earth, but once we are capable of living off this planet we can send them to live on asteroids or the like). I’m a big fan of exile, since with justice being actions that benefit society, if a criminal can’t be trusted to cooperate with the social system it's more beneficial to simply make them leave than to dedicate infrastructure to imprisoning them or to waste their life by ending it. I hope societies could be much more stable with all the members giving their full support, and as long as each group recognized the morals of the others as different but not inherently wrong, then many conflicts could be avoided (like Crusades). A focus on judging laws and morals according to how they better a social system rather than as objective facts could also be helpful (such as would legal drug use or the illegal drug trade causing more damage to the society).

            I’m tempted to go on about my opinions on the social contract and other thoughts but I think this is enough moral/political philosophy for now. I think my postulation that morals are relative base on the social system in which they exist is sound, and I fail to come up with a moral idea that can’t be reversed within another viable system. The first way to apply this idea is to be more tolerant of the morals and cultures different from my own. This is easy for me with my non-coercion leanings, and leaving others to their own devices is what I do naturally. In conclusion, I agree with the belief that no one does evil intentionally, but my interpretation is that they just don’t agree on what actions are the most beneficial for society.