Quote Originally Posted by mrpink019
Morals and ethics technically don't exist. In true human nature these things(as well as feelings, but that is a totally different discussion) don't exist(would you say that a dog or monkey has ethics?). The only reason they are thought to exist today is because things like religion try to explain the reasons for human behaivor through itself. For instance, if a starving man was given the chance to either shoot a man or eat a pizza and he ate the pizza, a lot of people would say he ate it not only because he was starving, but also because he had good ethics. Ethics actually had nothing to do with it. He gained nothing from shooting the man, but by eating a sandwich he prolonged his death. Therefore he acted according to what seemed to be good for him.

Humans and the rest of the animal kingdom act according to instinct, and according to their needs. Not because of ethics. Even if some one kills an innocent person, it always boils down to the fact that they are doing what they think is best for them, even if their thinking is severely flawed.


I would add my two cents to this nice discussion that you have going on about government, but as of late I have been feeling apathy towards the government and have no stance on it.
Dude... there's all sorts of systems for ethics without appeal to divinity. A whole bunch of reasons to be a good person whether or not you think god is waiting to spank you in the afterlife for all the bad things you did.
Is piety that which is loved by the gods or do the gods love it because it is piety, my friend euthyphro? that kinda stuff. Your example with pizza that turned into a sandwich is equally baffling. Are you speaking specifically of egoism? Either your understanding of ethics is not very lucid, or you're incredibly baked (I suspect the later, pizza usually stays pizza when I'm sober).