Assuming no supernatural things, all thinking a human does happens in their brain. Therefore, a very reductive approach: morality is our high-level generalization of what makes us feel bad or good. Things like:
- murder is wrong, because any given human wants to live (self-preservation drive), and also usually wants people they care about to live (them dying causes feelings of hurt)
- theft is wrong, because if you take something from me that I need, or feel connection to, I feel hurt
- etc.
Our social drive ensures that if you generalize things like these into more abstract code and enforce it, less of those bad things happen.
This - both dislike for things that tend to be a part of pretty much all moral codes, and the tendency to create those codes - seems to be built into our brain's firmware. Under this reductive view, the only actual claim morality has to universality is that all of us have pretty much the same hardware/firmware, and thus share the same basic moral principles. That is, hypothetical sentient aliens from outer space would likely have a different moral code due to the different process through which their brain-equivalent appeared.
Counter point: Different people mean different things by the word “murder”. Does abortion count? I’d say no, but plenty of people disagree with me, violently. Does the death penalty count? I’d say yes, but again, plenty disagree violently. Does it count if you kill foreigners after invading their land? Does it count if you kill a chimp? If you euthanise a dog? A hamster? If you kill a prawn for dinner? People disagree on all of these.
Or “theft”: is taxation theft? Or is avoiding taxation theft?
There are differences, but that is too be expected if one views morality as just another human abstraction. There are different human cultures, and people are raised with different influences in varying environments.
I find changes in morality as somewhat analogous to changes in language. They are both messy, ambiguous, chaotic, emergent processes that don't result in a single output.
- murder is wrong, because any given human wants to live (self-preservation drive), and also usually wants people they care about to live (them dying causes feelings of hurt)
- theft is wrong, because if you take something from me that I need, or feel connection to, I feel hurt
- etc.
Our social drive ensures that if you generalize things like these into more abstract code and enforce it, less of those bad things happen.
This - both dislike for things that tend to be a part of pretty much all moral codes, and the tendency to create those codes - seems to be built into our brain's firmware. Under this reductive view, the only actual claim morality has to universality is that all of us have pretty much the same hardware/firmware, and thus share the same basic moral principles. That is, hypothetical sentient aliens from outer space would likely have a different moral code due to the different process through which their brain-equivalent appeared.