Changing moral principles when it suits - is morality fluid?

THE MORAL PRINCIPLES DIFFER

For some morality is about you. EGOISM.

For some it is about you and others. EGOISM AND CONCERN FOR OTHERS. (To be altruistic when it suits is not altruism.  You are keeping YOU firmly in sight and are not willing to give to others unless you want to.)

For some it is about others. ALTRUISM.

That leads to further moral suggestions and theories.

For some morality is what is best for most people.

For some its fixed rules - for example, they think sex outside marriage is always wrong.

For some you know what is right when it is an act that the whole human race can do. Lying is wrong for if all people did it life would not function.

There are those who say there is something special and true in all moral theories but that none of them is right in every circumstance. So you can use fixed rules where appropriate and be utilitarian otherwise.

Is that egotistical of them? Or are they egoists? Altruists? Or are they just practical rather than ethical?

They are practical. For them it is not about ethics and morals and love or justice but about getting things done. It just happens that good may come. So what they do is indirectly egoist for it is taken for granted that you cannot be truly altruist without valuing love and justice and therefore morality.

People worry about the changing. It means that if you are about fixed rules and you think the hospital really desperately needs to steal and harvest organs to save lives then you will probably go Utilitarian and co-operate.

Virtually all people who abandon their moral theory ship for another one won’t admit it. So you never know if your moral absolutist is really just playing a role or not.

It is deceit to say that one theory is right for that means following it all the time and then discarding it because it is too difficult to work with it.  It is a cop out for difficult does not equate to impossible.  To change from one principle to another implies rejection of the first one.  It is not changing clothes but making outfits oppose each other.

All agree that you cannot have a morality or a workable one without proof or evidence to tell you what is bad. Thus it is up to proof or evidence or fact to tell us what is moral. It is not perfect but what is the alternative?  It is immoral to even look for one!  God is definitely out as a possible source of moral principle or authority.

Unless you understand the moral argument for God, assuming God can or does ground morality, or any particular moral principle or moral theory you cannot be moral.  You are not doing maths if you don't understand maths - you are just good at going through the motions.  If morality is inherently valuable then even the person who breaks the moral rule seriously and who murders is better than you for at least they acknowledge morality and understand it.

People have different moral theories and that is fine as long s they take the following into consideration:

Assume or show that moral rules can be ADEQUATELY known.

They must be something that can be shared with others – the rule becomes a command that communicates a principle to others.

Though we can disobey there has to be an oughtness about a rule.

 A feeling of guilt must be instilled in us by breaking the moral rule.

Moral rules are not things or physical but they are still facts in the way it is a fact that something is an ideal.