How can we ignore our own morals?  

Morals are supposedly our own beliefs of right and wrong that are built deep within our personas. Our morals are associated with strong innate instincts. So, it begs us to question, if our morals are truly built as they claim to be, then how is it we occasionally ignore them and excuse ourselves from doing so?

Surely that goes against the entire definition of a moral?

Maybe it is that, we claim these are our true morals just so that we feel we are the best person we should be. Therefore, we only feel guilty for ignoring them when we are caught ignoring them.

Every time somebody does something that they know they shouldn’t be doing, they subconsciously say to themselves “Just this once” to ultimately excuse themselves and rid them of any guilt. But each time this phrase is used it lowers the actuality of it being a moral as ignoring it becomes a normality. People aren’t always exposed to the consequences of their disobedience to their morals and therefore begin to forget why it was even that important to be a moral in the first place.

I have noted how morally strong young children are. They will tell the teacher if a classmate misbehaves. On tests, they will refuse to pinch a sweet out of a bucket of sweets, even if they know they will get away with it. How do their morals change over a few years? Within 10 years some steal, smoke, lie, cheat, fight, do drugs etc. Some people believe we are born with our morals, however, it is also true that we learn our morals from the people around us. Consequently, we are constantly exposed to different opinions on what is right and wrong.

My father is a particular example of an extremely common question of morality. He was repeatedly unfaithful in his marriage to my mother; does this then mean that I think it is acceptable just because a previous role model of mine felt it was acceptable?

The answer is a big-fat-no. 

Albert Einstein said “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18”

Is this implying that as I am still ‘acquiring morals’ from the people around me with the mix of my dad’s change of morals, I will also change my morals? 

Once again, the answer is a big-fat-no, I witnessed and felt the everlasting consequences of his ignorance to the moral of marriage, whereas, my father kept saying “just this once” and hasn’t experienced the consequences and never will mainly due to his high selfishness. From observation, I have acknowledged that people with high selfishness do not care about loosening certain morals that are expected of them as long as it doesn’t affect them too gravely.

I personally, am a strong believer in ‘Do not do to others which you would not want others to do to you’ So this to me shows that our morals are linked with our individual personalities, as a lot of my morals are based around all my strong beliefs that I have acquired, not from people around me but from my own observations and interpretations on things. So yes, you obviously have your ideas of morals from the people around you, but you have to already have your own interpretations on it. My mother has different morals and my father has different morals, therefore I clearly have to have had my own opinion on those morals as my parents had completely different views.

A lot of people were accepting of the situation because it is oh-so common. Once again this “just this once” rule is applied to the ignorance of the marriage moral but on a larger scale and because it is on such a large scale it has become the normality. 76% of the British population say that cheating is morally unacceptable, but then how is it 1 in 5 British citizens has had an affair? The moral itself is being entirely lost amongst the population. 47% of France’s population believes that cheating is morally unacceptable. This tells me that morals are a present-day attribute that differs depending on the country, cultures, religion, upbringing and so much more. Whether you can ignore them is down to you, your personality, and your acknowledgement of the consequences. 

Sources:

https://www.statista.com/chart/1782/respondents-saying-that-married-people-having-an-affair-is-morally-unacceptable/

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2015/05/27/one-five-british-adults-admit-affair