All morality is socially-determined. Individuals in nature are just amoral beings, probably without any concept of language, or at least a language that would be the pre-condition of a morality. No one just comes up with a morality, in this regard. I have some notion of basic human rights, yet these notions are influenced by the culture I live in. In this sense, my own morality is the product of my society. (It's important to note though that societies can be conflicted and multivalent in terms of morality, which explains, in part, why no society is completely coherent or whole - that is, homogenous.)
Even so, I still attempt to put together the pieces in a manner that I think best fits. In other words, my sense of morality is still the product of my society yet I am the arbiter (or can at least pretend to be) of the morality that proves most useful to me and, by extension, hopefully proves most useful for those I interact with.
But I am only a man, a man they call "volprof."
Why do you say that individuals in nature are just amoral beings? This seems to be a quite popular, yet unsupported belief. In the same vein, asserting that individuals in nature are moral beings is also unsupported.
Can you explain what you mean by, "morality is socially determined?" Such phrases are often tossed around with little to no clarity. I'll offer some clarifying questions.
- Do you intend to say that individual moral feelings cannot be trusted as 'natural' since by the time they are felt by individuals, said individuals have already been subjected to years (usually at least a decade) of socialization?
- Do you intend to say that moral and ethical codes are only meant to apply to the specific societies in which they are found?
- Or, do you intend to say that, 'morality is socially determined' encompasses both of these thoughts?
Here are the problems I see which each of these characterizations:
1. For the first characterization to stand as you desire it to stand, all generations of persons have had to have been socialized by the society created by the preceding generation. At its roots, this is an infinite regress problem.
2. This must lead one to embrace the second characterization. The first generations to create societies must have then indoctrinated the youth with the codes which would render said societies more, well, more...something. See, here is the second problem. What is the primary value this nascent society is esteeming? And, why are they esteeming this value? Again, those in this first society would not have been socialized, so at least one value, the value for which they are instituting their societal code under which the next generation will be socialized, is not 'socially-determined'.
3. Okay, so you have found a way out. This value is socially determined, because each of the members of this nascent society came together in a covenant, a social-contract. That contract determined the values, right? Well, unfortunately, this just pushes the question further down the road. Why did they agree to the covenant? What is it that each of these individuals found to be worth sacrificing for (covenants, like all contracts, come with costs and benefits)? This must be the primary value. Further, by trying to find solace in the social contract argument, you now face another problem: why on earth would such a contract be binding? Without morality, without some value given to either honesty and honest-dealing or some value given to one's own life, comfort, security, happiness, etc., the contract can never bind. If keeping one's word is a moral duty, yet moral duties come from the social contract, then pledging oneself comes before keeping that pledge is a moral duty.
4. You might still object and say all of this is easy to explain in terms of self-interest. Sure, but self-interest is not necessarily opposed to morality, sui generis. There are plenty of moral systems that are absolutely founded upon self-interest (as the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Adam Smith, Bentham attest). Further, self-interested moral systems are not necessarily subjectivist (against, as the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Adam Smith, Bentham attest).
If there is nothing outside of society that justifies the use of coercive force against others, that is, if individuals do not have such a right absent the society, then to argue that societies possess such a right is to either be an alchemist or to assert that they only have the right because the individual members of the society have consented to having coercive force used against them. To assert the latter is to justify the Holocaust and the Soviet purges or to assert that the consent must be explicit. But, if you say it is implicit but that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin were not good societies, by what higher-than-society standard are you judging these societies? Or, are you just pounding the table and declaring, "My society is better because it is my society?"
