Morals and ethics are guidelines or rules, so to speak, as to what is good, bad, right, and wrong.
What creates morals and ethics? I believe it differs from person to person.
Unfortunately for most I believe their morals aren't set forth by themselves but instead held on a level of the norm (what most people around them do and think is all right).
I don't believe these are true unconditional morals because if everybody else start thinking something was all right to do, then all of a sudden it's accepted by the ones who don't actually have their own guidelines as well.
Here's a simple example.
In caveman time, it might be acceptable to force a woman to have sex if you have the power or it might be acceptable to take what you want from anyone if you can.
If one of us from the present went back to this time, would we slip into their ideas of acceptance? You're probably saying no, but the reality is that without any of your own set guidelines, why wouldn't you.
Why wouldn't you if your guidelines are only created by what the people around you do? The only possible reason not to would be if you identified with why you thought those guidelines were right and stuck to them (walking in others shoes or maybe even a universal shoe).
It is for this reason that I believe it is important for each one of us to take on this responsibility and to logically come up with our own reality of morals.
One good way to do this is to identify with what you would want for yourself and apply it to the way you treat and serve others (for example, not necessarily giving a person what you want to eat but giving them the choice of what they want, just like you would probably want your choice).
I believe this is an excellent direction to go because your mind and realizations would constantly be progressing for yourself and others.
By trying to figure out how to be good to others, you would also be helping yourself to be good to yourself.
I would like to put forth one example of what I believe were merely accepted morals, yet not logical ones, from my life.
I ate meat my whole life and didn't think anything about it for a long time.
Then, even when I went beyond my mindlessness (mindless in the way I didn't even really think about it) and felt that it wasn't really right, I still ate it anyway because I did not see an easy alternative and did not keep the thought in my mind.
When it comes down to it, though, I would not like to see my friends and family eaten (sometimes boiled or skinned alive) nor would I be happy with the idea of someone harvesting me to be eaten without my choice.
Especially at the point of progression that I feel I have come to, I would like to have the chance and choice to keep growing (rather than fall to an ignorant beings whims).
Feeling this for myself, my friends, and my family (people in general), I also apply this to all kinds of life that has any amount of intelligence (and evenly other beings that might care or be attached to them).
Some may argue that plants are also alive and to eat them is the same.
I'm not completely against this idea either, and that's why I choose the lesser of two evils and try not to be gluttonous and wasteful when it comes to food.
Beyond that, many plants produce food similar to the way we as animals produce food (for example, milk and fruit).
This is very different from choosing to take a life, because these thing's uses are best for consumption.
For animals and such, I ask who do we think we are to judge that their best use is to be consumed? Would you like it if someone decided that about you, your family, and your friends? (As I ask this question I'm not angry at anyone.
I feel it is almost more ignorant, not knowledgeable, to slaughter the seemingly less conscious animals than it would be to be the animal.
In this manner I feel much compassion for both.
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