After we had our son, my wife and I began wondering where his values would come from. Neither of us belongs to a religious organization, so he won’t pick up values at church. I was concerned about where he would get his values, but I felt that he would get his moral values naturally from the world around him.

I wondered where our values come from. Is there a common natural morality found in society and how it would be different from religious morality?

My recent reading of Vattel on Natural Law gave me some clues.

To simplify the complex legal philosophy of Vattel and the people of his times: natural law is based on the premise that a human being in a state of nature is at complete liberty to do anything that is physically possible for them to do. Our human nature drives us towards happiness. We find our greatest happiness in our relationship with other people and with spiritual beings.

In a liberal (meaning free or voluntary) relationship we create formal and informal agreements with others. We give up certain liberties to have rights in relationships. Those limits on our liberties are obligations. Those rights are benefits.

When the agreements are formal, they are legal agreements, or laws or contracts. Vattel concerned himself primarily with these legal aspects of our relationships. I am concerned about a special kind of informal relationship, one that is based on a sense of mutual caring. Relationships that are based on a mutual sense of caring we call loving relationships, or relationships of love.

Our informal agreements about how we are expected to behave in our relationships towards others are called mores. “Moral” literally means something having to do with mores, so technically speaking, behaviors that are part of our system of mores are morals. By social convention when we speak of morals we mean only those mores that are concerned maintaining our loving relationships.

Right and wrong are always relative to a goal. That which takes us to the goal is right, relative to that goal. That which takes is away from the goal is wrong, relative to that goal.

When we make formal legal relationships, we accept obligations so we may enjoy benefits. Our legal agreement defines what is right or wrong. When we take the benefit of the contract or law without fulfilling the obligation, we have done wrong with respect to the agreement. We are being unfaithful to the other persons in the agreements.

We are dependent on each other for our enjoyment of love. When we form a relationship of love, our obligation is to keep and support the relationship, and not abuse the dependency. Right and wrong are relative to that obligation. That is a natural fact. No person created that principle. That is just how loving relationships work. These obligations in our loving relationships are our morals. Since these morals occur naturally and are not the product of culture, they are natural morals. From this we can observe that we have a natural morality.

The point of a loving relationship is mutual happiness, so when our fulfillment of our obligations creates more unhappiness for ourself than we can reasonably bear, we may excuse ourself from the relationship without being unfaithful and immoral in a natural sense. In a loving relationship, when we no longer benefit from happiness in a loving relationship, we may end the relationship without violating natural morality.

When we knowingly and intentionally try to interfere in a loving relationship so that the people in that relationship do not enjoy it, we are doing something immoral with respect to natural morality.

Our obligations to our beloved and to others in relationships of love define morality in all societies. The details of specific actions with respect to what is reasonable are a specific society’s moral system.

Without a real threat of suffering for the unfaithful person, obligations have no meaning. When an individual acts wrongly with respect to any kind of obligation under any agreement, a suffering is necessary, otherwise the obligation would have no force behind it. A suffering may be a physical suffering such as isolation, or an emotional suffering such as emotional separation from the beloved. If the suffering occurs naturally, the morality is natural morality. We see this when one person does not fulfill their obligations in the relationship and the beloved ceases to care for them. The unfaithful person suffers the loss of the loving relationship. The suffering is just.

Punishment is when social mores requires forced suffering. When suffering results from intentional punishment the immorality is never natural morality. It is always social morality. Social morality is not necessarily just.

The specific rules of morality are the system of morality. Natural morality is the system of morals that result naturally from the expression of human nature, that occur naturally as a matter of consequences.

As a matter of evolution, when a society does not have morals that are effective at supporting itself, it will eventually collapse or be destroyed by other societies.

Large societies must do two things to evolve and grow, otherwise they are doomed to collapse or be destroyed by other societies. First, they must allow the uninhibited growth of all other moral systems. Second, they must actively prevent the adoption a specific moral system as the dominant one.

Social evolution in a large society requires the presence of a variety of moral systems. If one moral system becomes dominant it will destroy the other moral systems or prevent their growth. This will lead to social stagnation. A stagnant society will eventually be destroyed by other societies that are not stagnant. For a larger society to stay strong and healthy it must actively prevent one moral system from becoming dominant. A healthy large society will look no further than natural morality as its dominant moral foundation.

Social morality is not the same as natural morality. Natural morality comes from the necessities that arise from forming loving relationships. Social morality comes from the society’s culture which comes from history of the members of the society. Natural morality is without history. Natural morality is the static framework of moralness that social morality is built on.

Our moral sense is our conscience. Conscience is the sense of wrongness about something we have done or are about to do. Conscience springs from our belief that we are deserving of punishment if we commit an immoral act.

Conscience requires liberty. People who are not free cannot make choices. We are cannot be virtuous if we are not free to choose right or wrong.

Some relationships are not free. Parents are bound to their children, and children to their parents. Family members are bound to each other by upbringing. People enclosed physically with others such as prisoners or tribes on isolated islands are forced to relate to the others. When individuals in forced relationships have social morals imposed on them and they follow the imposed moral system, they are being moral with respect to the other members of their society, but they are not being moral within themselves. They act out of fear of punishment. They do not act out conscience; the do not feel themselves deserving of punishment; they do not learn and grow in character.

Virtue itself is natural. Virtues are those behaviors that sustain a society, and bring it its greatest happiness. Specific virtues are cultural and generally an extension of social morality.

Social morality does not necessarily bring the greatest happiness to a society. For example, social morality can be based on old mores that are not applicable to a contemporary environment. Cultures may cling to social morals that are not in its best interest for reasons such as an oppressive political or religious environment.

Social morality can be divided into secular and religious morality. When morality comes from the sayings of an oracle, the morality is religious morality, not natural morality. Religious morality is a special type of social morality. Over time religious morality can incorporate into the secular social morality, and visa versa.

We can’t reject religious morality as being based on lies because it is based in part on intuited human truths that cannot be discovered through reason alone. We cannot know everything about everything. We do not always come to rational conclusions based on facts. That is human nature. Religion tends to fill some of the gaps in our human knowledge of right and wrong, so it generally leads to a happier society. Freedom of religion is necessary if we are to have the happiest society.

So what am I to make of all this respect to bring up my son? I love my son, so I want him to be as happy as possible. I know that he needs to be in an environment that encourages virtuous morality so that he can learn those values. I know that he must be free to make choices, otherwise he will not develop a health conscience.

The problem I am faced with is that I don’t know of an environment that is strongly centered in virtue. There are religious schools, but they teach that myths are facts, and many of their teachings are unhealthy. Like the commandment regarding coveting: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his bull, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” This means that if you are a man, your wife is your property, you have the right to own slaves (“manservant” and “maidservant” by my understanding are slaves), and the commandment is only addressed to men as if morality only applies to men. In fact, coveting is one of the foundations of happiness. We see something that we believe will make us a happier person. We acquire it. If it doesn’t make us happier we get rid of it. That commandment itself is immoral for at least four different reasons.

When I write about how I would like to have a church based on positive values, this is one my concerns. Where can I find an environment to raise my son in that would teach him the best possible values? I don’t see it in religious organizations. I don’t see it in state run institutions. I see bits and pieces of it in various societies. Sports organizations like Little League teach some values. Campfire too. Some Boy Scout clubs are OK. There should be some organization, like a church, that immerses kids in positive and healthy values, but I don’t see one anywhere around me. I wonder why.

Stumble it!