More standardized testing, in math and the hard sciences, with much tougher standards, and corporal punishment for low grades.

IMHO, morality springs from within. After a few years of adulthood spent gaining experience from immoral people, most develop an inner gauge for dealing with others. This usually takes the form of the Golden Rule to some extent, where, in dealing with people, one asks the question, "If our situations were reversed, how would I want to be treated?" Only the truly selfish reject the gauge, then wonder why they're treated so badly by others. Good religion is also good psychology.

The churches are, by and large, no longer interested in morality, just politics. Indeed, try finding some pinko preacher who does not say that liberalism and morality are the same thing.
Note that the founders felt that civic virtue was a prerequisite for office-holders in a free government, and that this was preserved by voters who felt the same way. These days, the voters have been bought off.

The churches are, by and large, no longer interested in morality, just politics. Indeed, try finding some pinko preacher who does not say that liberalism and morality are the same thing.
Note that the founders felt that civic virtue was a prerequisite for office-holders in a free government, and that this was preserved by voters who felt the same way. These days, the voters have been bought off.

Define moral. Then show me a person who says he has morals who has never betrayed on his stated morals.

I think decency is what the nation craves, rather than morals, and I'm not sure that's any easier to define. Although we're all pretty sure we can identify its absence. A recent example of absence, the trampling death of a WalMart employee.

This was all settled 200 years ago. Government should be empowered to enforce a minimal morality of several individual rights: life, liberty, and property. It is immoral for government to attempt to provide for one by forcing another.

Yes, this means most of our popular legislation is immoral.

"Any one care to suggest fall back position?"
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Yes. It is disheartening to read that we cannot meet the bare minimum of decency required to attain morality as it was defined in the previous generation.

You people have no right to dishearten me this way. When you try to make me feel guilty for my failings, you are unjustly attempting to hold me responsible for your own inability to deal with my failings. I refuse to bear your burden any longer - I refuse to continue to shoulder the burden of the unacceptability - to YOU! - of my failings. I wash my hands of you, and of your closed-minded and selfish attitude which somehow allows you to assume that my failings are my own problem.

Yes, I'm an ass. Because of you. Only because of you. And now you need to make amends to me.

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(So, my thesis: At some point in time, our society recognized that there is a virtue to be found in selfishness. But, at some other, later, point in time, we became confused, and we forgot that selfishness qua selfishness isn't the virtue we meant.)

How about a minimum standard of morality:

You must get along with your mate well enough so that you and your mate stay together until the last of your children reaches age 18.

To accomplish the above you may take the pain relievers of your choice to deaden the pain. Although regular sex is preferred to improve the bonding and get the body to make its own endogenous heroin (endorphins).

Code Duello.

An armed society is a police society.

Donna B. - what's the difference between decency and morality? sounds like an artificial distinction to me.

All of our laws represent a kind of "morality". Any legal system is good only to the extent that it represents some standard that doesn't change over time, isn't an arbitrary code invented by a tyrant of the day, which is why I propose the starting point of the 10 Commandments. The fact that there are people in this nation who cannot stomach the 10 Commandments illustrates exactly why our country is becoming less moral. We want to invent our own conception of morality. Without some objective standard, there is no such thing as morality.

Next argument: that's why any civilization other than Communist entities have posited and/or believed in God. My argument for the existence of "God"--there is no human being on this earth who at some point as not protested "but that's not fair". Even criminals will complain about fairness or unfairness. Since most of us would agree that life is not in general "fair", then where do we get this absurd outrageous idea that life SHOULD be fair?

"Without some objective standard, there is no such thing as morality."
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But the Ten Commandments aren't an objective standard. They're arbitrary, and in some respects inscrutable.

But they work just fine.

I'm not sure objectivity is a critical requirement in a standard. Universal (or at least wide-spread) acceptance is, though. That a standard has been arrived at in an objective manner can make that standard more acceptable to more people - it can make it more saleable, in essence - but the objectivity qua objectivity is unimportant.

The Ten Commandments have worked as well as they have because they were required reading for so many of us, and thus had widespread adherence right out of the box. Christian, Jew, and Muslim all accepted these values as mandatory and inviolate, in lifelong lessons that began with our first conversations and which are securely and permanently imprinted in many of us.

Looking at pre-Biblical writings, it's clear that these same moral standards existed, and were accepted, long before Moses walked up the hill. It's also clear that societies unacquainted with Moses have adopted (independently?) identical moral structures. The basic undercurrents in each set - respect your god, respect others, respect yourself - and the more stripped down version encompassed in The Golden Rule - can be found in most, if not all, of the major and not-so-major and minor religions throughout history.

Constancy has been a hallmark of this structure, in spite of appearances. The historical acceptance throughout much of the world of slavery, often used to show that morality changes with time, instead only shows that we're smart enough to be able to define our terms - and the terms used to diagram and list our moral rules - to fit our needs. Slave owners (at least here in the United States) kept to that same set of moral standards as it was passed down to them; they simply structured the definition of "others" - i.e., of humans - to exclude slaves.

If complaints of immorality are rising, that does not mean immorality is rising, only that complaints of it are.

If you look at U.S. history (and a great deal of world history), you will find that complaints of immorality rise and fall according to the state of religious revivalism. The more intensely religious a person is, the more they will natter on about immorality.

It is entirely about their own mindset and has nothing whatsoever to do with the extent of immorality around them.

If you restrict the survey to only those who attend church regularly, or are self-described born-again Christians, or are described by others as very religious, do the divorce statistics differ meaningfully?

Church weddings have become a mere cultural symbol rather than a mark of religiousity. Heck, Hollywood films almost always have a wedding happen in church - despite the fact that the hero(ine) has been sleeping around with everyone in sight for the past 1 & 1/2 hours.

At least one of the 10 commandments is nuts: the one that forbids any representational art--the ban is not limited to idols. This is primitive magical thinking, not morality.

Better education.

The need evidenced by the usual arc of these types of discussions, which usually devolve to semantic disagreements over the meaning of morality and objectivity.

The Ten Commandments are objective. They are objective foremost because they already exist. Equally important they are reasonably well defined and well understood (there are some variations stemming from translation and divining of intent.) The end result being that they can be employed as an objective standard - i.e. one that has limited wiggle room.

This can be viewed in contrast to Google's admonition 'don't be evil' which is so subjective as to be meaningless (and arguably worthless as evidenced by Google's willing participation in China's suppression of free speech and conscience on the internet.) The wiggle room being so great as to allow justification of most anything.

But both are statements of morality in so far as they attempt to define a standard of good, or acceptable conduct.

Until we are willing to accept that words have defined meanings, and stick to those meanings, there is no hope of abiding by any notions of morality.

The Declaration of Independence is a supremely moral document. The US Constitution is another moral document intended as one viable method of achieving the principles laid out in the Declaration. Every time a court, the legislature, or the executive disregard or attempts to alter the clear meaning of these documents they commit an immoral act.

At least one of the 10 commandments is nuts: the one that forbids any representational art--the ban is not limited to idols. This is primitive magical thinking, not morality.

Uh. Actually it prevents things like cults of personality. So there is some benefit there.

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The Constitution does not define moral conduct for the people. It defines the limits of Government.

The one attempt at changing the document to define morality for the people - alcohol prohibition - was a total failure.

"Objective standards": dogma the speaker (or writer) believes to be true.

Bilwick,

Nice one.