That's the point, it's a system. Not a list. There's a difference.

Here's an example. In the state of Florida it is illegal to shower while naked. My parents taught me that obeying the law was a "good" moral, and society generally agrees that following the law is "right." Yet I know breaking this law does not break any of my morals. Why? Did someone tell me "Oh, no, showering while naked isn't really bad!"?

No. I knew it wasn't a bad thing immediately upon reading about the law. My ethics are an interpretation, not the letter of the law. And each person has their own interpretation.

That is why morals are gray, not black-and-white. If precedent were the only basis of morality then the same thing would be wrong in all situations. To use my example earlier of "Thou shalt not kill" if that were the law I'd been taught I would know that killing in self-defense or in service of my country is wrong and not do it. But I know that self-defense and wartime killing is not wrong. Why? Because society tells me it's OK then?

Again, no. Because I understand "killing" to be "murder" and "murder" to be "unnecessary killing". Yet even with that logic I could say certain types of murder are necessary. A drunk driver kills my family so I kill him "so he can't kill anyone else." That fits the "necessary" killing criteria, right? Yet I still know it's wrong. Why? Did my parents teach me all these exceptions, all these individual situations that determine the appropriate response in all situations?

I'm not saying I've invented a new system but that I use the one most people use; their own. People can and do make ethical decisions without any previous knowledge of that particular situation. They can do that if they understand the meaning of the ethics and not simply the letter.

So yes, I do that. There is reason behind decisions to accept certain moral systems. Why did I choose to accept my mother's perspective that abortion is wrong and not my father's that it is right? Why did I choose to accept my father's perspective that premarital sex is right and not my mother's where it is wrong?

In face of competing moral systems we choose. That choice is typically not random. And it's the driving force behind that choice that I'm talking about when I talk about ethics. There's an underlying system in place that decides which rule to follow and it is that system which is unique and not bound by the letter of the rules and is not a simple list of things you can teach your children.

Does that make more sense?

Jacquesne