Yes yes I know language changes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be annoyed at a language trend that is damaging the ability to convey or even conceptualize information.
“Prison labor is a form of legalized slavery and that is bad.” 
“That’s just morals. To each their own.” 
The implication of “morals” as a summary of ethical and philosophical discourse tends to lead to such “morals” being dismissed as irrelevant or even irrational because they can’t be measured in a test tube in a laboratory environment (neither can the concept of logical positivism but that one gets a pass).
Less commonly but still in existence is this version that is used by right wingers for a different but still grating purpose.
“The problem with society today is there is not enough morals. That is why bad things happen. There needs to be more morals in the family and in the school.” 
It’s still a crude summary, but one with even less philosophical consistency, that takes the already crude idea of “morals” and turns it into some kind of currency of goodness that is measured between those that ostensibly have a lot of it 
and those that don’t. 
I think Engles touches on this point, as do many Anarchists with a distiction on how a bourgois morality of means above all pushes an immorality of both ends and current conditions.
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I’m feeling a bit tired, so I hope someone can correct me if I’m completely off base. I don’t think I care much about morals, at least not in the way the term is commonly used today. For instance, isn’t Neoliberal democracy often considered the greatest and most moral system ever created? If that’s the case, and I consider myself in opposition to neoliberal hegemony, does that mean I’m not a ‘good’ person? Does it make me a bad guy, an enemy of freedom, or an evil left-wing extremist simply because I advocate for housing the homeless and feeding the hungry?
I’m not saying I choose to be a ‘bad guy,’ but I’m aware that according to common sentiment, I may be portrayed that way. That’s why, outside of a philosophical discussion, I honestly don’t care much about traditional notions of morality.
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Just using the word ‘morals’ might be oversimplifying things, I guess? Like I agree using the word “morals” can be quite reductionist when discussing complex political and ethical ideologies. It’s a broad term that often oversimplifies the nuanced perspectives people hold.
Then again im a baby when it comes to this stuff so keep that in mind
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you’re just rehashing moral relativism here, which is also what @[email protected] was getting at in terms of finding the concept of moral frameworks, and the use of morality as a substitution for a coherent ideology, insufficient for discourse
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Ok im gonna be 100 with you Im not even sure I understand what moral relativism really means. I just stated that I dont care “much” for the concept of morals because I feel its often used to deny minorities the right of self defense because when black people fight back and its not a toothless protest its amoral. Im not a man of learning but Im open to learn… so feel free to enlighten me if you have anything else to say.
well, that’s basically it - is it morally correct to steal a loaf of bread? what if the baker beats his children? what if without that loaf of bread you will die? etc.
moral relativism at its most basic is just the idea that depending on perspectives and circumstances, what is or is not morally correct will differ. every conversation about “is it wrong to go back in time and kill baby hitler” is an exercise in moral relativism.
the sticky thing about moral relativism is that since both the cop and the protester think they’re acting in a morally correct way, morality becomes kind of a worthless way to talk about injustice and inequality, like you’ve said here. All three of us, you, me, and UlyssesT, are on the same page about this, it’s much clearer to talk about ideologies and class and identity relations than to boil it down into “morality” where it could mean something different to anyone who hears it.
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Okay so maybe this helps you, but I came from a very similar place as you and yeah I agree that morality and ethics are just used to shut down further discussion. “I think its bad!” Conversation over.
The problem I want to argue isn’t with morality and ethics but (as other people have pointed out) there is a problem with the way that morality is defined/commonly understood and we miss it because the problem isnt with morality, but the problem of splitting things into categories and then assigning a relative “value” to those categories. Its a direct descendent of bourgeois enlightenment philosophy, Christian conceptions of good and evil, and catalysed with a healthy dose of residual cultural puritanism. However, it is the primary way that most people define most things, as having a subject/object value relation, rather than a dialectical one. Things are in a good group, which is my accepted group, and the other group. This is popular way of constructing an argument because it completely ignores projection – if I can imagine the other wants to kill me then I can justify killing the other, which short circuits human risk calculation.
IMO dialectical morality and philosophy doesn’t get anywhere enough study and attention, so what you end up with is a bunch of leftists who can do dialectical materialism, but still view morality as an objective value relation. Or we get accused of it (purity tests) and we have no response because we don’t understand the problem with the way the argument is framed.
In a nutshell, dialectical morality would be something more like “good and bad define each other.” I get a lot of this from the Dao de Ching, but its effective because it allows us to critique other people’s moral arguments by escaping the limitations that are causing people to reach shitty conclusions, while not abandoning ethics as one of the people with the most consistently ethical beliefs, surely a contradiction that shuts down all engagement as well. Also, there are times when something is clearly right/wrong so a mastery of many different forms of constructing an argument helps us to be on the right side at the end of our analysis. We also know that dialectics helps to make class analysis as well, so the more time we spend in that headspace, the more natural it becomes.
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Morality in its common presentation and push was invented by the bourgeois
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personal conspiracy theory: vulgar materialism was invented to confuse and discredit materialist analysis
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