re societally acceptable behavior cobb alexia lis uiuc edu mike cobb writes merely a question for the basis of morality moral ethical behavior societally acceptable behavior who is society society is the collection of individuals which will fall under self defined rules in terms of un decisions all the sets of peoples who are represented at the un are considered part of that society if we then look at us federal laws provided by representatives of purely us citizens then the society for that case would be the citizens of the us and so on how do they define what is acceptable acceptable are those behaviours which are either legislated for the society by representatives of that society or those behaviours which are non verbally and in effect non consciously such as picking your nose on the oprah winfrey show no one does it but there is no explicit law against doing it in many cases there are is no definition of whether or not a behaviour is acceptable but one can deduce these behaviours by observation how do we keep from a whatever is legal is what is moral position in an increasingly litigation mad society this trap is becoming exceedingly difficult to avoid with the infusion and strengthening of ethnic cultures in american and australian to bring in my local perspective culture the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are ever widening and legislation may eventually become the definition of moral behaviour for instance some cultures dominant religion call for live sacrifice of domesticated animals most fundamental christians would find this practice abhorrent however is it moral according to the multicultural american society this kind of problem may only be definable by legislation obviously within any society there will be differences in opinion in what is acceptable behaviour or not and much of this will be due to different environmental circumstances rather than merely different opinions one thing is for sure there is no universal moral code which will suit all cultures in all situations there may however be some globally accepted mores which can be agreed upon and instantiated as a globally enforcable concept the majority of mores will not be common until all peoples upon this earth are living in a similar environment if that ever happens jeff nonickname clark
