Mafia Morality

[catsittingstill]

So those of you who read here a lot have probably noticed that I link things from P.Z. Myers sometimes, because I enjoy his blog.  Sometimes he posts examples of e-mails people have sent him, which he thinks are funny, or which he thinks it would be good to respond to publicly, or both.

I was reading one such recent post, and came across this: "Indeed, your claim that morality comes from our culture needs to answer the question, "What if my culture is the Mafia?""

What if your culture was the Mafia?  As I understand it (bearing in mind that I don't actually know much about Mafia culture), your morality would be mostly based on 1) loyalty to a group 2) submission to authority and 3) the enforcement of purity, especially on women.  Add into that your Mafioso comfort with violence, and you'd have basically conservative morality.  The difference between you and non-Mafia conservatives would be what group you are loyal to and what authority you enforce submission to. 

None of it would require any "implantation by God" (though plenty of it can be observed in the bible) and it would tend to set you at odds, as you are presently at odds, with liberals, whose morality is mostly based on 1) reduce harm and 2) treat others fairly, plus the relatively new idea that violence has an intrinsic moral dimension rather than being a neutral tool in the social toolbox for getting what you want.

All of these principles with the possible exception of the enforcement of purity, are frequently seen in animals, especially animals that are closely related to humans, and may reasonably be supposed to arise from something common to all species that exhibit them (hint--which is probably not a soul--at least, not a soul as you understand the term.) 

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And on that day, he settled all the family business.