
An awkward children's moment depiction of morality according to the Bible, Matthew 5:17-19, of Christianity. [14]

An awkward children's moment depiction of morality according to the Bible, Matthew 5:17-19, of Christianity. [14]

In humanities, morality is a doctrine or system of ethical conduct, moral principles, or rules of behavior deemed to be ideals of right human conduct; in general, actions which are considered virtuous. [1]

Overview
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Physicochemical morality
The following are physico-chemical morality related quotes:

“The moral symbols in nature are those discovered and employed by the great Bergman.”
— Johann Goethe (1809)

“If iron sulphate and caustic potash are brought together, the SO4 ions leave the iron to unite with the potassium. When in nature an adjustment of such differences of potential is about to take place, he who would approve or disapprove of the process from the moral point of view would appear to most to play a ridiculous part.”
— Otto Weininger (1903), Sex and Character

“Morality has nothing to do with any particular form of religion. Morality is the adjustment of matter to its environment—the natural arrangement of molecules. More especially it may be considered as dealing with organic molecules. Conventionally it is the science of reconciling the animal homo (more or less) sapiens to the forces and conditions with which he is surrounded.”
— Howard Lovecraft (1918), “Letter to Maurice Moe”, May 15

“It may sound strange to speak of the morals of an atom, or of the way in which a molecule conducts itself. But in the last analysis, science can draw no fundamental distinction between the conduct of an animal, a bullet, or a freshman, although there may be more unknown factors involved in one case than in the other.”
— William Patten (1920), AAAS address “The Message of the Biologist” + The Grand Strategy of Evolution: the Social Philosophy of a Biologist

“In a world of physics and chemistry, how could things like moral obligations or values really exist?”
— Sam Harris (2010) [8]

The modern-day physical sciences based model of morality is that (a) a person is animated reactive 26-element molecule (human molecule), (b) that "good" actions, or rather "natural" actions, are governed by the Lewis inequality for a natural process (dG < 0), (c) that "bad" (or evil) actions, or rather "unnatural" actions, are governed by the Lewis inequality for an unnatural process (dG > 0), (d) that both natural and unnatural processes are thermodynamically "coupled" together, such that natural processes energetically drive the unnatural processes and that some reactions will progress in a direction contrary to that prescribed by their own affinity, (e) that there is no such thing as "life" and "death" according to the defunct theory of life model. This is the thermodynamic explanation to age-old idiom that "good always triumphs over evil", which means that natural processes will always triumph over unnatural processes or technically that the total set of processes will only go when the system shows an entropy increase or transformation content increase. In sum, the modern answer to this query is the Lewis inequality, which distinguishes between what is ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ in the course of human existence, viewed in the context of thermodynamic coupling and universal spin, spin being what drives the various heat cycles of daily existence.

Morality science
The first and most dominate morality guidance system was the circa 2500BC mostly deity-based, part astronomy-based, part biology-based, part geology-based Ra theology structured in the notion of 42 negative confessions or forbidden actions, weighted digressions of which would result in a person’s soul not be permitted into the afterlife.


Circa 2500BC depiction of the Egyptian negative confessions based morality system, one's moral worth being weighted on the scale of Maat, which is the world's first and foremost morality system, structured in Ra theology, which forms the basis for over 72% of modern morality systems.

Circa 2500BC depiction of the Egyptian negative confessions based morality system, one's moral worth being weighted on the scale of Maat, which is the world's first and foremost morality system, structured in Ra theology, which forms the basis for over 72% of modern morality systems.

This model was carried over into modern-day Brahmaic religions (1200BC), in the form of karma weighing, and Abrahamic religions (500BC), in the form of sin judgment and soul weighing, via syncretism and modification, the core to each of these being the circa 3500BC cyclical birth death resurrection/reincarnation theory of Ra the sun god. Over 72% of the modern-day world still believes in this morality system and uses it to guide their daily motion.


Mock "relative morality" meter, depicting either the idiom that there is a fine line between good and evil or the Google company slogan "don't be evil". [9]

Mock "relative morality" meter, depicting either the idiom that there is a fine line between good and evil or the Google company slogan "don't be evil". [9]

The earliest deity-free morality system is called ‘Epicureanism’ introduced in circa 307BC by Greek philosopher Epicurus, in which the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear, as well as absence of bodily pain (aponia) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of one's desires. The combination of these two states is supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form.

The next was German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s 1785 ‘categorical imperative’.

In 1789, British philosopher John Stewart introduced his deity-free ‘moral movement’ theory which formed the basis of what he called ‘natural religion’.

In 1789, English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham introduced the ‘utilitarianism’ system of morality; which was expanded on famously by English political philosopher John Mill's 1863 book Utilitarianism.

In 1809, German polymath Johann Goethe introduced his purely physical chemistry based ‘moral symbols’ theory of morality.


Systems of morality refers to ways of theoretically describing "right" and "wrong" types of human behavior, actions, and or modes of conduct.

Systems of morality refers to ways of theoretically describing "right" and "wrong" types of human behavior, actions, and or modes of conduct.

A thermodynamics structured update to Kant’s categorical imperative, was German physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald’s 1912 ‘energetic imperative’. Ostwald seems to have been one of the first to state his morality system in mathematical terms:

G = k(A – W)(A + W)

where G is Gluck (happiness), A is Arbeit, German for 'work', referring to energy expended in doing useful work, W is Widerstand, German for 'resistance', referring to energy dissipated in overcoming resistance, and supposedly k is a constant. Ostwald’s energetic imperative, in the century to follow, led to various similar ‘thermodynamic imperatives’ outlined by various authors.

Into the 1970s, various writers began expounding on verbalized conceptions of ‘entropy ethics’.

In 2010, American neuroscience philosopher Sam Harris introduced his idea of deity-free ‘moral landscape’.


Example of some of Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 "moral symbols" according to German polymath Johann Goethe, which can be used to explain human morality.

Bergman example elective affinity reaction diagram (labeled)

Example of some of Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 "moral symbols" according to German polymath Johann Goethe, which can be used to explain human morality.

Goethe
The foremost historical attempt to quantify morality in terms of pure science is German polymath Johann Goethe’s 1808 theory of people viewed as large evolved versions of reactive chemicals and morality explained in the symbols of chemistry, such as letters used to represent single reactants, A or B, the reaction arrow →, signifying change, and the chemical bond AB, signifying a union, etc., and the energetic measure of the force of the reaction, namely chemical affinity A, defined in modern 1882 formulation as

$A = T \Delta S - \Delta H\,$

being a function of temperature T, entropy change ΔS , and enthalpy change ΔH.

In sum, Goethe was the first to state that morality is based in the logic of chemistry and physics was


Depiction of a "moral compass" a device, analogous to a electromagnetic compass, that can give direction to paths of good vs evil and progress vs regress.

Depiction of a "moral compass" a device, analogous to a electromagnetic compass, that can give direction to paths of good vs evil and progress vs regress.

German polymath as famously encapsulated in his 1808 statement, made a year prior to the publication of his famed novella Elective Affinities, as commented to his friend Reimer:

“The moral symbols used in the natural sciences were the elective affinities discovered and employed by the great Bergman.”

The adjacent diagram shows Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's chemical "symbols" (proto-types of modern chemical reactions), from his 1775 textbook A Dissertation on Elective Attractions, with which Goethe not only used to explain what is moral or amoral in human existence, particularly in regards to marriage and divorce, but, in a seemingly effortless manner, scripts a complex novella love rectangle over this logic. In a modern sence, Goethe's statement translates to an effect that what is moral or amoral in human activity is a perspective determined according to the free energies of reactions between people.

Ostwald
This physical chemistry basic morality model was worked on further, albeit superficially, by German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald and his 1912 The Energetic Imperative; a logic which in turn blossomed into number of different so-called verbalized "thermodynamic imperatives" in the decades to follow. [10] Most of these, however, end in nothing but quaint excursions about order and disorder in the social domain. The deeper nature of morality, initiated by Goethe with his statement that “the moral symbols used in the natural sciences were the elective affinities discovered and employed by the great Bergman”, naturally enough, leads into the science of the human molecule and the study of how to understand and model changes in enthalpies and entropies involved in human chemical reactions, which in its current form is still a nascent subject with many issues to be resolved. The central issue revolves around a reformulation of Ra theology, the dominate morality system of the world, in terms of pure chemical thermodynamics, which is a daunting task to say the least.


Depiction of a morality tree rooted in the structure of the universe.

Depiction of a morality tree rooted in the structure of the universe.

Soddy
In 1921, Frederick Soddy, in his two lectures on “Cartesian Economics: the Bearing of Physical Science upon State Stewardship”, delivered to the Student Unions of Birkbeck College and the London School of Economics, stated that: [7]

“Life derives the whole of its physical energy or power, not from anything self-contained in living matter, and still less from an external deity, but solely from the inanimate world. It is dependent for all the necessities of its physical continuance primarily upon the principles of the steam-engine. The principles and ethics of human law and convention must not run counter to those of thermodynamics.”

In his second part of the lecture, Soddy opens with:

“Some questions I was asked at the end of last lecture seem to indicate the necessity of first clearing away some misconceptions, partly, perhaps, due to my citing Ruskin as an economist. Although my views are very similar in some respects to those arrived at long ago by Ruskin, I may be permitted to remark that I have deduced them, without at the time being aware of Ruskin's writings on this subject, from the principles of the heat-engine, rather than form those of ethics. I know it is a burning question whether economics ought to concern itself with ethics at all, but of its obligation to understand the engineering of life I do not think there can be two minds.

If it is a science at all, it is, on Huxley's words, concerned whit truth as ‘veracity of thought and action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe with which pious hands have hidden its uglier features has been stripped off.’ Neither the ethical nor statistical sides of make-believe are to-day of any very great interest, but economics has still to achieve the emancipation which, in Huxley's day, the biological sciences accomplished. It is just because the application of the every-day principles of engineering to the living engine offers such a powerful corrective to the make-believes of the economics systems of society that I have ventured to address you on the subject.”

Here, in bold form, Soddy states that he has his derived his principles of ethics from pure study of the heat engine and goes on to state that the principles of engineering can and should be applied to the human heat engines of economics so to correct the numerous and faulty make-believe theories of economic, thusly to make economics a true science as Thomas Huxley had proposed it should be.


A 1999 summary of "godless morality" systems by English bishop Richard Holloway on the weaknesses of divine authority based morality systems. [11]

A 1999 summary of "godless morality" systems by English bishop Richard Holloway on the weaknesses of divine authority based morality systems. [11]

Dreier
In 1948, American author Thomas Dreier’s 1948 discussed morality in the context of pure objective chemical reactions, i.e. human chemical reactions, divorce, and marriage: [5]

“The trouble is that too many people get chemical reactions all mixed up with morals. They call immoral what is only a normal chemical reaction.”

In justifying this statement, Dreier states that chlorine can react with sodium to make the moral product table salt; whereas, conversely, chlorine (sulfur dichloride) can react with ethylene to make immoral mustard gas, as was used in WWI by the Germans against the British. Dreier argues that human beings can react and combine according to the same basic laws, making moral and immoral combinations of marriages.

Entropy ethics
Beginning in 1985, Ilya Prigogine's student American educator Dick Hammond worked out his so-called "entropy ethics" model of how to establish a thermodynamics-based type of “moral education” in and about the schools of Texas. [3] The majority of Hammond's presentation, however, is quite elementary, all being along the lines of fighting disorder, etc.

Moral monkeys

See main: Moral monkeys

In circa 2006, experiments showed that monkeys have an inherent sense of some sort of morality. Specifically, in experiments conducted by Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal, monkeys were first trained to pull a lever to get food. Then the lever was hooked up so that when the monkeys pulled the lever to get food, it not only produced food, but severely shocked a monkey in a neighboring cage. It was found that the monkeys would voluntarily choose to starve themselves, going between five to twelve days without food, rather than shock their neighbor. [6] The extrapolation of this finding is that what we define as "moral behavior" must have its origin in the hydrogen atom, being that humans (26-element molecules) evolved from monkeys (24-element molecules) which evolved from the hydrogen atom.

Other
In 2006, American economist and anthropologist William Frederick argued that “the natural motivator of all business and economic activity is thermodynamics entropy”, that “thermodynamics defines and sustains the principle motive of economizing”, and by virtue of these and other understructures that “the confluence and contradictions among these underlying natural forces produce the distinctive, peculiar moral proclivities and ethical dilemmas of the evolutionary firm.” [4]

Neurochemistry
Recent research by scientists from Harvard and Cambridge suggests that serotonin may improve moral judgment. [12]


Poster of a talk by American psychiatrist Andy Thomson at AAI 2009 on whether or not morality derives its structure from the heavens or from nature. [10]

Poster of a talk by American psychiatrist Andy Thomson at AAI 2009 on whether or not morality derives its structure from the heavens or from nature. [10]

Coupling

See main Coupling, free energy coupling, thermodynamic coupling

In 2011, American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, in his article “Thermodynamic Proof that Good Always Triumphs over Evil”, began to outline some of the details of how things such as the problem of evil, good vs. evil, morality, moral responsibility, etc., is explained according to the notion of thermodynamic coupling, such as was formerly introduced in Fritz Lipmann’s 1941 chemical thermodynamics based article “Metabolic Generation and Utilization of Phosphate Bond Energy”, in particular how Gibbs free energy changes are what drive social changes, that these differentials of free energy changes are coupled to each other, natural processes driving the unnatural processes, or old-fashioned/colloquial terms “good processes driving evil processes”, and that this coupling, as driving by cyclical heat input from the sun, is in turn connected to the puzzling nature of the various “spins” of the universe. [13]

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“I now believe in nothing, to put it shortly; but I do not the less believe in morality.”
— Leslie Stephen (1865), Journal entry, Jan 26 [15]

“Morality does not depend on religion.”
— John Ruskin (c.1890), Publication [15]

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”
— Martin King (1965), “Keep Moving From This Mountain” (Ѻ)

“When you start to see the world though 'chemical eyes' or Gibbsian eyes then you’ll have a new morality.”
— Libb Thims (2015), “Zerotheism for Kids”, Monday Lecture, Chicago, Sep 7

References
1. Morality (definition) – Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 2000, version 2.5.
2. Wiese, Benno von. (1951). Anmerkungen to Die Wahlverwandtschaften. In Goethe’s Werke, edited by Benno von Wiese. Vol. 19. Pg. 621, Hamberg: Wegener.
3. Hammond, Dick E. (2005). Human System from Entropy to Ethics. Publisher: Dick Hammond.
4. Frederick, William C. (2006). Corporation, be Good! The Story of Corporate Social Responsibility (Part III: Nature and Corporate Morality, pgs 123-98, esp. 152, and keyword “entropy”, pgs. 130-57). Dog Ear Publishing.
5. Dreier, Thomas. (1948). We Human Chemicals: the Knack of Getting Along with Everybody (pg. 59). Updegraff Press.
6. (a) Harrison, Guy P. (2008). 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God (pg. 204). Prometheus Books.
(b) De Wall, Frans. (2006). Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Princeton University Press.
7. (a) Soddy, Frederick. (1921). “Cartesian Economics: the Bearing of Physical Science upon Start Stewardship”, Nov. Two Lectures to the Student Unions of Birkbeck College and the London School of Economics.
(b) Soddy, Frederick. (1922). Cartesian Economics. 32-pgs. London: Hendersons.
8. Harris, Sam. (2010). The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (pg. 38). Free Press.
9. Don’t be evil – Wikipedia.
10. Morally Positive – RidgeAndTheUntold.Multiply.com.
11. Holloway, Richard. (1999). Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. Canongate U.S.
12. Crockett, Molly J., et al. (2010). “Serotonin Selectively Influences Moral Judgment and Behavior through Effects on Harm Aversion (abs)”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 107: 17433–38.
13. Thims, Libb. (2011). “Thermodynamic Proof that Good Always Triumphs over Evil”, Journal of Human Thermodynamics, 7: 1-4.
14. Gilgamesh, Horus and Tickheathen, Agnes. (2013). Awkward Moments Children’s Bible (Foreword: David McAfee) (eB) (Ѻ) (The Law is the Law, pgs. 37-38). CreateSpace.
15. Haught, James A. (1996). 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (pgs. 194-95). Prometheus.

External links
● Morality – Wikipedia.