???? ?????, PAA!
My clarity of thought is unfortunately not of supreme quality that I can come up with my own ???? and stick to it; I just have confused thoughts floating around somewhere up there. So disclaimer: I reserve the right to be ???? from anything I write in this thread.
“Moral fibre” – the capacity to do what is Right in face of any circumstances seems somewhat illogical at the first glance. As the Mishna in Ovois rightly states, some form of Order must be kept for the continuity of the world. But in a world which runs smoothly, why would one keep to his morals and not do what is perceived as wrong if not for fear of retribution? If I wouldn’t believe in Hashem [?”? etc], and I was in a store and had an opportunity to steal without being caught, what would stop me doing it?
However, if you give it a little more thought, there is more to the idea of morals than what meets the eye. No man, religious or not, would stand up and say that he feels no guilt to kill a person. If you had the opportunity to stab in the back a person who was getting on your nerves, without the fear of being caught, would you do it? Nobody sane will admit to feeling it correct.
Meaning, every person has some form of an innate sense of Right and Wrong. Again, logically it makes no sense that I feel more bad to kill somebody than I do to eat grapes, but I do.
Once the establishment of a moral code of ethics exists, by definition one is accountable for that. Of course, there is nothing compelling you to or holding you up to your morals [for one who doesn’t believe in any form of -theism], but having morals as an automatic ?????. I think that makes sense. Unless somebody could justify himself that he actually has no sense of moral justice [read: Insanity], the very fact that he feels its wrong is a reason not to do it.
This doesn’t directly answer your question, but I believe the two are very much connected. Somebody with a perfect set of principles will feel a strong desire to do what is Right simply because it is Right.
The yesoid is – morals are not a logical obligation, they exist whether you like them or not.