The main question for me is one of impact: “Who is it hurting”. I only take things from big box stores, never ever from individuals or family businesses. My morality was formed through contemplation, like you said, and I see it as having a two-sided relationship with my experiences: Something that evolved out of how things are but informs how I think things should be: Nobody should go hungry, nobody should be impoverished or victimized. Surprisingly, just believing these things makes you a number of enemies these days.

As a Satanist living in the US, I only follow laws that don’t conflict with my faith.

Killing, stealing, and real harm laws I follow. Anti LGBTQ, anti women, and anti immigrant laws I do not follow.

Nice try fed

Here is a complete list of my crimes and home address:

I follow laws mainly because of my own sense of morality - I don’t kill, I steal only when I feel I need to, and I don’t commit fraud because these things are obviously generally wrong.

I follow stupid laws (such as needing insurance, paying income taxes, or not speeding) out of fear of punishment. These are issues I’ll basically never have, because I’m good at driving and don’t make enough to affect state level operations

I don’t follow some laws, mainly copyright related ones as it goes against my personal morals and there is no punishment.

If a law is immoral and there is punishment, I would conform out of fear, but want to protest it.

If a law is moral, then great!

I’m not so conceited as to imagine I haven’t internalised any external morals from authority, majority, or religion, but whenever I actually consciously reflect on my morals, the only one that seems to matter is what I think is moral, not what others do.

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You aren’t going to get many genuine answers, I suspect. Not because of stupidity or it being obvious, because I don’t think it’s either.

It’s because lemmy isn’t secure forum. Too easy for things to be found and any responses are used to get rid of. So any stupidity would come from giving anything other than a fake “I follow all laws, but object to X laws”.

Which, I follow all relevant laws, even when I object to them.

However, I have my own moral code, and would adhere to that regardless of whether or not there were laws perfectly aligned with them. It does not match the majority, except in the broad issues, but it isn’t so far off as to be incompatible either.

Most of my personal code is derived eternally at the end, but some parts were discovered externally. In other words, when running into a moral or ethical rule, I examine it and internalize it if it fits my needs, reject it if it doesn’t. Some bits and pieces are purely internally derived in origin, as they stemmed from experience in childhood before I encountered external sources regarding those matters.

Thing is, my personal morals aren’t necessarily something I expect others to follow just because I believe something is morally right/wrong. That’s part of my code; that until someone else’s code interferes with mine, or someone else’s, life, IDGAF, it’s their business. When it isn’t my life being interfered with, my code doesn’t automatically decree that I need to do anything about it, but it does allow for intervening when the situation makes it useful, necessary, or just desirable.

I’ll use shoplifting as an example. If I see someone stealing from a chain store like walmart, I didn’t see them. If I see someone lifting from a small shop that’s locally owned, my code gives me options ranging from informing them they’ve been seen and need to leave, all the way up to beating their ass if I feel that is the appropriate response to the specific situation. However, it also allows me to ignore it if I feel that’s more appropriate.

See? Not like the majority, but it’s not so far off as to be unrecognizable.

Part of that is that I firmly believe that all ethics are situational (and they are), and that morals can be situational as well. There are very few things I believe in so strongly on a moral level that there’s no room for them to bend when unusual circumstances occur.

Pretty much the only thing I’m fully, 100% unbending on is bigotry. Won’t put up with it, won’t tolerate it. That being said, I’m still aware that what is and isn’t bigotry isn’t perfectly defined. There’s blurring at the edges, specific cases where what seems like bigotry may be a language barrier, or a cultural barrier. And that, unfortunately, some of those edge cases aren’t even universally decided on by the targets if various forms of bigotry. So I can only rely on my own sense of right and wrong when it isn’t clear cut.

That means that when I encounter an unusual situation, I’m more likely to seek clarification before jumping in, and that I’m more likely to jump in by explaining why what they’re saying/doing is a problem, even if they aren’t being a bigot intentionally.

You see alllll that rambling? That’s the kind of shit that I do in my head any time I run into a new moral dilemma, or discover a need to reevaluate an old belief. Which can be pretty fucking often. I don’t like to let my code sit unexamined for long, so I poke and prod at it when a specific subject comes up, even if it’s nothing I need to do anything about. You run into that a lot online.

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You are missing reasons in your bullet points like: belief in the greater good, patriotism, there are provably many more reasona