Human morality as we know it comes in many different varieties, but largely it is a way for our group-unit species to interact with each other and avoid harming each other. Many cultures and many societies have different sets of morality, and rarely agree, except on major issues involving life, liberty, and property. An extremely complex subject, morality largely involves interactions between individuals, groups, societies, and civilizations.

How do we define something like morality? And how do we separate it from ethics? Wikipedia best differentiates morality and ethics by stating:

With the construct of morality clearly defined, we see that morality is a sense of "right" from "wrong", right being actions which benefit us or others, and wrong being actions which unbenefit us or others, at least, generally speaking. However, not all established foundations for morality is so blackwhite, and clearly definable. Sodomy, a moral value considered to be wrong by most major mainstream monotheistic religions, harms no one, yet is considered wrong. Homosexuality, which harms no one, is also considered wrong. Patriarchy, which is male household rule and a common standard among fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, and Jews, is considered right, but without any serious rationale. There are a plethora of other moral values without rationale, making the whole issue of morality complicated beyond belief, and contradictory amongst itself.

Why was morality developed? If we look into the distant past, and learn about how humans progressed from being instinct based to being sentient animals, we realize that in order to survive, humans had to survive in packs. It was possible to survive alone like the great predatory felines, but if we had done that, there would have been no cities, and no civilization for us to develop into technologies for all sorts of things, including our computers we are using to debate right now. Humans banded together into packs, and as a system of basic despotism gave rise to basic tribes which tended to develop temporary settlements, eventually, the benefits of agriculture which was recently discovered at that point was greater than risky hunting and gathering. To better facilitate interaction between individuals for the benefit of not just the individuals, but the rest of tribal society, norms and expectations were developed, probably first unconsciously, until finally realized, and codified.

Do laws express a form of morality? Most certainly. Laws are simply the contemporary form of these norms and expectations programmed into us by society, adopted from thousands of years ago, and adapted for the modern times. What makes a law a law at all? Laws are a contract between government and people; the people obey the rules, and they can live their lives in peace; break the norms and expectations, and various methods of punishment ensue.

But what makes something moral or what makes something legal?

This is a question I am having a difficult time answering. There is no universal physical law saying murder is wrong. There are laws basically etched into stone declaring murder illegal, but what makes murder wrong? By virtue of being "illegal"? That's not a rational answer. What makes murder intrinsically, fundamentally wrong?
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Taken from an MSN conversation with Wesley's permission (I am Morgoth the Oppressor):

Morgoth the Oppressor says:
I'm writing up an essay on morality and ethics... my basic premise is there's no right or wrong. At all. Take murder, for example. Wes[ley], let's play-debate, shall we?

Wesley says:
ok

Morgoth the Oppressor says:
Murder is not wrong.

Wesley says:
How can that be, you're causing harm to another human being.

Morgoth the Oppressor says:
What does it matter to me if I cause harm to another human being, or even end their life? Does the human race end because one human dies?

Wesley says:
no but it denies the person their future and I also think that Causing harm to another human being is wrong because you don't want to cause more pain but reduce it.

Morgoth the Oppressor says:
Why does their future matter to me? My future will go on, and they'll be dead. Why do I care if someone else is in pain?

Wesley says:
Because we humans have a thing called grief and if you are a kind and caring person, you will feel grief if you kill someone and you'll also have to deal with the families and friends.

Morgoth the Oppressor says:
But why does the emotional state of us matter? We won't die from it, will we? If my survival is the most important thing to me, why should it matter to me if someone else is killed by me, unless I'd be killed in the process? See what I'm getting at? What intrisically makes murder fundamentally bad? It's something to think about, at the very least.
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So how do I justify unmurder? How do I justify not killing, not ending the life of another? There are several arguments I can think of, some already mentioned.

• Economic - that the murder of an individual would decrease their power on the economy, and end their contributions to society.
  
  Rebuttal - The economy will not be affected so tremendously by one individual that it would collapse. The human race goes on, and society goes on, and I, the murderer, will go on, assuming I am not caught or killed because of my actions.
  
• Emotion - that the murder of an individual would increase the emotional state of the people affected by that individual's death, and possibly, increase my own emotional state, I, the murderer.
  
  Rebuttal - Emotions are completely irrelevant because they do not cause death in most cases. Emotions go away in time.
  
• Rights - that the murder of an individual is a breach of their human rights by I, the murderer.
  
  Rebuttal - There is no universal law granting human rights. Human rights only exist so far as the law allows them, or as far as people's opinions soon-to-become-laws permit them.

I believe murder is wrong. I just recognize the fact I cannot justify why murder is wrong. I just feel it's wrong. This brings us to another point: are morals natural or are they learned? If we observe the behavior of feral children, adolescents, and adults, we realize they possess no moral values unless they learn new ones, or retain some from their infancy, and act largely upon instinct. Many attempts to re-educate feral humans to become productive citizens have, in the large majority of cases, been unsuccessful. We are not born with morals, but rather, learn them from our guardians and from society.

Morals are a set of behavioral codes designed to maximize the benefits of life, liberty, and property, in the liberal sense. Some moral values have no bearing on benefiting life, on benefiting liberty, or benefiting liberty, but largely, most accepted modern moral values have some sort of beneficial power. It is considered immoral to cause a deficit in life, liberty, or property, but again, we run into more contradictions. The murder of an individual in retribution for a killing is legalized in the form of execution. True to a Newspeak concept, execution is a legal form of revenge, and is considered by the majority of American society to be a moral value of benefit for the family and friends of the one killed by the individual about to be killed in turn for the killing.

An argument on the Newspeak forum against the reasoning that morals are not natural is that there are universal morals imposed upon us by a creator. The flaw with this argument is the observation of feral humans, and the fact that people can "get away with" criminal behavior and are not divinely punished in, at least, this life. Another argument against environmental morality as opposed to naturalistic morality is that if the universe came into being without the help of a creator and is thus a result of random (or logical) chance, how did morality, which is not random, come into being? Well, the problem here is that the person who put this forth, namely Batonfromage, is that he did not take into account logic and rationality. If murder were acceptable as if one blew a nose, human society would be largely destroyed. Obviously, this is unacceptable, and rules against killing were put into place. Some killing remained, such as through war, through execution, and through sacrifice/ritual killings. A social contract benefits everyone.

In conclusion, there are no moral values except the ones put into law. There are no universal rights or wrongs, and there is nothing wrong with anything or right with anything unless society or the individual who owns themself determines it to be so.

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We're on the side of the demons. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go.

Ok I will attempt to add what I can. You made so many interesting points.

I would agree there arent some set of pre-determined morals and that they are mainly derived out of our circumstances and that we choose morals along the line of what will help the species, our communities prosper and thrive.

Why do we need our communities to prosper and thrive? Possibly out of pure selfishness to make our own experience better and our experience is very much dependent on others because we are a social species and live in social groups.

So when we look at murder, this is something that we end up viewing as morally wrong because if we didnt, it opens up the possiblity that we ourselves could be the victim of murder...so we determine murder is morally wrong. The larger society can absorb a percentage of murder without real detriment but it cant absorb widespread practice of it...so to hinder it becomes the moral thing to do. Murder gets deemed immoral and wrong...which also leads to making it illegal.

Its the same with stealing. I mean the idea of "ownership" is man made. We make up rules that determine what is "YOURS" and belongs to you and what does not. For instance, you "work" for it and get wages...those wages are yours.

So someone may steal because they feel the rules are inherently unfair and they are being prohibited from accessing what they need (like food or shelter) and feel that ownership should be determined by need (not things like inheritence or laws designed to favor the few)...they can even make a good argument that the goods they steal were stolen by the "current owner".

Again, society can absorb a certain percentage of theft without it causing serious detriment to the social structure...but we cant have everyone doing it because then it would cause detriment and cause chaos and mean that obtaining goods is hard, but to KEEP them is even harder...and could lead to our murder.

For selfish reasons only, most wouldnt want to live in a structure like this because not only can they be a perpetrator (which people might like that) but it also means they can more easily be the victim too. This would mean that society/social structures could not thrive or advance and then we couldnt have our personal existence improved.

I guess to boil it down.... Morals are what shape our social structures and end up determined by how our social structures work best.

Along that line, lets look at abortion. If the species were few and we NEEDED more population...abortion would most likely be viewed as immoral because our social structure is in danger without more population. But we are overpopulated, hence its not immoral because it doesnt threaten the social structure at all nor do you risk anyone doing anything to you that you wouldnt want done (such as in the case of murder).

We wont advocate murder to deal with overpopulation because we place ourselves on that chopping block in doing so....but we will advocate solutions that dont present a threat to our own existence.

This is definitely why morals change and can differ from culture to culture, it all depends on their circumstances and what works best or is needed in their social structures.

Thanks for your comments. My essay wasn't meant to justify murder, but rather to argue that objective moralism is nonsense.

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We're on the side of the demons. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go.

I agree with that premise and I am sorry if I didnt make that clear. I was only adding my oversimplified way of seeing it all. I did understand you werent condoning murder but actually illustrating that morals come out of a rational reasoning (and arent absolute either) and not some pre-ordained directive and not from some bearded guy on high

Can you think of any morals that would be absolute among humans (shared by all cultures over all time periods)?

I am tempted to say incest but it seems it was actually practiced at one time but found to be a problem and then it became immoral so I dont know if this qualifies.

I am also tempted to say child molestation, but historically we have seen that promoted as well...but was this due to lower life span?

Murder is accepted in all cultures, but each have "rules" of when it is ok and when it is not....thats a loose absolute I would guess.

No I can't think of a single moral all cultures have ever shared completely. I was tempted to say "no killing of leaders" but that happens all the time.

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We're on the side of the demons. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go.

Clearly denying someone a future is unethical. Whether or not the killer cares is irrelevant, ethics isn't defined by whether you care about someoen or whether you care about your emotional state.

Not always is it unethical to deny someone their future. What if its in self defense? Then its deemed justified right? You still deny that attacker their future when you use deadly force to protect yourself...its not an absolute moral then.

The word "murder" comes with implications that you arent justified, it has to because there are circumstances where the taking of someones life against their will is considered justified and therefore not immoral.

Yeah, I guess there would be exceptional cases.

I agree that the ethics behind murder have no objective rationality, that is, the only rational arguments against murder involve it's consequences and not the act itself.

As you say, murder can only be argued against with reference to outside factors, such as empathy ect. In and of itself, murder cannot be rationally argued to be wrong (though it certainly can be argued emotionally. Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate murder).

The only sound logical arguments concern the effect of the murder on the perpetrator. Feelings of guilt can be overcome, same with the effect on those close to the victim. Therefore, the only considerations left are that of the wider implications of murder on society (as already mentioned), and the potential of retribution. The only rational way you could convince a sociopath not to kill is to remind them of the punishment they would receive if caught. It is highly selfish, but the only rational argument against murder is that it may lead to punishment. And even then, such an argument only works on those who care about themselves.

In the end, murder can only be logically argued to be wrong because you may be caught and punished. It all comes down to self interest.

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It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

Murder is morally wrong simply because I majority of humans want it to be morally wrong.

Why do they want it that way?

Simply put, the majority of humans agree that they don't want to be murdered.

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LET ME SEE YOUR WAR FACE!!!