Social Reality

beliefnet

I think of morality as a socially generated reality.  It is not coexistent with physical or science reality as there is no way to measure it directly. It becomes real over time with a steep learning curve in childhood, and eventually becomes internalized as conscience. 

Like all realities it can change as new information is internalized, but by adulthood new information is strongly blocked by the belief system in the brain.   There are several other socially generated realities, religion and politics are the most prominent, and status of other humans seems to be another social reality, which is in my view independent of morality.  Morality deals only with "My people" whatever that means to the particular individual.

All socially generated realities are real only for the individual although within a small tight social group there may be many commonalities. 

Understanding social reality may be a key to dealing with others who may have a completely different reality.  Fundies as an example inhabit a reality that may even exclude physical science as real.  Pretending that they are deluded only complicates the issue of dealing with them rationally.  Presenting facts that conflict with social realities as fact is ineffective in dealing with the social reality of the fact denier.