In order to examine how socialisation affects morality, one must first look at what a human is from a scientific, biological perspective, and lay down a groundwork from which we can explore morality.
What is a human?
A human is a biological organism that is said to have evolved over millions of years. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.
However, what a human is physiologically isn't needed for this explanation of morality. I merely wanted to highlight that a human being is an evolved entity, which over millions of years has developed an advanced mind capable of learning and developing, and overriding the inherent behaviours of natural instinct and instead choose how to behave.
Why does a human behave in the way they do?
I am using psychological explanations to explain why morality is environmental, so in order to understand that, one must first understand one debate around the topic of human behaviour. There are two opposing arguments as to why we, as humans, behave in the way we do. These are the nature approach and the nurture approach.
The nature approach predicates that human behaviour is controlled by innate urges caused by the human genome, and could be considered to be a biological approach. The nurture approach proposes that human behaviour is caused by the environment they grew up in, and could be considered to be an environmental approach. It is generally accepted by most psychologists that behaviour is caused by a mix of nature factors and nurture factors, both approaches being equally valid and having evidence to support.
I believe that the behaviour of a human is mostly the result of nurture with only a few biological factors that affect it. In particular, the nature I refer to is socialisation, which is defined as a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behaviour, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position by Dictionary.com.
Socialisation is a process of learning where a human being develops a personality and set of beliefs from the environment in which they were raised, or their nurture. For example, an individual who was raised in a sensitive, 'comfortable' household may be much more sensitive to insult and psychological pain, whereas an individual who was raised in a harsh environment might be able to brush off the insults that people might give them.
How does socialisation link to morality?
As a human grows up and develops themselves in the world, they develop all aspects of their personality, including their beliefs. One part of their beliefs is their morality. This suggests that morality in socialised like the human's other beliefs, and is the result of political, cultural, social upbringing. For example, a human who was born in the 1950s may have entirely different morals to a human born in the 2010s, and both believe their respective opinions are entirely correct.
Let's imagine an average man who lives in the 1950s in Britain. He would have been raised in a sexist society which, on the most part, believes that their values are entirely justified, like the woman appealing to the man's every need when he gets home after work. As such, through the process of socialisation, the man in question will also agree with his belief. Therefore, his actions would not be deemed as immoral.
However, if you take a man who lives in eth 2010s, he would have been raised in the attitude that the sexist beliefs of the 1950s were wrong, and that is not the way to treat women. Therefore, this man will believe that sexism is immoral.
This is an example of a difference in morality that can occur through socialisation.
