HSS wrote:People think that morality and ethics are instruments of love and empathy, but they are actually the opposite.
The reign of what we call “evilness” begins where we aren't able to love anymore, where we stop empathizing and understanding one's motivations.
Morality was created to justify that we can't love everything, and to confine things that overstep our capacity for love in a delimited area, the area of disidentification, whose things “do not belong me”.
I am aware that I am not very different, I am not able to love everything, and I feel the need to protect myself through judgment, but at least I understand that morality is opposed to love.
It's an interesting thought, but it's important to see where these ideas of morality came from, which is early society.
Morals began when behaviour was categorised for general acceptance, based on rules for the 'common good', mainly through politics and religion.
In religion, these became reasonably vague, siting examples such as "love thy neighbour" and "treat everyone as you would have them treat you" etc.
In that respect I agree with your comment: that they're in place to stop people thinking on their own. "I don't need to think about how I feel about x, because I've been told the 'right' way to think."
But here's where it falls apart...
Morality is, or should be, very simple. Do whatever you like, as long as it doesn't impact those around you. This was the basis for democracy, and is the main mantra for the people living in Province Town, MA (USA) as this place was the first to sign up for democracy. They celebrate living this basic rule.
But it's not a basic rule anymore. It's been twisted and turned by nuance, with groups of people, desperate for recognition, twisting certain aspects of morality to disproportionate importance, so that they become defining aspects of their "belief" and everyone who doesn't agree is an enemy; ironically the opposite of what they're supposed to stand for.
We'd be better off without enforced morality, because most people with more than half a brain can work out what helps others and what doesn't.
Morality and ethics are simply instruments of control.