Morality: an adamant force or a mask for the beast

Morality: an adamant force or a mask for the beast within?

Sometimes it seems that there is a fine line between morality and necessity. As humans we built a set of rules based on our culture, surroundings and need to set ourselves apart from the rest of the animals. We call this rules morality and within these morals you can find a set of universally accepted rules that apply to everyone in a given culture. This is what we call ethics.  The difference between the two is that ethics refers to a universally accepted rule, for example in most places murder is considered to be wrong. On the other hand morality refers to something far more personal, for example some people find homosexuality immoral, meanwhile some find nothing wrong with it. This is something that may change even within a culture, while again ethics is something that is culturally universal.

If analyzed this way, it can be said that is easier to go against your morals, than to go against ethics. If you were a vegetarian but the only food you could afford at the time was a pack of ham, no one will punish you for eating the ham, on the other hand if you were to break in to someone's house and steal to be able to afford your vegetables and feed yourself, then you will get arrested. If you go against your morals any punishment you get will come from yourself or someone close to you who shared the same morals, but if you go against ethics, its society who punishes you and most probably shuns you.

So if morality is a question of personal choice, why do we put so much emphasis as a race on it? Why is morality such a big aspect of everyday life? It could be argued that this set of rules imposed on ourselves, by ourselves, is a way of removing temptation. A barrier set up to protect our mental well being from what we consider to be wrong in ourselves.

Recently there was a report of a man who spent a small fortune trying to get rid of his homosexuality, because according to his morality, being gay is wrong. This is not an isolated incident. Countless have been the cases of homosexuals diluting themselves with the false pretense that they have to ignore their sexual urges because they have to get married and have kids who are biologically related to them. What stops them from living with someone of their own sex and adopting a child? The same can be said of people who only marry within their religion, since when religion determines who you love? And what is love anyways? A group of chemical reactions in your brain that produces hormones, that in itself makes your body feel good when stimulated under the proper conditions. It has nothing to do with morals, so why do we give them so much weight in our lives anyways?