If you believe that no objective moral standard exists, then upon which standard(s) do you personally base your own moral choices?

I think this is somehow about the assumed question, "If there's no objective criterion, how does one formulate a system of morality?"

I think the Freudian idea is a good one. The mind is divided into three parts: the id, the ego and the superego.

The Id is the source of all of our animalistic survival instincts and urges: pleasure, power, satiation.

The ego is the rational part of the mind that relates to the outside world.

The superego is the higher level, that which governs our sense of morality.

The theory is that we start out with the id and gradually develop the other two parts of the mind. The mind is always processing information from the world. Bottom line, however, is that we are looking at everything that is happening through the lens of our id. If something is pleasureable or helpful in survival, that gets filed a certain way. If something is nasty, it gets filed a different way.

The stuff aggregates over time, and the brain relates stuff together. It's good that way. Every brain is different, however. You can see this by the way two people will see the same thing and interpret it entirely differently. While the id tells us what we WANT, the superego is developing strategies for what to avoid, or what things we need to do (even though they appear not to benefit us) in order to obtain a longer range gain.

The superego is essentially the source of our morality. Morality, by this theory, is the collection of all those things we need to do, even though they do not appear at first blush to benefit us, in order to survive long-term. The allegiance to the family is from the superego, as is allegiance to the tribe. The person who looks different is not one of us, and hence is potentially a danger.

The development of the superego is an unconscious process. This means it's automatic, but it also means that it is not based on logic; it's based on what hurts and what doesn't at the time. That's all the mind knows unless it is carefully led through some of the logic behind some of the more involved moral dilemmas.

A person who is convinced that an eye for an eye is a good rule of thumb is not going to just up and change their mind if you explain how it doesn't make sense. They'll continue to believe what their moral compass tells them. It takes patience and repetition, and time.. It obviously helps if the information comes from someone they trust implicitly.

Too much rambling already...

There are no objective moral standards. Each society develops their own and members of that society usually comply with them. I base mine on the values I was taught by my family and society. We all do regardless of what some may claim.

Maybe you can figure this out on your own. If something isn't objective then it must be subjective. So if I don't believe in objective moral standards, then the basis for my own moral choices must be...?

Come on, you can do it :)

People, be it as individuals or groups, have a (usually shared) sense of what things should and should not be done, almost always based on what we think would be best for our survival and overall well being.

That in mind, people in groups determine laws, which change sometimes based on new understanding of what is best for us.

So to answer the question, partly my own and partly my cultures standard.

Same as you and everyone else.

I think the most useful morality is centred on human well-being, and human well-being is also a vague approximation for the shared values we evolved as a species, but for the most part, differences in moral judgements are theoretical. Most of us condemn murder for example, even if we disagree *why* it is wrong. Valuing the well-being of members of your species does not require any theoretical understanding of morality. Much of it is simply instinctual, and proposed moral frameworks are simply our attempts to understand our own psychology.

Empathy. The ability to look at both sides. Knowing that if I don't like getting beat up, the other guy probably doesnt. It's not rocket science. Its not some magical mist or mind control.

Psychopaths have no empathy, and therefore no objective moral standard. Coincidentally they are good at inventing religions.

From the society I live in, the same as you. Good thing or I could come over there and stone you to death for wearing that linen blend suit. That is a sin punishable by stoning. If you lived in the Bronze or Stone ages.

I don't base my morals on any standard, I simply have my morals whether learned or innate.

I base my morals on the principle of attempting to avoid suffering and increase happiness of entities capable of feeling those emotions.