"Their morals, their code: it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these, uh… these civilized people, they'll eat each other."
- The Joker
That's his point of view, but is he actually right?
Let's say that we would remove all governments throughout the world, and that all money would lose its value. There ended up being complete anarchy everywhere, mixed with starvation, useless/nonexistent health care and no way of buying food, among several inevitable issues. Would we still live by our morals by that point or would we actually ignore them and do whatever it takes to survive (even if that means stealing and killing will be necessary to help our family and friends)? Would morals have an actual purpose even by that point or would they be unmasked as the actual joke they really are?: A "bad joke" used only to benefit from the situation, which can and will be disregarded once that situation changes.
Or let's put it in a more simple and completely different way: If you ask people who claim to live by strict morals if they would ever steal from others, their answer would probably be, "No. Stealing is wrong". Put them on the streets and all of a sudden they will ignore all that and start taking whatever food and supplies they can get their hands on, possibly shamelessly. In another scenario you could ask almost anyone if they ever would kill an innocent person, and the answer would, again, obviously be, "No. Killing is wrong, especially when innocents are involved". Kidnap their wife/husband and kids and tell them that their only chance of getting their family back alive is to kill a random person, and suddenly one single random dead man or woman may actually not look so bad after all.
So, my question is: Do morals actually have a purpose or are they just a bad joke, like the Joker says? Is there anyone at all who would live by his/her morals no matter the situation?
