If there is no life after death... then is ANYTHING at all morally wrong? If so, why?

First let us get a definition of moral. The merriam-webster.com/netdict/moral Merriam Webster Dictionary states that moral means, "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior". I accept this as the definition with which I will answer your question.

I agree someone's motivation to be moral may be their rewards or punishments in life after death. I submit that there are many other reasons one may act morally right or wrong. However, motivation for doing right or wrong is not your (direct) question.

You are asking if anything can be morally wrong if life ends at death. I am not going into the complexities of philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/cmt/mmp.html Moral Philosophy. How, when, where, and why they are established is outside the scope of my answer.

Our sense of what is right and wrong and the principles which guide us are a fact of life. If we value living (maybe because death is the end) then we feel it would be wrong for someone to kill us. Thus, we have a moral (principle of right or wrong) that states it is not okay to take someone's life.

And, to kill someone will be morally wrong. Similar examples could be made up for stealing, lying, raping, etc. As for myself, I prefer to live in a group of people that agree it is morally WRONG to lie, steal, cheat, or murder whether life goes on forever or ends at physical death!

I'm not really sure what connection you are even trying to establish in this question between moral guides for behavior and the notion of an afterlife. Of course you can believe in the concepts of "right and wrong" without believing that your soul continues to live after your body has died. One really has very little to do with the other.

This is like asking "Are there any rules to the game Monopoly if the game has a definite end point? " Of course there are... I sense this is really an attempt to pose a question that's common in Christian apologetics: what is the basis of morality if there is no God to set down the rules? In other words, who is to say what constitutes "right" and "wrong" if not the Creator?

This isn't REALLY what you're asking, but I will provide my own answer for this question anyway...To my mind, "morality" is actually a set of social principles that exists beyond the judgment of individuals, but which derives from utilitarian principles (this is a system by which essentially self-serving individuals can nonetheless live in harmony) rather than a spiritual or religious source. In other words, we refrain from murdering or robbing not because God told us not to, but because we recognize our shared humanity in the others with whom we share a civilization, and innately recognize that it's most fruitful and uplifting to live in a world of mutual respect. In other words, I model the society I wish to occupy through my behavior.

I recognize these things as WRONG because they prevent me from associating with my fellow human beings in a civil manner, not because a book from the Bronze Age told me it was wrong. It is also helpful to distinguish between this principle (similar in many ways to John Stuart Mill's utilitarian approach to the social contract, coupled with his "hedonistic theory of value," which states that the "good" is that which creates the most aggregate happiness in the individuals affected) and the "rule of law," which states that the "good" is that which is compliant with stated, legislative principles. I think you can feel that a law is fundamentally immoral - as I feel about laws that, say, restrict civil liberties for homosexuals or minorities - because it is not protecting individual freedom from other individuals, which is a principle I wish to model for the society in which I wish to live.

If the only thing that you leave behind is people's memories of you, it can become a driving goal to be remembered well. Some people do what could easily be considered immoral in an effort to please God from Witch Trials, Crusades, and Terroism. Religion is a morral wash in my humble opinion brining bad with good.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.