Morality — Biological or Philosophical? 550
loid_void writes to mention The New York Times is reporting that Biologists are making a bid on the subject of morality. "Last year Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, proposed in his book 'Moral Minds' that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, a universal moral grammar similar to the neural machinery for learning language. In another recent book, 'Primates and Philosophers,' the primatologist Frans de Waal defends against philosopher critics his view that the roots of morality can be seen in the social behavior of monkeys and apes."
I think its Genetical actually.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Genetics (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Genetics (Score:4, Funny)
Only those in tech support.
Towards a Multi-Dimensional Morality (Score:4, Interesting)
Doubtful, depending on your own definition of morality and ethics.
For example, it is possible to generate a coherent system of ethics and morality based on the axiom of "survival". However, to keep it from degenerating to the level of Daffy Duck (It's MINE I tell you! MINE! All Mine!!), you have to make it multidimensional, including such things as art, money, culture, sex, family, tribes, ecology, etc. as separate dimensions. Such sophistication is probably not hard wired into the biology.
Of course, you are free to delineate your own list of dimensions and definitions thereof. For example, I would definitely include Geek as a tribe, seen well in the rival clans of Torvalds vs Gates. Such an exercise is useful, and possibly educational.
Re:Towards a Multi-Dimensional Morality (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do some aquatic animals push injured companions to the surface so they can breathe? Bottle-nosed Dolphin are known to do this, and so are some aquarium fish. Do you think this is based on "philosophy", or do you think there is some basic hard-wiring in there that arose from a biological imperative similar to the idea that that keeping the group healthy has a generally positive effect on the individual (and hence its genes)?
Why will a cat or dog or pig or any number of other animals accept another species to nurse at its teats, even when, as in many of these cases, said species is considered natural prey or predator?
Why will cats in particular, highly independent creatures who are extremely good at providing for themselves, go into a burning building to attempt to wake and save their owners, sometimes at the cost of their own lives? I understand the argument for saving one's kittens is that of propagating the gene (though cats could always make more kittens, and that is certainly a more effective strategy both at the personal and genetic levels) but why save some human? Cats don't generally need humans for survival. It is just one of several strategies available to them - and they do it. Many convert from one to the other, sometimes more than once. Cognition? Or wiring?
Do ethics and/or morals have to be "systems" in order to be valid, useful, or characterized as such? If yes, why? Could it be that such an outlook is primarily an exercise in hubris? Isn't it sufficient to choose not to do something based on a vague feeling that it isn't the right thing to do, or a simple situational evaluation that detects dissatisfaction as a likely outcome if a particular course is followed, or not?
Do such behaviors have to be high level cognitive products at all? If so, why? Many humans get their ethics and morals "canned", that is, from books or mentors in what amounts to final form. Do this. Don't do that. Most adhere to those admonitions; we generally consider them moral people as long as they do so. But is the bad feeling about taking what is not yours incurred by having your hand smacked by dad for stealing sister's lollipop any different than having your instincts and endocrine system twist your stomach in a knot when contemplating the bloody suffering of another? Both encourage what look like what we commonly call moral behaviors; neither one can reasonably be called "philosophy" on the part of the primary actor by any stretch of the imagination. They both come into play very early in events that call for them.
Personally, I don't think we're nearly as sophisticated as we'd like to imagine. Those of us who exhibit the most "sophistication" usually fall into a category of those who have a lot of time to think available to them, time often provided by channeling wealth from others, one way or another. The rest just muddle along. There are a number of structures in society that have existed for quite a long time that encourage and reinforce this precise pattern.
In the end, these questions all go to how the mind operates, and as we know very little about that, it seems to me that answers which assert certainty are probably untrustworthy at best. No matter the reputation of the "philosopher" who might put those ideas forth.
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But what interests me more are the edges of morality. Pushing an injured dolphin to the surface or grabbing a little kid who's about to be hit by a truck may well be hard-wired into those of us who aren't sociopaths. But there's a huge realm of morality that isn't quite so obvious, say, the guy who takes advantage of people who are in trouble to make money, like these "sub-prime" lenders we hear about who prey on folks who are already in bad financial shape. The "free market" types h
Re:Towards a Multi-Dimensional Morality (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. The fact is, these things are still 100% accepted by our society, and in some cases, enshrined into law. It is simply that the class which bears the brunt of these actions has changed slightly. For example, the 13th amendment enshrines slavery as perfectly acceptable for the very broad class of people "convicted of a crime", giving it the force of law at the very base of our system. Public executions are still performed, more so and more publicly in countries informed by Sharia law, but we still gather up family, friends and witnesses here in the USA. Rape is common in prisons, and we, as a society, don't even lift a finger to do anything about it - so while it may not have the force of law, it is certainly a normal part of our social functioning. Classing in general has actually devolved in some ways; the Romans wouldn't think twice about knowingly entrusting a homosexual with public office or their children for instruction; our society rarely does this. The Romans also understood that sexually mature teenagers were valid and reasonable sexual partners, while today, classing separates teenagers from (for instance) those in their twenties who might make very good mates indeed for them, as well as sexual mentors. I wouldn't get too excited about any supposed "moral sophistication" of today's society. A lot of that is illusion, more of it is socially enforced style without great moral substance.
What you are talking about here are collisions of culture, which you are conflating with the idea that morals are absolute - which they certainly are not. In the past, when a severe collision occurred, the survivor's answer was to fight until only one culture survives. The Islamists still understand this, but the (quite different) morals of the west reject the idea of putting down an entire culture, even though that culture is polarizing against them in the most obvious manner possible, and has no such scruples. The answer that beckons with survival as the prize - from history - is clear and obvious (and it is the same answer the Islamists have come to.)
When someone has a different set of morals than you do, this does not mean that you are biologically different. Many outlooks are inset at an early age. Some are preset. Depends on the animal how many and which way, but that still leaves more than enough room for the dog that will rescue your broken body, and the dog that will eat you and tear off chunks for its puppies; the person who will help you homestead and the one that will take your land; the priest who will stand between you and your enemy, and the priest who will put you on the rack.
It also doesn't mean that you can "fix" or "educate" those with attitudes that clash with yours. That is why it was traditional - and acceptable - to kill all members who could fight (now, or later, as in male children) of any particular conquered group.
Some morals cost too much; no society can afford to pay with everything they have if they want to survive.
Hardly. It's fairly easy to derive them all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Help others.
Help yourself.
Help a group that helps you.
Help another who helps you.
Have sex. (lust)
Have sex with pretty people.
Protect your children. (love)
Protect those in your group. (love)
Protect children.
Hurt those who hurt you. (revenge)
Don't do things which would make you feel bad if they were done to you.
Don't do things which make you feel bad. (empathy)
Work with the group, do as they do.
Believe what you are told.
Protect others.
Share with the group.
Ask for help.
Dislike outsiders.
Really, these moral instructions are fairly easy to evolve. The group which possesses them is more fit than the series of individuals which doesn't. Some of them tend to misfire and don't work as well as they might have in the past. Doing what the group does is a great way to learn, it's also a great way to do horrific and sinister wrong to non-group individuals. And, in fact, when engaging in immoral acts, it is best to exclude the non-group completely to get around the brain's build in moral compass. That way they have no moral group worth to you.
Really we see this group activity rather regularly in the wild as well as in other primates. Chimps will go without food when getting food will give another chimp an electric shock. Even plants will release chemical signposts when attacked so that other plants will be more apt to protect themselves. Philosophy has been rather good at hashing out certain elements of this moral code, though they tend to miss some of the finer details. For example, utilitarianism works remarkably well... though you would be hard pressed to find any mother who would choose to let her child die over the children of five strangers.
There is honor among thieves (Score:3, Interesting)
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-matthew
Re:I think its Genetical actually.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus, if we wanted pills to make people happy, we'd be handing out heroin or vicodin. People get addicted to drugs that make them happy, and then that destroys their lives.
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They're still rather crude at that.
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Mostly, because they're illegal.
Why are they illegal? Because they ruin peoples lives. Why do they ruin peopl... oh yeah, back to there again
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All well and good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Bad" moral decisions are simply anti-survival
Well, I'm not sure I agree that they are always anti-your-own-survival. Giving your life to save someone unrelated to you is generally bad in Darwinian terms, but "good" morally.
I think humans came up with words to describe the sort of person who would do such altruistic things, and gave them the word "good" or "moral".
I think it's clear that in some cases there are Darwinian benefits to be "moral", but in as many if not more cases, it does not benefit someone. If it benefitted us in all cases, we'd al
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Insightful)
According to which moral code? Altruism?
Have you noticed that Altruism is the code that everyone wants everyone else to practice? And have you ever considered the final implications of a sacrifice-the-good-to-strangers principle?
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't think true altruism doesn't exist. Some people really do care about other people and acts of charity are purely for the sake of others. Altruism can even be observed in an MRI. Basically, nice people use a part of their brain that self-centered people don't. Article here [sciencedaily.com], I think it even made it to the front page of Slashdot back in January.
Re:All well and good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All well and good (Score:5, Interesting)
On average, if your actions help even three cousins breed, statistically speaking it is very likely that all the genes you carry have been passed on even if you never breed. Genetics works on much larger than individual scale. But it gets deeper, that is only one reason that evolution selects for altruism.
Another reason is strategic. The world is full of local scarcities and surpluses. Iterated prisoner's dilemma has shown the 'tit-for-tat' strategy to be quite effective, and other research has shown the general case that cooperation is the most effective strategy unless there are no local surpluses or no local scarcities. Altruism is the first step to cooperation and a proven superior strategy.
The final reason is known as the handicap principle. Since much of evolution is driven by sexual selection, things that help get a mate are selected for even if they hurt the chance of survival. Witness the peacock's tail. Not only does it make him easier to see and catch, if he has any parasites at all it will look ragged and tattered. His tail is a handicap, and therefore a brag to the peahens that is hard to fake. It is saying, "look at my genetic superiority, ladies! I'm so superior I can sport this gaudy monstrosity and get away with it!"
Altruism is the same. By sacrificing resources you prove your worth to the opposite sex. With all those evolutionary reasons for altruism, it is no wonder it is such an important motivating factor. In fact, recent economic research has shown that the basis of the free market, the "selfish actor" theory, is false. People are not primarily motivated by self interest. They are motivated by a sense of fairness, reciprocity, and altruism.
Have you ever noticed that altruism is denigrated by people who are selfish and have no empathy? And have you considered the final implications of pure selfishness?
Re:All well and good (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution doesn't favor altruism. It favors kin-selection, in which people closely related to you are important to you. A mother will sacrifice for her children, and a brother will sacrifice for a large enough group of other brothers, but when it comes to "your fellow man", evolution favors no such thing.
That's not altruism--that's cooperation, which is selfish because it pursues mutual self-interest instead of pure others-interest.
That's like saying by sacrificing $1500, I prove my worth to possess a black MacBook. If you still wanted the sex more than the resources, you're still being a selfish bastard and you're still getting a good deal. Evolution favors enlightened self-interest in every situation other than kin selection.
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So that's why I let my girlfriend take all my money...
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Motivation by a sense of fairness, reciprocity, and altruism, that is a nice view to have however, I don't think you can
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Interesting)
If people were truly rational, if they were selfish actors, if they were motivated by self interest, *any* amount proposed by person A would immediately be agreed to by person B, because *any* money that person B gets, is greater than the amount person B gets if person B disagrees with the division.
In fact, the cutoff seems to be around 55-80%, depending on the society, but for any society, there is always a division point where person B would prefer to have no money at all, than to have a small amount of money where person A gets a large amount of money.
So much for selfish actors and 'rational' behavior. Their behavior is, indeed, rational, but with different premises than those of the free market advocates.
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Thus my emphasis on the evolution of cultures and religions as opposed to individuals or families; "good" morally is about survival of the group, not survival of the individual.
I think humans came up with words to describe the sort of person who would do such altruistic things, and gave them the word "good" or "moral".
Well, t
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't confuse all forms of morality with a rational thought process. The non-religious "morality" is far more instinctive. If you have to sit and think and ponder on the morality of something, or go to confession to see if something you did was immoral, that's not the type of "morality" being discussed as having a genetic/instinctive basis.
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You still see this as an argument against evolution, because getting yourself killed will probably *prevent* you from reproducing and passing on your genes directly.
But Dawkins' point was that it'
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Me against my Brother
Me and my Brother against my Cousins
Me, my Brother, and my Cousins against my Clan
Me, my Brother, my Cousins and my Clan against my Tribe
Me, my Brother, my Cousins, my Clan, and my Tribe agaist the others.
Ones loyalty to others is proportional to how closely they are related to you. The biologists call this "Kin Selection". Helping your siblings' children to survive is as good for your genes as helping your own grandchildren.
Also of interest is the results from game the
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Re:All well and good (Score:5, Insightful)
In otherwords, the sin itself is the punishment. Murder harms the species' ability to propogate. Theft harms the species' ability to care for its children. Incest harms the species' viability.
An aversion to 'basic' sins is evolutionarily advantageous.
All other morality is an offshoot of this behavior combined with humans' abilities to recognize (and sometimes fatally mis-recognize) patterns.
People who eat uncooked pork die horribly of trichnella (sp?) parasite infection. Ergo, certain meats are 'unclean' and therefore not kosher.
People who eat lots of meat and fats suffer more heart attacks and strokes. Ergo, you don't consume meat and dairy (the milk of its mother) at the same time.
This is all the room we require for 'onerous' morality to spawn given humans ability to harmful overcategorize.
When a population begins engaging in lots of promiscuous sex with another population, such as during a rapacious, pillaging invasion, it tends to spread diseases between the two. Everyone on both sides gets herpes strains they're not immune to.
Ergo, sexual conduct as a whole must be bad, right?
We know today that's silly and more harmful than helpful. However, semites still don't eat pork, even if it's been properly cooked.
Re:All well and good (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, sort of.
People who eat uncooked pork die horribly of trichnella (sp?) parasite infection. Ergo, certain meats are 'unclean' and therefore not kosher.
People who eat uncooked meat of any kind tend to die of one disease or another with higher probability. There's a reason we cook meat. Constraining it to pork makes little sense. That would be a more plausible explanation for strict vegetarianism as is seen in Eastern religions [wikipedia.org].
As for pork, it has been speculated that one of the reasons pork is verboten in both Jewish and Muslim cultures is that those cultures developed in a relatively arid part of the world. Pigs require lots of water, and thus raising pigs was seen as wasteful. To discourage raising of pigs, the religious leaders declared them unclean to consume. At least that's a popular theory. There's really no way to know where much of this got started, but it makes a lot of sense.
People who eat lots of meat and fats suffer more heart attacks and strokes. Ergo, you don't consume meat and dairy (the milk of its mother) at the same time.
We know that in this century. I don't think the term "stroke" even existed when that law was passed down. I suspect that had to do with the difficulty of cooking meats and dairy products without curdling the dairy or undercooking the meat. Of course, when you interpret that more broadly (as it is often currently interpreted) to include adding dairy-based cheese to meat that is already cooked, the food safety point of view starts to make a lot less sense. That interpretation does fit well with a strict literal interpretation, however, of not cooking meat in the mother's milk (or any milk).
When a population begins engaging in lots of promiscuous sex with another population, such as during a rapacious, pillaging invasion, it tends to spread diseases between the two. Everyone on both sides gets herpes strains they're not immune to. Ergo, sexual conduct as a whole must be bad, right?
When there is a viable alternative for the continuation of the species, you can bet that somewhere, someone will declare sex to be a mortal sin. Just wait. Give it time. It will happen. :-)
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What is the difference between actions that are "morally good" and actions that are "useful for highly social animals to express in densely populated communities"?
Don't kill. Don't steal. Love thy neighbor. Suppress nonconformists. These are beneficial traits for social creatures.
Try this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Therefore a moral would be that "constructive" ideas, thoughts, works are better than "destructive" ones. Work against the stream. Being lazy is the devils work. Etc, etc.
Constructive'ism:
* To conserve what can be conserved.
* To help those that need help.
* To maintain, that which can or needs to be maintained.
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Actually, I saw the same article in Digg and would like to point out the same thing that I saw there... What they describe as morality is actually altruism which is not the same thing.
Again...
Morality != Altruism
And what the article describes is altruism and not morality. In fact, morality is often at odds with altruism. Altruism is quite apparent as a biological feature of homo sapiens (and other prima
Necessary distinction (Score:2)
1.) Where do the moral principles themselves come from? What is their nature?
2.) Why do human beings care about morality?
3.) How do human being learn about moral principles? To what extent (if at all) is morality hardwired?
So, if you're going for an
Re:All well and good (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyhow, there is an assumption in your question, that actions are, in fact, moral or not. This is debatable. Philosophers have argued both sides.
Minor aside about TFA: it says "There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion." Well, actually this is debatable. Researches have seen some monkey or ape - I can't remember which type, exactly (a variety of baboon, perhaps?) - displaying what *might* be interpreted as 'sun worship'. That is, when the sun came up, they 'greeted' it with a quite unique celebration (jumping around and making noise, mostly, but in a distinct manner). Obviously this is an interpretive leap, but to me at least it seems about as reasonable as saying there are precursors of morality in primates. That is, I think both are just fine, so long as we understand 'precursors' can be something quite different from the human version.
The Beginning of Morality. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Beginning of Morality. (Score:4, Interesting)
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But any animal that is able to care for its young is capable of some form of empathy.
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But if we can't empathize with ourselves, how can empathize with others? Or, until you see yourself as a thinking, feeling human being (as opposed to some dumb animal that exists at the level of an auomaton), you'll never have the capacity to see others for what they are.
Re:The Beginning of Morality. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you aren't aware of the self object, you can't project it into imagined future states. If you can't project the self into imagined future states, and choose among them, then you are not volitional (aka free-willed aka proactive). If you aren't volitional, then morality doesn't apply to you.
A deer, for example, does not contemplate her welfare in the coming winter, and make decisions about how to lay up food or migrate; she relies on hard-coding. So even if we could speak to her, she wouldn't understand the idea of right or wrong or choice.
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How do you know? Humans and deer are both mammals, and share a lot of the same brain structures. I don't see any reason in principle that deer couldn't have a sense of self, although more primitive than ours. To simply assume otherwise is just chauvinism.
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Did I just program self-awareness?
Re:The Beginning of Morality. (Score:5, Funny)
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1. Not all religious nuts are illeterate southern baptists.
2. Not all religious nuts are even Christian.
3. The grand plurality of Christians in this world (about 53% of them) would say that morality comes from the Magisterium, as revealed by Jesus Christ the King, to the Apostles, and today is voiced by the Pope in certain very rare circumstances.
Both (Score:2, Insightful)
Allow me to be the first to say that it's both biological and philosophical.
What remains to be seen is where the one starts and the other begins.
You might be able to prove to me that great apes & monkeys have this sense of "humanity" or--for lack of a better term--"monkey-anity." Like the basic tenants of it where you don't kill babies or you starve yourself if it saves someone like you.
But I'm going to find it hard to believe that monkeys have a
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Frankly, after all the "Music and movies suck so that's why it's so important that I steal them!" comments I've read here, I'm wondering when some of you idiots are going to catch up with the monkeys.
Incidentally, not to pick on the submitter but in general: when people throw capital letters at completely inappropriate words (like "Bio
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That is what is engrained.
We imagine "what would I want done if that was me" and we act in that way.
There is NO hard-wired morals, simply a hard-wired sense of empathy. It varies in different individuals. Some people are cripplingly empathic so they won't even go outside for fear of stepping on a bug. Others are sociopathic, meaning they have zero empathy and will act with ultimate selfishness in every situation.
As for "morality", that is merely a construct created to appease our s
Here it comes . . . (Score:2)
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[Law&Order reference for the rest of you]
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To wit, if all was predetermined, there could be no criminal responsibility at law, because there could be no choice from which we could recognize an individual's guilt. That person had no choice, it was predetermined, and so they never made a choice to do something wrong, rather they are a product of their environment (however complex that may be).
However,
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The problem is that the word "morality" is loaded (Score:5, Interesting)
If you just think of it as a cooperation strategy, with "moral" being defined as "behaving in a way that benefits others", it's all quite simple, and it should be obvious that animals have a form of morals too.
Re:The problem is that the word "morality" is load (Score:2)
They demonstrated a clearly ingrained sense of empathy.
Morality is simply a social construct we create in order to better frame a universal set of actions expected to appease the empathic response of most people.
morality is still entirely a social construct.
Stew
Re:The problem is that the word "morality" is load (Score:2)
Morality is only loaded with religious ideas if you are a religious person, or believe in those religious ideas independently.
"moral" being defined as "behaving in a way that benefits others"
"behaving in ways that benefit others" is almost altruism (which is putting others needs before your own), its the opposite to egoism (putting your own needs before others).
Altruism can be moral and ethical, egoism can also be moral
No Kidding (Score:4, Interesting)
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This is circular reasoning: you presuppose all social animals have "rules of conduct" to show that we have "rules of conduct". Plus, even if it were sound logic, it's more of a semantics game to avoid the word "morality" than anything else.
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Animals have adopted a sense of empathy. This is apparent that it exists in many species. This is fact.
The reason animals adapted such a sense of empathy is because of a need to live in groups (just as the poster said). The "why" is.... animals which are entirely lacking empathy (reptiles perhaps?) live solitary lives. They fight any other same-sex same-species animals, because they are automatically "competitors" for whatever it is around
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The implication is that morality isn't due so much to a inherent "moral code" (which is a real religious spin on the observed behaviour, if you ask me) but more simply a genetic trait which facilitates habitation within groups. This group habitation then prov
Has to be partly biological (Score:5, Insightful)
1. There are obviously beings who are born sociopaths, which no amount of positive socialization or negative reinforcement can temper.
2. There are obviously beings who are born moral/ethical, which no amount of negative socialization can remove.
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Social animals MUST have a sense of empathy. Any social circle comprised exclusively of sociopaths would quickly degrade into... well something other than a social circle.
Social circles and cooperation are essential to the formation of intelligence and communication.
Therefore, any evolution of intelligence and communication inherently require animals that have an ingrained sense of empathy.
There is no implied moral code. There is no implied "absolute
Re:Not so obvious (Score:5, Informative)
All you need to know to tell you that physical structures in the brain are important to behavior is contained in the story of Phineas Gage [google.com].
We all know that people change throughout their lifetime in response to their experiences. So we don't need to prove the nuture part. That's obvious. But cases like that of Gage prove that the physical structure is at least as important, and is probably far more significant, than the experience that shape you. You are vastly more (and in some other ways, less) than the sum of your experiences.
Not only monkeys either (Score:2)
Interesting discussion, be careful (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand (and as TFA points out), the key word is empathy. Without empathy, social structures cannot exist. If everyone and everyone is solely self-interested, groups of cooperating individuals could never thrive as they would be destroyed internally by conflicting self-interest.
However, to claim that there are *specific* moral rules that are hard-wired is a bit silly, since it can be evidenced that there are a great many cultures in human history that use generalizations to appease the natural sense of empathy, while doing acts that would otherwise trigger an empathic reaction.
For example, cultures which practiced human sacrifice justified it by either portraying those sacrificed as "not quite human" or as "chosen by god" (being an honor, not a sacrifice). The Moors in Spain categorized Christians as "infidels" and were therefore justified in burning them by the thousands. The Nazis convinced their people that Jews were "subhuman" and people therefore often felt vindicated at sending them to their death. Blacks in pre-civil war America (and some time afterwards) were also seen as "subhuman" (legally, actually 1/3 of a person) and therefore slave owners were justified in treating them as domesticated animals.
Even today, we see the phrase "not quite human" bandied about to refer to criminals, especially murderers and sex offenders, to appease people's sense of empathy when calling for them to be "skinned alive" or "sliced into little pieces" as two well known political bloggers recently and eloquently demanded of pedophiles caught in the act.
However, our sense of morality is not so solid as one might think. Using the same example, for almost a thousand years, pederasty was not only a tolerated condition, but actually an expected behavior amongst social elite. Not only was it accepted by it was celebrated. Death has been similarly consecrated into social norms in past societies with warrior cultures killing merely for the sake of killing and maintaining their warrior culture.
Our sense of empathy may be ingrained. In fact, it may be essential to our humanity, but empathy is not so firmly defined as a set of "thou shalt not" rules and can't be assumed to imply those either.
I still contend that the (often religious) argument "all humans have some hard-wired moral rules" is a sham, created to perpetrate the spread of ignorance on controversial topics. We should always question our judgments using our intellect... because that is really what separates us from other mammals.
Stew
Re:Interesting discussion, be careful (Score:4, Interesting)
The religious argument is not that humans have "hard-wired" moral rules, but that the Universe has hard-wired moral rules in the same way it has hard-wired physical rules. If this premise is correct, it would be unsurprising for evolution to favor mental and social structures that reflect moral laws, just as evolution favors physical structures that reflect physical laws -- and all imperfectly.
This debate is usually cast in the following terms:
Side A: "Evolutionary psychology explains morality, therefore it's merely an artifact of evolution with no particular significance."
Side B: "Evolutionary psychology can't explain morality, therefore it's greater than an artifact of evolution and bears significance."
Neither of these arguments is valid. The real debate is what it always has been:
Side A: Morality is relative to society
Corollary: Evolution will favor structures that work.
Side B: Morality is universal across society
Corollary: Evolution will favor structures that work.
Therefore, it seems to me that the elucidation of a mechanism for ingraining moral laws has no logical connection to the intrinsic status and origin of those laws. Or, put another way: the evidence is not quite as important as the premises.
In the same way, to reduce morality to a mere consequence of some presumed a priori empathy does not seem any more valid than reducing empathy to a mere consequence of some presumed a priori morality. Therefore, this formulation does not advance the argument either.
We should always question our judgments using our intellect... because that is really what separates us from other mammals.
Could you clarify what you think is the role of intellect in this? It seems to me that intellect can tell us how well our judgments conform to an a priori standard of morality (including, technically, no standard at all -- but then what are you judging?).
So, assuming you believe a judgment can be made, what is the standard upon which the action is judged, and what is the justification for the standard itself?
--
Dum de dum.
Re:Interesting discussion, be careful (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, what you describe sounds an awful lot like the auto de fe [wikipedia.org], in which the Christians burned Moors, and of course Jews, once the tables had turned, in the numbers you mention. It strikes me that this may be an unfortunate inversion, given the way it's likely to feed into modern prejudice.
two different meanings for "morality" (Score:2)
We can also discuss it in the context of morality in the sense that we can argue over whether I should have killed that person. This question seems to be inher
Quotes (Score:2)
"The two things that amaze me are the starry hosts above and the moral law within...." -Kant
"The great paradox is humanity's deep desire to do right, and their total failure to do so...." -Lewis
Self Interest (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't stop at morality... (Score:2)
I find this to be another offshoot of the whole "nature vs nurture" thing. All of these things are partially biological (and thus uncontrollable) and partially learned. I think the problems come when people insist it's either one OR the other.
Neither. (Score:2)
Universal morals (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think though some people deny that there does exist some sort of biological language mechanism. They believe that language is part of "mind" and not "brain". So they will also have to deny any common biological structure specialized for lan
moral judgement != behaviour (Score:2)
I have had the opportunity to meet Dr Hauser via a direct transatlantic videoconference link with Harvard, while he was presenting his newest research conclusions to our private university here in EU. He explained to us the Web questionaire he used, his methodology, and various moral dilemmas he devised to find patterns in moral judgement, and how brain damage to specific areas of the brain altered this judgement. I think that from his findings it is obvious that there is physiological basis of morality,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The absolute construct that he has demonstrated is empathy. In other words, feeling for other people as you might feel yourself in the same situation. This is a biological imperative for animals to be able to live in a close-knit social group, as sociopathic selfishness would quickly cause the social groups to decay into anarchy and ultimately separate.
The "moral judgment" seems to me to be just a consistency of r
Old news! (Score:2)
A single process? (Score:2)
To say that our brains evolved 'morality' is looking at a complex object and assigning it a single value. Morality can be explained as a combination of individual preferences combined with group association.
We have preferences and so do other people. Also, in order to work as a group we have to care about the preferences of others. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that we have parts of our brain which respond well when we fulfill the preferences of others. If we didn't we would be anti-social and i
What about Buddhists? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about Buddhists? (Score:4, Informative)
Now, the odd thing about this in the context of the present discussion is that this would be consonant with our having something of an inborn sensibility which is superior in itself to anything that our cultures can come up with. Indeed the original Taoists also claimed precisely that, with the further claim that it's our cultures that obscure this natural order "between heaven and earth." So the Buddhists and Taoists are coming from precisely the other direction than the Christians who claim that we need to impose religious belief in order to have morality. Their contrary claim is that we need to get beyond our cultures - including their religious formulations - to be at our truly best behavior.
That's also why Buddhists are most gracious to visitors from other cultures - they don't read visitors in terms of how our behavior conforms to their own local cultural code, but rather try to see us more directly.
There is a parallel formulation in the philosophy of one of the founders of the "Scottish Enlightenment," Frances Hutchinson, who held that "the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue" was something natural in us, which he called our "moral sense" - and explicitly described as being the conjunction of our other senses, when not clouded by culture - which is to say very much what the Buddhists claim. Hutchinson was the favorite philosopher of Thomas Jefferson. In that way, America was founded on an appreciation of human nature very close to the Buddhist and Taoist (which enjoyed a re-emergence in New England Transcendentalism, which in turn informed the ethics of our current environmentalism - flowing nicely together with Zen concepts of nature in the work of, for instance, Gary Snyder).
How about: Environmental? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics (Score:3, Informative)
Welcome to 1959. And probably earlier. (Score:3, Informative)
Go read Starship Troopers. Ignore the less than insightful pundits out there who would have you believe that Heinlein was a militarist and a fascist. Curse Paul Verhoeven.
Starship Troopers, at its core, was a treatise on morality, not a bug hunt. I frankly find it disturbing how many poepl fail to recognize this simple fact.
This is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Is logic biological or reasonable?
Is reason biological or sensible?
Is fruit an apple or an orange?
My opinion is that these so-called "scientists" are pushing a moral agenda that is merely wearing biology as its latex glove. It looks to me like a media-endorsed reincarnation of the various licentious systems, this time based in the recently popular thinking that morality is subject to and arises from DNA. It is a backwards view that claims reality is subject to awareness or to a physical adaptation meant to sense it, rather than vice versa.
Humans have a reliable way of experiencing some kinds of things: Heat, light, taste, sound, viscosity, gravity, density, hardness, etc., etc. These sensations form the basis of science as well as the natural law philosophies of the empiricists.
The fact that individuals may experience the "sensations" of morality differently from one another can not logically invalidate any absolute attributes that morality might encompass. If external senses arose from primitive ancestors, this does not mean that the nature of heat has changed. Likewise, if moral senses arose from primitive ancestors, this does not mean that the nature of morality has changed or suddenly come into existence. If two individuals possess different notions of quantity, this doesn't mean that two plus two no longer equal four. There are definite laws that govern the physical and the abstract, regardless of how well our minds are designed to comprehend them.
The discipline of philosophy has always held that the metaphysical realm of logic is likewise governed by definite laws, and that from these laws are derived the realities of propriety, merit, and so forth.
I have hope that good scientists avoid the sort of dogmatic proselytizing represented in this NYTimes article. I will venture to say that morality will never be subject to the empirical sort of testing that science demands, and that scientists therefore have nothing to say about it (as scientists). At best, the scientist might claim that animals seem to have a sort of moral sense which is nicely facilitated by the wonders of genetics, and leave it at that. Science can't give us the value of such a statement. That belongs to philosophy.
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Re:Morality? Meaningless. (Score:5, Insightful)
It may sound persuasive to you to say that not believing in God means that there is suddenly no right or wrong and we can do anything, but real atheists, with very few exceptions, don't really believe that. And for every exception (Pol Pot and Stalin come to mind) I can give you more examples of people who thought God wanted them to commit atrocities. Hitler, Torquemada, Jim Jones, David Koresh, and so on. Yes, some power-mad wackos are atheists, but the fact that there are also plenty of power-mad wackos who believe in God should tell you that the atheism isn't the root of that particular problem. It happens that there are murderous psychos in the world, some who believe in God and a few who don't, and all of them bring their own beliefs, or lack thereof, to the table with them.
And we don't really think you're stupid, any more than you think people who believe in Shiva or Mithra are stupid. Yes, Dawkins is mouthy. He's one Oxford zoology professor who is rather vocal about his atheism. When the President of the USA says that religious people whouldn't even be considered citizens (like Bush Sr. said about atheists when he was President) then you may have a case. But even then, it falls a bit short of true intolerance or persecution. Dawkins is entitled to his beliefs. If Christians enjoy the right to think that Dawkins deserves to roast for all eternity in a lake of fire, I think he's entitled to think this is a crazy, illogical, and sadistic doctrine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yes, there are so many examples...
Radical Jews
Radical Islamists
Radical Christians
Certain catholic priests in New England
The German churches during the Third Reich
The crusaders
I'm sure I forgot a couple million.
As they say, God is great, it's just his ground staff that sucks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't speak for all atheists as if we are a unified homogenous group with the same beliefs. That's a bit silly. The most annoying thing about being an atheist is that some wack job (not that you are) starts speaking for you. Especially since a lot of these wack jobs are on some sort of antireglious soap box pissing people off. As a result when you mention that you are an atheist you a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is reasonable to assume that social animals have a sense of empathy. After all, a social structure without emapthy would quickly decay into chaos. It's an evolutionary trait to cause cohesion in communities.
Beyond that sense of empathy, it is hard to see any "hard wired" set of morality. That sense of empathy gives us a vague "do unto others" urge, but it can obviously be overridden by conditioning, etc.
Stew