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Mystics have known for millennia that humans do NOT come with an innate moral system.
Thank goodness science has demonstrated that silly idea to be false.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
It must be trained and large subsegments of society simply do not provide an enlightened morality.
Morality is both innate and a product of society.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Left to its own devices a typical untrained human will become the most dangerous and capable predator on the planet indulging its inner drives with abandon. Think Lord of the Flies. This is the moral conundrum.
I must read this piece of fiction sometime.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Each society and social group adopt their own standards for training their young and those standards vary significantly.
And yet when tested, these different societies follow the same basic moral code.
Thank goodness science has demonstrated that silly idea to be false.
Morality is both innate and a product of society.
I must read this piece of fiction sometime.
And yet when tested, these different societies follow the same basic moral code.
Yes, Harry, that is a good point. While Moral codes were seen early on to be the products of human society and community and often differed, there was a surprisingly consistent basic format to a lot of human societies. The way it seems is that we have basic instincts that underlie all the social codes built on them, rather like we all have music, dance, song, art and literature. The same fears, the same instinct to revere the authority -human or magical.
I reckon it is evolved instinct and it serves a survival purpose or we simply would not have it. On that (as we know) human morality can be made an educated instinct and it kicks in even when religion is taught. We don't look at slavery or killing in the Bible and say 'That's fine. That's Moral. We make excuses or blame it on someone else. We are using our innate and taught moral code to Judge the Bible.
Thank goodness science has demonstrated that silly idea to be false.
Morality is both innate and a product of society.
I must read this piece of fiction sometime.
And yet when tested, these different societies follow the same basic moral code.
You have been fortunate not to have ever encountered a true sociopath. William James had to acknowledge that there is a source of evil in humanity that cannot be explained by psychology alone and that is the unconstrained consciousness.
You have been fortunate not to have ever encountered a true sociopath. William James had to acknowledge that there is a source of evil in humanity that cannot be explained by psychology alone and that is the unconstrained consciousness.
Oh dear. And you were doing so well until you got to an Unexplained and used it as a gap to pop your Pet Theory into.
Morality is both innate and a product of society.
.
The interplay of these factors is explained briefly in an article on the development of morality in the September Scientific American. I would recommend it to anyone with the capacity to actually think about the subject.
The interplay of these factors is explained briefly in an article on the development of morality in the September Scientific American. I would recommend it to anyone with the capacity to actually think about the subject.
Or with the desire to question or test whatever beliefs they hold. But thanks for the suggestion. This is important stuff because Absolute God -given Morality is gone, sunk, done and dusted. But what Morality actually IS (while no loner being a religious matter and where it came from and how it works, is really important.
[...snip...]
Humans are the greatest example of animalistic greed, I could sit here and type all night long on the unspeakable atrocities they have and continue to commit against themselves, other animals and this planet. What keeps most in line is the law, not ingrained morality.
"Most of the aberations in line"
Aberations caused by circumstance or by nature. I believe that is the nature of aberant behavior.
And it is not "imagined morality," "theosophied morality," nor "philosophied morality" that keeps aberant behavior in check either, but real and applicable worldly law and real socio-cultural implications that are followed through.
Funny about only ONE chocolate chip though. LOL. Empathy only goes so far with chocolate chips involved.
As partially shown by Calhoun's Mouse Utopia/Overcrowding/Bahavioral Sink experiments in NIMH
This "innate" morality, can be far-too-quickly unwoven through a couple of generations of (possibly) over-socialization/under-stimulating/over-crowding/in-breeding, etc. even given endless food and comfortable sleeping material.
Although there was no control group nor "return to normal" group, so it is hard to say, I believe he did see
a rise in polygamy
a rise in oppression from sexually aggresive males
a rise in homosexual behavior among the sexually oppressed males
a rise in infanticide
a lowering of empathetic behavior
among other things.
Therefore, both religious morality (mostly about feelings and expectations) and (often) religiously defined immorality (such as non-harmful and harmful socially aberant behaviors) can be assumingly encoded genetypically if not (under the given circumstances) yet phenotypically.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 12-07-2018 at 01:17 AM..
From an animal kingdom perspective, the scorpion is only doing what it does according to its own kind. Some animals are agressive, some are passive. Some animals even attack their own children, some are nurturing. Some animals will fight and kill each other. Some animals work together in groups.
Yet there is one thing I see in common here. No one looks at those actions and says, wow those creatures sure are immoral. Atheists want me to believe that we are nothing more than another creation, born out of time and chance. We are just another link in evolution, another branch on the giant tree of evolution. And yet if we did any of those things, we would be see as evil, grossly immoral and cruel. So the atheist tries to convince me that I am an animal because we share so many similarities with other species and they point to things like how dogs express real human emotions. We are animals because animals are like us.
I recently watched a documentary about illegal gambling in the US. It took a look into the dark world of dog fighting. In one scene, the trainers take what appears to be a gentle dog wagging his tail and place him in front of his mother. So messed up. They use some tactics to agitate the dog and suddenly they turn on each other. Killing machines going after their own family. So much for being human like. Man's best friend can be manipulated and programmed into something entirely different. Because animals don't view actions in terms of morality like we do. They don't weigh consequences even though we do have some fairly intelligent species out there.
You can't have it both ways. If we are animals then we should be acting like animals. Behaving according to our preprogrammed nature and instinct, not conflicted in areas of morality.
Morality is subjective
You have no idea what other's animals concept/notions of morality is. The scorpion and the frog is a story. For all we know, the scorpion is not intelligent enough to assess the situation. The frog is not intelligent enough to know what the scorpion will do. Most importantly, it is a story.
Hold a human in captivity, torture, deny them of healthy social structure program them to either fight or die situations on a daily basis. You'll have the same end result. You can dehumanize anyone or more accurately any animal. Historically, it is my opinion that Roman Gladiators are the human equivalent.
We see this all the time in long running wars in which generations have passed in conflict. Whole generations of people who were born and raised to fight with little concept of peace outside of their immediate group (political, racial, economical, religion, or otherwise)
I know gang members that were essentially raised with morality formed around the gang itself which are probably quite different than yours. Its ok to steal and cause harm to rivals but never ever a fellow gang member and where reputation is the real currency worth fighting to protect.
Very pertinent observations. The idea of 'Humans will be bad unless you teach them religion (read "This particular religion") is just too crude and easy. It is all more complicated than that.
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