Just glanced through this thread, as I tend to stay away from discussions of morality and religion and politics and philosophy in general. But personally, I think "morality" is a social construct, and not necessarily reflecting right and wrong. I think many of the decisions about what is moral/immoral have been based on religious beliefs, but I don't think they wouldn't exist without religion. And, as someone else pointed out, the definitions of moral behaviors change over time, sometimes based on changes in religious beliefs, other times because of social 'revolt'. As to animals, I do think they have a set of rules within their societies. Whether to call that 'morality' or not is purely philosophical, IMO - but that's because, as I say, I see morality as a social construct. Really, what people call morality boils down to the "Do unto others" - but more "Do not do unto others what you would not want done to you". "Immoral" behaviors occur when people can't or don't empathize with others, so they would have no problem killing, raping, stealing, etc.. The only reason some don't do these things is because of the social or legal consequences, and not because they find them "wrong".
I applaud you for not walking away from defending your position in this discussion. Aware we don't want to be dead is separate from caring if someone else is dead. "Extrapolate that belief onto others" is describing the feeling called empathy. So you agree that a sense of empathy is inherent in us from a very young age. Where do god given morals enter the picture and how do they get there?
I believe everyone is born carrying the weight of sin because of Adam and Eve. They are separated from God. They may do good things or bad things, but none of it matters, spiritually. The only thing that can lead to salvation is the atoning blood of Jesus and the amazing grace of God. Romans 3:20"...no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin." It is through the laws of God that we become aware of our bad deeds. (Do not murder, do not lie, do not covet, etc...) But according to the Word of God, knowing and obeying every single 'law' can not bridge the spiritual gap between you and God, which is why Jesus became the sacrifice that took our sin and destroyed it, building the bridge for us to have a relationship with God. So that's how God's morality works. No one, no matter how 'good' is acceptable to God. But most of this requires faith, because if you don't believe in God, then you don't believe in the rest of it, and it is better just to admit that and move on.
obviously not, since atheists are often even more 'moral' than those who are piously religious, god-fearing folk... i'm one, believing in no gods or religions, and i lead a totally 'moral' life based simply on doing what's 'good/right/moral/ethical' in all ways possible... and avoiding the doing of harm to any living creature, or any part of our habitat... of course, just as i've done... anyone can tell good from bad without being told which is which by any god-figure mankind may dream up... good helps and bad harms... it's that simple...
The links you posted are nice and good, but having empathy or any sort of emotion doesn't imply having moral principles. Empathy simply means you can recognize and share another person's feelings. But empathizing with someone is itself not a moral act. The researchers are making a mistake by equating empathy with having a moral code. Speaking of chimps, male chimps are highly aggressive. Last year a male chimp killed a baby chimp at a Los Angeles zoo. The "moral" behavior of chimps is good and all, but we must consider the "immoral" behavior as well. A lot of people, and particularly those who believe that morality is the result of evolution, tend to ignore the "negative" human emotions. While it's true that empathy, love, etc. helped us survive, so did rage, jealousy, etc. In any case, it's hard to know exactly why some chimps choose to help another chimp while others do not. And I believe knowing why is very important. It's the difference between murder and killing to protect oneself. You don't because acts aren't inherently good or bad. You could, but it's a bit more complicated than that. Humans are better thinkers and can thus think about the consequences of their actions at some time in the future. In fact, I believe humans are the only animals capable of thinking about objects not immediately in front of them and events that took place in the past or are going to take place in the future. I've read excerpts of it. From what I understand, "good" is associated with the privileged class and "bad" is associated with the common class. In order to rebel against the privileged class, the common class creates a system of morality in which they are "good" and the privileged ones are "bad." It's certainly an interesting idea and one that shows that morality isn't absolute and depends on culture and society.
Are we talking about consequence-based actions or an internal measure of right and wrong? I just don't see where there can be no inherent good or bad. If I had the power to destroy all of the universe, every particle and living creature, erasing all of existence off the face of time itself, could you say that is not inherently wrong?
Not quite. The Master/Slave relationship is where there have been two sets of moral codes that have developed, and both are antagonistic to each other. One is based on a position of power, finding morality in avoiding the harmful actions of other 'Masters' or powerful men, say, a medieval king of England wouldn't invite a French diplomat to court and cut his head off because that would likely spark a war with France, and thus diminish the Master's own power. Whereas the Slave mentality is based on avoiding trouble from the Masters, and basically staying out of the unfavorable opinion of them. A citizen wouldn't steal a loaf of bread, say, because that will incur action from the police, but someone in a position of power would not really consider taking the same loaf of bread as stealing because he is the king, it's his by default. When you have people of the 'Slave' mentality wanting to assert a Master morality then you get all sorts of problems, but this is the Master/Slave morality relationship in a nutshell.
I would argue that all actions have consequences. I'm talking more about the latter. No, I couldn't. To say that an action has intrinsic "goodness" or "badness" would mean making a universal claim about that action. So if killing is inherently wrong, then all instances of killing are wrong, whether it be in war, for protection, etc. Yeah, there are essentially two mini-societies that have each created their own moral codes. Slave values were created in response to master values. Nietzsche calls slave morality the "revenge of the powerless" and claims it is a result of resentment. Nietzsche was against slave values. He hated them because they reminded him of sickness and toil, among other things. Also, the "will to power" of individuals leads to an endless cycle of the master/slave relationship in a democracy. If you think about it, Nietzsche basically laid out blueprints for Hitler.
While Nietzsche isn't exactly free from blame when it comes to the wild interpretations of his philosophy, I'm sorry but I can't agree that he did set up blue-prints for Hitler. For one, Nietzsche just wasn't a very good political philosopher, could even be said he wasn't a political philosopher. He certainly wasn't in favor of democracy, instead he wanted a sort of autocratic aristocracy of 'Great Men', but he had nothing but disdain for the socialists and nationalists of his era - it's part of the reason why he had his famous falling out with Richard Wagner. The idea of a German master-race would have likely made him laugh. Besides, despite all this, Nietzsche's main areas were classical philology and ethics, his occasional statements on politics are hardly interesting, and transparently the thoughts of someone who didn't really care. He seemed to think he had higher callings than mere everyday political actions. His want of an autocratic aristocracy likely comes from the theories of Ancient Greece and he seems to be the sort of person who would say just that and leave it there. If he wasn't a fan of Plato he certainly thought a lot like him. Instead, the main point of a lot of his work, and his ethics, is instead moving beyond the simple dichotomy of the Master/Slave relationship to deciding your own moral laws, in essence this is my understanding of the 'Ubermench' idea anyway, someone who can create their own morality and values, be their own philosopher, and transcend all values independently. That was always my reading of Nietzsche. As I've pointed out though, he did leave a lot very open to interpretation, so you could justifiably say I'm talking pure crap.
You're talking pure crap. I'm not saying he advocated for a particular political system, but I can definitely see how his conclusions could have been used to support Hitler's goal. A lot of fascists refer to Nietzsche because of his dislike for democracy and parliamentary governments. I think a lot of people have taken the phrase "the will to power" to be synonymous with "the will to dominate," which is perhaps not completely wrong since we always take power to mean power over someone or something.
Hahaha. Yeah, that is true. I personally tend to think the 'Will to Power' is something else personally, but that's the way I've always read him. And like I said, he didn't ever make things easy on himself in this respect either. And, also, it's worth remembering something else my last post only hinted at, a number of Nietzsche's statements are clearly the products of a very unhappy, and very flawed man. He made a lot of embarrassingly self-revealing remarks about woman, and his own sexuality for instance. And he was about some things hopelessly arrogant, to the point where it becomes a huge problem for him as a thinker. That's mostly why I can't say I hold to his philosophy like I once did.
I don't know if you've heard of the Euthypro dilemma. Are good things good because God orders them or does God order them because they are good? If the latter, there is some kind of morality outside of God. If the former, goodness is ultimately based on a whim. God could have made rape okay, but it would be good since it was God that ordered it. I don't really see how God could, even in theory, make the root of our morality easier to understand. There's also a couple of other problems with divine command theories: 1) It doesn't tell you which God is true. Your choice of Christianity is based on faith, just like a Muslim's belief in the laws Allah has set. Even if we would know for certain that God has set rules for us, the question of right and wrong wouldn't be any simpler. And if you are going to say there are similiarities between different faiths and they're all worshipping the same God(a common argument), there's also a lot of differences. Christianity for example specifically prohibits worshipping other gods, which is incompatible with polytheistic religions. 2) Even knowing the right religion, we wouldn't know what interpretation is right. Just look at how much Christians have argued(sometimes violently) because there is no agreement on what God actually meant. There's hundreds of sects. 3) The Bible contradicts itself. One parts prohibits killing and then the death penalty is recommended for a lot of petty crimes, war is advocated and even God himself kills millions of people.
These are all perfectly normal questions, and I have been asked them many times by Christians and non-Christians. All the answers are not that hard to understand and I am always willing to explain to anyone.
I may not have the time to address this topic properly. I don't intend to get in a long drawn out discussion with people because starting with different underlying concepts is a complex thing. It's impossible to discuss the issues when there is so much backstory that has to be addressed first. It's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of the beliefs people start with when they evaluate the evidence and conclusions that don't fit into their existing framework. One can conceive of morality being a nebulous out of body thing. That's pretty much how philosophers tend to describe it, though some are now incorporating new biology paradigms in their philosophical thought. Biologists, on the other hand, look to teasing out the underlying mechanisms that result in the perception of 'right and wrong'. One can demonstrate the brain comes with preset emotional hardware. The healthy brain (because we also know the hardware can be damaged) comes equipped with the ability to experience pain, joy, pleasure, love, physical attraction, hunger, thirst, and so on. Among those abilities we also find a natural sense of empathy, altruism in some circumstances, a sense of fair and unfair, essentially the underlying mechanisms of the perception of right and wrong. To someone trying to evaluate these findings who starts with the concept humans are 'special', and the ability to do [X] separates us from the 'animals', it's hard for that someone to see how the underlying mechanism by which we perceive a sense of right and wrong can be no different from the mechanism that allows us to experience the sense of sadness. Language evolved, tool use evolved, as well, moral thought and emotional experience evolved. You don't find some huge leap to 'special' when you look at the evolutionary development of moral thinking. One's sense of right and wrong is a tangible measurable sensation in the brain one attaches meaning to. I don't hear anyone in this thread arguing there is some absolute good and bad, right and wrong in the Universe outside of the human and other animal brains except those arguing said right and wrong is dictated by a magical being, and that hypothesis is easily disproved but useless to argue with a believer about, so I won't spend much time on it. Even if you perceive moral behavior to be the result of some complex reasoning rather than being no more than a biologically driven emotion, how does that work? How can I reason there's a right and wrong if it's not based on how I feel? How does a 5 yr old reason that a rule about hitting a puppy differs in some qualitative way from an arbitrary rule about eating in a classroom? You're using an example of an aggressive male chimp as evidence of the lack of morality in chimps? I'm not sure what to do with that example. Do you know how many male humans murder infants every year, not in self defense? I guess I'm missing your point but I think I've addressed your premise that morality is the result of being able to think about it. You can't decide right and wrong from 'thinking' without a basis for the judgment. Chimps can be a pretty nasty species. I often wish Bonobos were closer ancestors. While I do believe the majority of humans are 'good' unfortunately we aren't the best species when it comes to how much 'bad' also exists in our species. Regardless, I don't think you can find a whole lot of evidence that people who are kinder toward their fellow humans are more intellectually skilled, and agressive humans are less intelligent. So how does "knowing" fit in your explanation here? Why does the fact we can think about good and bad only work some of the time? And that fact holds whether one contemplates based on perceived philosophical reasoning or one understands the emotional sensations (sense of fairness, empathy, and so on) that lead one to conclude right and wrong is a biology based 'feeling'. What are good and evil? The evidence supports that they are feeling or emotion based conclusions, not intellectually based conclusions. There are no objective moral measures which leaves moral thought coming from our emotional brain. You can't answer the 'pull the switch or not' train dilemma based on anything other than perceived emotion. Is it moral to save more people or immoral to participate in the death of one? The only place that moral dilemma is decided is within one's nature-nurture biological brain. You still need a desired outcome to decide what is good or evil about that imagined future outcome. As for animals thinking about objects not immediately in front of them, tell that to the squirrels that dig holes in my yard to hide and recover their nuts. You're quite a bit off base there. Animal intelligence is fascinating and they most certainly can imagine the future and an object not immediately in sight. A bit of Google sleuthing will uncover hundreds of examples of animals that can conceptualize the future and unseen objects. Here are two (links disabled because they slow the page loading too much. Copy and paste then take the two spaces out between the // to go to the youtube vids.): http:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE4BT8QSgZk Sequential tool use by a crow http:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgOW9LnT4 Chimpanzee Problem Solving by Cooperation (to get unseen food) Culture and society acting on biology.
I read about an experiment done with chimps that gives us a glimpse into the evolved mind of humans. Children Learn by Monkey See, Monkey Do, Chimps Do Not It appears that humans are hard-wired to imitate to acheive the desired outcome, and less thought is given to actually figuring it out themselves.
Ginger, I don't have time to address all of your comments, but I'll hopefully get to them this weekend. I just want to say that most research involving morality in animals is flawed. Researchers look at behavior in animals and argue that a particular act is moral or immoral according to either societal beliefs or their personal beliefs. Thus, helping out a fellow chimp is seen as "good" simply because we have defined helping others to be a "good" act. Furthermore, it's a stretch to observe a particular act and assign a moral value to it. If chimp A steals a banana from chimp B, is that immoral? Why or why not? Morality may account for behavior, but they aren't the same thing. Thus, I firmly believe that you can't make conclusions about morality based on animal behavior.
I also think that personal bias has to be taken into account when considering wether someone believes that humans are just another animal species. To them, the thought that humans are special would lend credence to spiritualists or creationists. Human beings struck the genetic lottery sometime in the distant past that allowed us to evolve fundamentally different from the animals. Humans have something no other animal has, collective cognition. We have the ability to draw on the collective knowledge of all of humanity. For whatever reason, only humans have this ability. As far as morality, humans are able to reflect on and make judgements about our own and others' actions, and as a result we are able to make considered moral choices.
This is true as things stand now, but this advent is extremely recent. Up until about ten thousand years ago, we lived in small groups of twentyish, no more. Pretty standard for a pack animal of our size and metabolism. The reason we can tap into the human data bank now is simple. Writing. The spoken word is not an invention, it's a feature of humans. Writing on the other hand is very much an artifact of man, not a naturally occurring feature. Without this invention, cumulative knowledge would be limited to memory.
I don't think current research has the same problems of anthropomorphizing that you speak of. I encourage you to see what's been discovered since that criticism dominated the research discussions of this subject.
And vice versa, certain scientific evidence is ignored by those whose religious beliefs are contradicted by the evidence. I have no motive to find gods don't exist. If they existed I'd want to know. My philosophy is to follow the evidence to the conclusion whatever the conclusion. Whereas someone whose beliefs depend on god(s) existing have a reason to fit the evidence to their existing conclusions.
I merely stated that it must be taken into account when discussing theories relating to anthropomorphism. I believe that God exists and I believe the evidence shows that, you feel that God does not exist and you believe the evidence shows that. We are both susceptible to bias as we are merely two sides of the same coin.
I just read a study where given a choice, monkeys prefer actions that benefit the entire group over actions that only benefit the monkey. The researches then go on to say that this is evidence of morality in monkeys (and I see this poor logic in every article I've read on evolutionary ethics). So for the researchers, being moral is doing what benefits the group rather than one individual. Again, these researchers are assigning moral values to particular behaviors. Let me put it this way, if the monkey does something to benefit only himself, is that immoral? And another thing, if a monkey steals something from a human, are the monkey's actions immoral?
That's an interesting but single experiment of children and chimps at specific ages that may not be comparable. An older child would not likely do the extra step. It's another example of the mistakes one can make looking at single examples that either appear to support faulty truths or reinforce what we already believe. One needs to approach evidence more broadly, and always continue to examine additional evidence.
You're stuck in a Catch 22. Consider that you have a different concept of morality leading you to dismiss the conclusion. If, as current research demonstrates, morality is indeed a function of empathy and sense of fairness, then it is a proper conclusion that an observation of empathy and sense of fairness is an observation of morality in non-human primates. Can you see the catch 22 problem you've created? You need evidence that certain animal behavior is evidence of moral thought. But when that evidence is observed, you conclude it can't be evidence of moral thought because you don't have any evidence that behavior is evidence of moral thought. No evidence can satisfy you because you need evidence to change your morals paradigm before you recognize the evidence that would change your morals paradigm. Catch 22!
I have seen many examples of people linking YouTube videos of animals appearing to be empathetic or moral, but I think most of them are singular events that we place our own definitions on, but haven't the same meanings to the animals. Even the complex societal actions that seem moral may just be complex instinctive and genetic predispositions. I guess the main crux of the issue is that we can't read the thoughts of animals and without communication, we can't ask them why they did something.
