Where, in American culture, is the domain of knowledge that we would identify as morality studied and taught?
I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality that will make it possible for us to live together on this planet in a more harmonious manner our technology will help us to destroy the species and perhaps the planet soon.
It seems to me that we have given the subject matter of morality primarily over to religion. It also seems to me that if we ask the question ‘why do humans treat one another so terribly?’ we will find the answer in this moral aspect of human culture.
The ‘man of maxims’ “is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.” George Eliot The Mill on the Floss
I agree to the point of saying that we have moral instincts, i.e. we have moral emotions. Without these moral emotions we could not function as social creatures. These moral emotions are an act of evolution. I would ague that the instinct for grooming that we see in monkeys is one example of this moral emotion.
We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school. Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.
Unthinking insects function as social creatures. There's a difference between morality and not doing things that will get you killed/thrown out of the group. When subjective morals and personal benefit overlap (such as in the case of grooming) it's a result of trying for personal benefit not being moral.
You can't study "morality" in a scientific manner unless you're completely fascistic anyway because no one will ever agree on what morality is. Philosophers have spent lifetimes rationalizing any sort of bullshit you can imagine.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
If you consider ethics as a parallel to morality then it's already an integral part of science anyway. No serious scientific study can be carried out without massive, legally based ethical considerations. It can often be very stifling to scientific advance for example in relation to genetic modification and stem cell research.
Humans are greedy. Unlike other living things on the planet we take much more from the earth than we need. In the end, it will be our, and probably the earth's, undoing.
I don't entirely disagree with the thread starter. A "science" is likely more difficult than a "logic" of morality.
Basically, we have actions and beliefs that any rational person would consider wrong, we can empirically show harm, etc (there are lots of threads in the philosophy forum where I've elaborated this better).
It isn't a science, because you aren't building hypothesis or anything like that, however, in some situations we can build models of how it is moral to treat other people.
Granted, it is easier to identify things that are absolutely wrong than are right.
this is not true. Many species have gone extinct because they consume more than available. Large mammals are notorious for this, such as the giant guinea pigs which lived in south America or the modern elephant, which are destroying huge swaths of African habitat.
human activity is really unlikely to "undo" the earth. Potentially make it uninhabitable to humans or other life, but the earth will probably still be there
Elephants did fine and thrived for an extremely long time as did other African fauna until basically the last hundred years when HUMANS began destroying habitat on a much larger scale. What elephants "destroyed" always came back.
As for humans rendering the earth "uninhabital for ourselves and other life"...that basically is the undoing of the earth.
I find it hard to believe that any thing less than Alderan level detestation would make the planet completely uninhabitable. We've found creatures that can survive in conditions we can barely recreate in laboratory settings and there are probably of things (bacteria etc) that would thrive and evolve no matter what we do to the planet.
__________________
Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
I think the uninhabitable thing is speaking more to humans (being able to continue leaving on Earth) if they continue to use resources at the same rate, give birth at the same rate, etc.
__________________ "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." - Thomas Gray
Why is grooming, as displayed by monkeys, an indication of moral emotions?
Emotions are instincts; they are something that is part of our genes. They are part of our genetic makeup because they were necessary for the survival of the social species. Some species are loners but some are naturally social. The social species needed emotions that facilitated social unity. Mutual grooming is one means for bonding between individuals and the group.
Would morals count as knowledge? Do emotions count as knowledge? Directly I must say that the emotion of fear is not knowledge. The emotion leads to a feeling and the consciousness of the feeling becomes knowledge. Morality is about relationships, i.e. certain instincts make a social group possible.
Without social cohesion social groups cannot survive. Reasoning about facts is a human means for survival and thriving. The more we know and understand about relationships the better will be our lives. In fact, because we have developed such powerful technology and thus have placed in the hands of people such power that if we do not do a better job about relationships our species cannot long survive.
KMC Community Forums
Feb 10th, 2009 01:48 PM
