Some wonder how morality could possibly exist or have developed, but the human capacity for empathy is a candidate for the origins of morality. Recent evidence suggests that we are hardwired for empathy as a consequence of our evolutionary past.
New Scientist explains.
Originally posted by Storm
Some wonder how morality could possibly exist or have developed, but the human capacity for empathy is a candidate for the origins of morality. Recent evidence suggests that we are hardwired for empathy as a consequence of our evolutionary past.
New Scientist explains.
I think that perhaps I am just too skeptical due to the area of my specialization.
Here is a more appropriate explanation for what they are seeing, and I will explain it by use of an example.
A person enters a doctors office. A nurse enters the room where the patient has been placed. An accompanying person winces prior to the needle touching the patients skin.
The person, if being observed for it, has had the "pain-processing regions of the brain light up." This is not due to some internal act of "our brain running a virtual simulation that represents only part of the experience." This is simple Pavlovian (or classical) conditioning. Does the dog salivating at the ringing of a bell mean that the dog's brain has run a virtual simulation that represents only part of the experience? No. We can even get an individual neuron, separated from all other cells, to respond similarly. If you sit in a closed room, no windows, and think some word as you turn off the light, and repeat the process enough times, you will be able to cause pupil dilation, without turning off the light, by thinking the word. Does this mean that our brain is running a virtual simulation that represents only part of the experience? I'd say no, and anyone with a knowledge of classical conditioning, and the physiology behind it, would say no as well.
We had a philosopher come and speak on the subject of altruism when I was in college. He tried to claim the same thing. The issue is that these type of descriptions are make believe. The phenomenon was explained some time ago. These researchers are trying to make man's response more complex than is necessary. More complex than it is. People want to hear that type of thing, they want people to say that man is pretty spiffy in some way.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Likewise a lot of people are motivated by a desire to be able to classify into trying to make humans a lot more simple than they are. I see that position as at least equally biased.
lol, probably 😉 That's why I qualified my comments with
Originally posted by Regret
I think that perhaps I am just too skeptical due to the area of my specialization.
To me, claiming some unobservable, untestable, thing occurs is not a scientifically viable method of reasoning. It to me is like arguing ID "evidence" to a scientist. There is not enough proof, it is only conjecture.
We are born with the instinct to survive. That same instinct drives us to establish morals within ourselves to relatively ensure our own individual survival. These individually established Morals as primitive as they may be are what allows us to relatively be able to establish and live within a society. Once the society is formed, it builds on the individually acquired morals and refines them to form collective morals. These collective morals ensure and optimize the survival of the society as a whole. And they also promote a collective better life.
With no from of morals there would have been no form of society. And we could have been extinct some time ago. Society and its collective morals provide better survival. And even the most primitive morals provide better survival to the individual.
GOD, Religions and other Enforcers agents help strengthening the survival of the race but they are more about establishing more morals and higher morals not necessary for survival but crucial to a better life.
So, some primitive morals are intuitively acquired. And refined ones can be learned and taught. And they all can exist without the notion of God and without religion or other enforcing agents.
“I only believe half of what I think”(TheSpinner)
Originally posted by TheSpinner
We are born with the instinct to survive. That same instinct drives us to establish morals within ourselves to relatively ensure our own individual survival. These individually established Morals as primitive as they may be are what allows us to relatively be able to establish and live within a society. Once the society is formed, it builds on the individually acquired morals and refines them to form collective morals. These collective morals ensure and optimize the survival of the society as a whole. And they also promote a collective better life.With no from of morals there would have been no form of society. And we could have been extinct some time ago. Society and its collective morals provide better survival. And even the most primitive morals provide better survival to the individual.
GOD, Religions and other Enforcers agents help strengthening the survival of the race but they are more about establishing more morals and higher morals not necessary for survival but crucial to a better life.
So, some primitive morals are intuitively acquired. And refined ones can be learned and taught. And they all can exist without the notion of God and without religion or other enforcing agents.
“I only believe half of what I think”(TheSpinner)
You are a very smart guy 😉
I pretty much agree with you here.
Originally posted by TheSpinner
We are born with the instinct to survive. That same instinct drives us to establish morals within ourselves to relatively ensure our own individual survival. These individually established Morals as primitive as they may be are what allows us to relatively be able to establish and live within a society. Once the society is formed, it builds on the individually acquired morals and refines them to form collective morals. These collective morals ensure and optimize the survival of the society as a whole. And they also promote a collective better life.With no from of morals there would have been no form of society. And we could have been extinct some time ago. Society and its collective morals provide better survival. And even the most primitive morals provide better survival to the individual.
GOD, Religions and other Enforcers agents help strengthening the survival of the race but they are more about establishing more morals and higher morals not necessary for survival but crucial to a better life.
So, some primitive morals are intuitively acquired. And refined ones can be learned and taught. And they all can exist without the notion of God and without religion or other enforcing agents.
“I only believe half of what I think”(TheSpinner)
I think I agree.
Originally posted by TheSpinner
That same instinct drives us to establish morals within ourselves to relatively ensure our own individual survival. These individually established Morals as primitive as they may be are what allows us to relatively be able to establish and live within a society.
I take it this means that the morals are developed due to instincts. So they are developed, and not a genetic construct. I'll be in total agreement if this isn't saying the morals exist as a inborn construct.
Originally posted by Regret
I think I agree.I take it this means that the morals are developed due to instincts. So they are developed, and not a genetic construct. I'll be in total agreement if this isn't saying the morals exist as a inborn construct.
I do not mean at all that the morals exist as an inborn construct. But that they are indeed solely developed even in their very primitive form. Sorry if my post was not clear enough about that point. And thanks for helping clarifying things.
Originally posted by TheSpinner
We are born with the instinct to survive. That same instinct drives us to establish morals within ourselves to relatively ensure our own individual survival. These individually established Morals as primitive as they may be are what allows us to relatively be able to establish and live within a society. Once the society is formed, it builds on the individually acquired morals and refines them to form collective morals. These collective morals ensure and optimize the survival of the society as a whole. And they also promote a collective better life.With no from of morals there would have been no form of society. And we could have been extinct some time ago. Society and its collective morals provide better survival. And even the most primitive morals provide better survival to the individual.
At least some moral behaviors would be considered "evolved psychological mechanisms," ala Evolutionary Psychology. It's a position I tend to agree with (when not discussing/considering "absolute morals" as decreed by God).
Originally posted by Great Vengeance
Morals are partly the product of the enviroment you were raised in, they are certain concepts that you have been programmed to consider a part of the 'right' way to live.They are also partly based on your own reasoning, applied to the values that have already been installed in you. Nearly any sane person raised in a common enviroment like you or I have been raised, would think such a deeply rooted moral such as 'killing' would be wrong. Yet we differ in thinking about other morals, such as theft. A person that was inclined to despise society would consider 'beating the system' through the process of theft to be an acceptable act. A person who through reasoning deduced that the rules of society were good things, that should be followed, would frown upon that same act.
This is a bit of an Emotivist / Freudian perspective .... but it doesn't really explain universal perspectives on murder and genocide. 🙂