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No.

Originally posted by coberst
Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.

I think there is an inherent contradiction between what it is you are looking for from science and what it is that science actually does.

Don't get me wrong, I'd agree that there is huge importance in the understanding of the mechanics of human morality, but knowing why and how humans are moral will tell us nothing about morality, save how we construct our personal sense of it.

Science is not built to answer moral questions in the way that religions are, and this is because, largely, the strengths of science. Scientific fact is NOT authoritative, but progressive, constantly changing in the face of new evidence. Morality assumes a final end result, where humans will know how to treat one another in absolute terms, whereas science denies such knowledge is even possible. We could build models of moral behaviour based on certain cultural beliefs and desired outcomes, however, those cultural beliefs and desired outcomes themselves would not be scientific, and there is essentially no way to quantify those variables.

I'd agree that a less super-natural, more materialist based definition of morality would help society immensely, but to claim that science can give us any answers about how people should behave is to mis-conceptualize what it is that science can do for civilization.

Originally posted by inimalist
I think there is an inherent contradiction between what it is you are looking for from science and what it is that science actually does.

Don't get me wrong, I'd agree that there is huge importance in the understanding of the mechanics of human morality, but knowing why and how humans are moral will tell us nothing about morality, save how we construct our personal sense of it.

Science is not built to answer moral questions in the way that religions are, and this is because, largely, the strengths of science. Scientific fact is NOT authoritative, but progressive, constantly changing in the face of new evidence. Morality assumes a final end result, where humans will know how to treat one another in absolute terms, whereas science denies such knowledge is even possible. We could build models of moral behaviour based on certain cultural beliefs and desired outcomes, however, those cultural beliefs and desired outcomes themselves would not be scientific, and there is essentially no way to quantify those variables.

I'd agree that a less super-natural, more materialist based definition of morality would help society immensely, but to claim that science can give us any answers about how people should behave is to mis-conceptualize what it is that science can do for civilization.

Constructing a science of morality i.e. "knowing why and how humans are moral will tell us...how we construct our personal sense of it." This is why we need such a science.

Science is the disciplined, systematic, and empirical study of a domain of knowledge. We have allowed religion to become dominate in teaching morality and thus we are left with this childish Sunday school comprehension of morality.

I am presently studying the book Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts by Alois Riegl. This is exactly the kind of book we need about morality. I would say that grammar and science are very similar types of study.

Originally posted by coberst
I would say that grammar and science are very similar types of study.

how so?

Originally posted by inimalist
how so?

They both deal with principles constructed from empirical evidence.

Originally posted by coberst
They both deal with principles constructed from empirical evidence.

no they don't.

There is the science of linguistics, where the phenomenon of human grammar is studied in a scientific fashion.

otherwise, you could say that cancer and dinosaurs are the same

lol