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Author | Topic: Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Doddy Member (Idle past 5909 days) Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
nator writes: Some of the most complex animal emotional lives can be seen, not surprisingly, in our closest relatives, the great apes. I found these two stories in an article by Dutch primatologist Frans B. M. de Waal:
quote: Edited by Doddy Curumehtar, : Forget to show my signature "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Larni writes: Dude, is this a question? If so, I can't honestly say I know what you are trying to say. No, but forget it, it doesn't matter anyway.
Larni writes: We have covered this already. Oh yes, we most certainly have 3 or 4 posts between us ago, I think. But then you got nit-picky on my wording, so I kept trying to fix it for you.
Larni writes: You have learnt that murder is bad for you and react accordingly. I would have agreed with this before I even started this topic
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5952 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
My bolding.
Larni writes: People see wrong after the action. At this point the drivers for behaviour have changed. When we are angry we think angry thoughts, we do angry things. We later re-appraise our actions and conclude: "I should not have acted that way (because of the internal external repercussions), I feel (insert socialized emotion here)" Bull-donkey-donks, Larni. I think angry thoughts and I do nothing about them. That is what makes me moral, not this trivial giving in to bad behavior because I can't help it stuff.
What does this mean? What do our social skille give us? They are but a revalidation of our choice to do something right. They are based on someone else's choice to do right. Where did we get the ability to know what is right for us? Once again, socialization is not an answer.
Yes. Welcome to cognitive behavioural psychology. Can I get a nice, in-depth explanation of this, please?
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5952 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
I had a cat once upon a time who came to me when I was crying. Her name was Gurney. I never once accredited her behaviour to morality, and since a cat can't cry, nor can a chimp, I doubt that they have anything except for body language to go off of. My small daughters react the same way when I am sad or drowsy, and again, it is NOT morality. They have not even reached an age where they know wrong and right. Feeling sympathy is just what it is. If morality was so gosh darn easy to explain, why do we even have a seperate word for it? Why not a simple answer that anyone can grasp, like the way we see a rainbow? Put it in a science book already; Where We Get Morality 101. I do not need any link or example to show me that my dogs and cats have not cried with me, and watching them do so has not opened up any new surprising insights for me. Haven't you ever owned an animal? Do you think my religion was shaken to its core when my cat came over to me as I cried?
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5952 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
Stile writes: This is confusing to me, Yes, I have seen much confusion here in general.
1. GOOD -> a world state that contains the most happiness for the most people possible. Perhaps this is a Perfect world with unlimited good for all people. Perhaps a world of Perfection is impossible, and GOOD is a world state that only limits the amount of bad to a necessary minimum. 2. good -> specific acts of generosity or altruism or anything that brings us closer to GOOD without compromising anyone's individual rights or priveledges. A Perfect world is undoubtedly impossible. Good is the closest we come to God/Perfection. That is actually a nice way to look at it. Perfect is, well, Perfect. Good is a good stab at Perfect. Of course Good changes, because we are always trying some new way to be Perfect. Always failing of course. From now on, instead of referring to 'good' I will refer to Perfect. Good...means, you got a good grade. That could be anything, but certainly not a Perfect Grade. It could be better than last semester, but still not Perfect. Morality is our attempt at perfection, and to each according to his ideals. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5952 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
nator writes: It does? Sure, any relative 'good' changes from day to day. Moment to moment.
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anastasia Member (Idle past 5952 days) Posts: 1857 From: Bucks County, PA Joined: |
nator writes: We have also evolved the ability to realize that we are going to die someday. How is that different from;
ana writes: We have evolved to realize that there is more to life than our body or the visible universe. In both cases, we wonder what happens when we die.
Where is the "spiritual awareness detector" in humans? The spiritual awareness is the detector.
ana writes: We have evolved detectors; emotions, spiritual awareness, etc. Most higher animals do, indeed, have emotions. Some of the most complex animal emotional lives can be seen, not surprisingly, in our closest relatives, the great apes I have animals. I see sympathy-type behaviors. I do not see choices, or guilt over lack of sympathy.
Remember, ana, that the ability to imagine a God may easily be an artifact of having such large, complex brains What does the in-ability to imagine God mean? Small, simple brains?
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iceage  Suspended Member (Idle past 5914 days) Posts: 1024 From: Pacific Northwest Joined: |
Ana writes: I have animals. I see sympathy-type behaviors. I do not see choices, or guilt over lack of sympathy. However i will note that the arguments you use to reduce animals to automatons are the same arguments that can be used against humans just on another level.
The prophet Dawkin's talks about our speciest centered morality that is akin to racism. We exclude many things from our consideration of sympathy and empathy. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.
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Larni Member (Idle past 163 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
stile writes: I also don't think I follow evolution-explanations for my morals. I find these explanations very strange, and sometimes even ridiculous. Has this position changed? I would say that psychology offers a better explanation than Dawinian Evolution(or the Modern Synthesis) can. However, don't forget that both branches of science use the scientific method.
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Larni Member (Idle past 163 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
ana writes: Bull-donkey-donks, Larni. I think angry thoughts and I do nothing about them. That is what makes me moral, not this trivial giving in to bad behavior because I can't help it stuff. You do nothing about your angry thoughts because you have been socialized into a perception that angry actions cause negative consequences to you. Don't forget; that is cognitive as well as physical consequences. If you are reaaly sad you will cry. This is because you have been socialized into crying as a form of communication about your state of mind to others. Blokes bought up in very macho culture can sometimes be unable to cry or even express sadness. Acting in the way an emotion drives you is mediated by your cognitions which is driven (very simply here, I could right essays on cognitions) by what are called 'core beliefs'. Note that this is not to be confused with religious beliefs. These core beliefs are also called 'schema' (try googling Aaron Beck) and are our lense for assessing the perceptual information we recieve. They form in childhood (but also later in life) and are change resistant (my career is based aound teaching people to alter their core beliefs for the better). Part of your core beliefs include what you are labling morals. These are formed during your life. They are learnt. There is no absolute set of morals we all ascribe to, although it can seem that way because for a society to work, it must have created a certain type of culture. The societies that could not manage this are long extinct.
ana writes: What do our social skille give us? They are but a revalidation of our choice to do something right. Incorrect. It is our social skill to recognise what our society conciders 'right' and do 'right' so as to increase our (or our associates) standing in the group which gives us meaning, such as society.
ana writes: Where did we get the ability to know what is right for us? Once again, socialization is not an answer. Socialization is the answer! Our ability to tell right from wrong is like almost every aspect of human psychology; leant! We have so few hard wired aspects to our brain (language aquisition springs to mind as an exception here) that we cannot even walk when we are babies. We have to learn to do almost everything. Something as complex as right from wrong must be learnt. Why do reject this position?
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Larni Member (Idle past 163 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
ana writes: They have not even reached an age where they know wrong and right. Bingo! You conceed that a child has to learn right from wrong.
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Doddy Member (Idle past 5909 days) Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
Larni writes: Part of your core beliefs include what you are labling morals. These are formed during your life. They are learnt. But it's important to note that we have parts of the brain specifically designed to hold these learnt associations. Both the biological and the cultural aspects evolved co-dependently - one cannot exist without the other. Why else would most past societies around the world tend to have similarities in morality? I'd say that would be due to innate sense of these things, just as the very reason the overall concept of beauty is shared by all cultures. Besides, mice probably don't have a culture to teach them things like this, and I'm not sure apes would have much learnt morality, so much of their sense would be biological. But undoubtedly humans have some learnt associations for what is right and not right, because our sense of morality is changing over time (now women and other races are considered equal, nobody is allowed slaves and our standards for modesty are always altering), while our brains are not significantly different. "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Larni Member (Idle past 163 days) Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
DC writes: Why else would most past societies around the world tend to have similarities in morality? It is adaptive to behave in a 'moral' way. Behaving in a generally moral way allows a co-operative society to prosper. Cultures that are full of 'social cheaters' cannot develope the societal bonds required for larger civilization to form. If you compare the relative brain size of primates, you can predict the general size of community they live in. Bigger brains (which are needed to dectect 'social cheaters' and so weed out cheaters anr reward co-operative behaviour) means beiiger communities. Our big brains and in a large way put to use in coping with life in a community. It is geared towards detecting and sanctioning social cheaters. The 'innate' sense is learnt. Humans are just very predisposed towards learning social lessons, just like we are very predisposed towards learning language. My contention is that there is no mystery, no 'god sense' of right and wrong. We learn it and it varies with culture.
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nator Member (Idle past 2169 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Nobody is saying that morality is easy to explain. On the other hand, you don't try to explain it at all. You just say, "Godidit", which is the most unsatisfying explanation of all.
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nator Member (Idle past 2169 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: But you said that our brain function changes willy-nilly from day to day. Can you please explain how the function of the brain changes willy-milly from day to day?
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