Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy

Choice - Not going to touch that with a ten foot pole knowing the intricacies about free will, self-determinations, etc.

​

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.

​

Guilt over Lack of Sympathy - Did you have sympathy for the chicken you had for dinner tonight? or for the dead cow that made the leather for your shoes? We humans have a decidedly non-existent guilt over the lack of sympathy.

​

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.

The old testament is replete with examples and statements that demonstrate the ethic of reciprocity.However note the OT scoped this principle to only include those who could also scratch your back (ie thy people) This is the same "ethic" recognized my chimpanzee groups.Not very inspiring or out of context with the beginnings of other cultures.Also every major religion has this feature embedded into it's fabric. The bible is not unique.Another note is the earliest written example of the rudiments of this ethic predates the biblical reference by centuries. Look up Egyptian "The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant" (over 4k years old) which is a bit hard reading but worth the effort.

That is a bit of extreme is it?However there may be some instruction in examining earlier cultures.Some examples without looking anything up are:

Spartans trained their boys that stealing was good and encouraged it, but being sloppy and getting caught was not.

​

The Romans considered it sport to watch people kill and tear each other apart in the arena.

​

To many native american cultures, owning a horse or other property stolen from a different tribe was cool.

​

Most early cultures put no taboos on infanticide

​

To most early cultures the killing of strangers was normal and the first reaction. Possessing some souvenir of the act was a symbol of prestige.

​

Most early cultures consider slavery as acceptable.

​

Many cultures consider women as not fully human. Most legal issues concerning women centered on women being property only. Justice from the womens point of view was non-existent. In the old testament and within the Muslim tradition the notion of salvation was a male only concept.

​

As a side note I recently I read Samuel Hearne's journal of his account exploring the northern part of Canada. Read that first witness account will change any beliefs you may have that the 10 commandments are written onto the hearts of humans. The stories told in that account haunted me for days.

​

What we consider moral or ethics today is the result of the maturation and evolution of culture.