Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy

Sounds about right.

Incorrect.If you had no empathy, a psychotic personality or you were taught from a young age that killing was an appropriate way of solving problems, it would not effect you.

You see struggling even when this very subject has been explained to you pretty simply on another thread?Your belief in a god based morality is what blinds you to the avilable information.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

Some people DO see no wrong in it. People who do see wrong, do so because of socialization (with a few exceptions).What we think about our actions is a science close to my heart (cognitive behavioural psychology) and I see this as being a paramount importance when we look at perception of right and wrong.
Don't forget what people believe is just another style of thinking....If you have any specific questions I wuld be happy to field them for you.

Still incorrect.Your perception of the consquences of your action will induce biochemical changes within you.As long as your brain works well enough to give you voluntary control of you actions, your choices will have a very real effect on your biology.This is the physical effect of which you speak.

My bolding.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)" What does this mean? Yes.Welcome to cognitive behavioural psychology.

Dude, is this a question? If so, I can't honestly say I know what you are trying to say. We have covered this already.Through your socialization vis a vis the use of murder as an effective behaviour (for attaining your personal goals) you will feel a negative emotion (which you can predict) if you commit such an act.Just as you would not put your hand into a fire because of the future consequence to your physical and emotional well being you would not commit murder because of the future consequence to your physical and emotional well being.You have learnt that murder is bad for you and react accordingly.

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.

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. 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. 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?

Bingo! You conceed that a child has to learn right from wrong.

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.

The 'surviaval chance' mechansim is pretty cold and clinical but you can look at it like the 'bare bones' of behaviour.Our massive brains with it bias towards cognition allows us to develope these bare bones into psychological reasons for doing good that 'feel' more acceptable to us.Either way you cut it, it points to a non-divine driver for morality.What exactly is it that make either of these explanations unfulfilling for you?

*cough* survival instinct *cough* Mate, either way (and at risk of sounding like a broken record) you believe what you believe because of your learning that has taken place throughout your life.Again: socialization.If you were bought up to has no respect for life (for example) your predisposition towards empathy would be so stunted and you would have been so concistantly rewarded for behaviour that to our eyes is abhorent that you would concidered murder part of the natural order of things. This is simply you wanting to protect your self....hmmm where might that drive come from? It's interesting to note that this sense of another's status does not develope untill we develope 'Theory of Mind' at about 4-5 years old. Bofore that time the brain does not have the capacity to see the world through someone elses eyes. So you keep saying, but remember that the psychological drives we have include the survival drive, but are not limited to it. As I said the survival drive is the bare bones....note how you have reworded my statement from: to: What you have done is simplified a tiered construct of morality. You ignore the interplay of evolved wiring and evolved psychology.The 'evolved psychology' is the intellectual bit you imply I ignore. You empathic weighting stems from (as I said) evolution's hitorical path for humansI don't ignore it at all. Because the action of rape would go against your perception of right and wrong that you have learnt. This is self sacrifice that is very important to a society.But again, you get all hung up on survival and miss the importance of what you have learnt!My whole point is that you learn these notions of right and wrong! Again. To reiterate. Survival drive (of individual + society) + learnt responses to stimulus (see classical or operant conditioning) = expressed reaction (psychologically, behviourally and physically).Take out survival drive and you have not reason for the organism to do anything, we (humans) would not have evolved from emotional existance to a cognitive existance were it not for this drive.

Sorry, mate. My pedantry chip was in overdrive. Message recieved and understood. Can't argue with that if you mean 'you' are at a point in life where you no longer need hard wired drives to act as behaviour drivers.I think we have reached an accord.

Substantiate this, please. Would it suprise you to learn that more rapes are carried through to completion when the victim displays submisive reactions that goad the rapist on? This indicates that the brain function is normal and the rapist makes a choice to inflict their self on another?It's in no way as cut and dried as you indicate.