Morality

[pgrmdave]

What is the purpose for morality? Most people understand that there are right things and wrong things, good and bad, but without an intelligent design, or desire, what is good and evil? It is somewhat simple to define good and evil for theists - it is god's will or not god's will, but how do atheists define it?

[sanctus]

Morality has no need of any religion, morality is simply defined as what in average the whole society you are in judges as good or bad. Pedophily was morally (and generally as well) by the ancient greeks. Therefore morality is realated to a rteligion only if the given society is (or better claims to be) religious.

 

There is no definition of what is good or bad, there are no absolutes it is always subjectifve

[pgrmdave]

Is it subjective to society, or the individual? At what level can we not condemn another's actions?

[sanctus]

to the individual.

Yes, we can anyway condemn another's action, simply because we think it's bad in our way of seeing the world, i.e. in our subjective way to define good or bad.

[infamous]

Morality has no need of any religion, morality is simply defined as what in average the whole society you are in judges as good or bad. Pedophily was morally (and generally as well) by the ancient greeks. Therefore morality is realated to a rteligion only if the given society is (or better claims to be) religious.

 

There is no definition of what is good or bad, there are no absolutes it is always subjectifve

If you will examine human history, I think you will discover that our propensity for killing each other has not lessened to any degree. In fact, because of modern technology, the killing ratio has increased exponentially. Would you define this as good, or bad. What standards would you apply?

[Aquagem]

What is the purpose for morality? Most people understand that there are right things and wrong things, good and bad, but without an intelligent design, or desire, what is good and evil? It is somewhat simple to define good and evil for theists - it is god's will or not god's will, but how do atheists define it?

This is one of the long-standing arguments of religions against evolution. Morality can't have any source but something outside ourselves, can it? I mean, if we didn't have God, we'd just be killing each other all the time and thinking about sex, wouldn't we? (Wait a minute -- that sounds a LOT like America today...)

 

From an evolutionary standpoint, though, morality is as important a survival strategy as any other artifact of biological or cultural evolution. In the competition for resources, which are always limited, always necessary, and always require the expenditure of energy and time to acquire, a culture (primate, ungulate, canine...) can conserve a great deal of energy through cooperation, the suppression of aggression, and sharing. We have significant brain tissue for functioning in a social manner (facial expressions, outward signs like blood flow to the head when we're embarrassed, erectile tissue here and there, and so on).

 

We have an innate sense of self-preservation, but we have just as innate a sense of social preservation. Many studies have elicidated in detail how a flock of birds increase the odds of ALL of them surviving when attacked by a falcon, because their scattering motion confuses the acquisition circuits of the predator. Survival by group behavior often trumps that of individuals, as the large number of gregarious species shows (through study of energy and material flows through a herd, for example). This doesn't just happen -- animals have evolved strong systems of neural tissue that can even result in self-sacrifice (altruism), a direct conflict with the desire to stay alive.

 

In short, morality is a survival adaptation of the highest order, able under some circumstances to cause the individual to choose a transcendent behavior and expend his or her own life in the name of the group. This may well be the biological/cultural basis of what we call "love". Those things we associate with the ideas of good and bad begin with things we recognized instinctively and through experience as helping or hurting us. Food good; friendship good; mate good -- war bad; disease bad; stealing bad. Obviously, this simple spectrum splits into millions of shades of every hue in human culture, and morality, above the imperative to survival, changes as times change, as environments require different things for survival, and as technology and understanding advance (or contract). If morality is an adaptation strategy, we would hardly expect it to be absolute -- that's a purely human fantasy.

 

Our social behaviors are not unlike the rules of conduct we observe in the primate world, including minimizing violence, fostering rituals like grooming, play, and mating. Our morality, which essentially means how we treat one another according to social rules, is as far removed from other primates as, say, singing an aria is from a grunting vocalization of recognition by chimps. But it's not fundamentally different, and, I would hazard the assertion, that moral activities across a wide spectrum of mammals probably involve the same brain circuits required for emotional responses (limbic system) and rewards.

 

Whether a believer or an atheist, from either standpoint, from a scientific perspective, morality has made a great deal of our "success" (however defined) in the world a possibility, with no need for a god to dictate it from outside. The fact that we so quickly assume this had to be granted from without is another of our "cherished illusions" from ancient times, when we thought the Mediterranean was the whole world, and the stars were pinpricks of light in big metal bowl.

 

Please note -- I'm not saying there is not outside influence. That would be unscientific. But if the discussion is to evolve, we need to understand better what we're talking about, and that means incorporating our new knowledge from science into an "empirically responsible" philosophy (from Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh (2003)).

[lindagarrette]

On what basis do you claim exponential increase of killing and what is your point?

[lindagarrette]

On what basis do you claim exponential increase of killing and what is your point?

This was intended as a response to iInfamous. Aquagem slipped in ahead of me with a very good analysis, as usual. Thanks..

[geko]

If you will examine human history... our propensity for killing each other has not lessened to any degree. In fact... the killing ratio has increased...

 

Are you sure that you havent got the ratio's back to front? Im pretty sure (or rather im under the impression), that it's agreed that there is less murder per individual 'these days' than there was in eg. tribal/hunter gatherer times. The reason i say this is that the 'noble savage' idea is regarded as a myth im sure. There never was a noble savage, it was just savage.

[pgrmdave]

Does anybody have any evidence one way or the other?

[john_jrambo2000]

If morality is genetic, neurological or evolutionary, why is it learned? There is no innate sense of morality. People who are not taught not to steal don't know that it is "wrong".

[pgrmdave]

People who are not taught not to steal don't know that it is "wrong".

Are you certain of this? Does anybody know of any studies conducted in this regard?

[john_jrambo2000]

Do I need a source to state that behaviour is learned? Where do you think individual behaviour comes from?

[Aquagem]

If morality is genetic, neurological or evolutionary, why is it learned? There is no innate sense of morality. People who are not taught not to steal don't know that it is "wrong".

There may not be an innate sense of morality, as we conceive of morality now, but there is an innate sense of curiosity and a rather broad range of proclivities that we are born with, such as survival. I would use language as an example. We are not born with language, but we have an insatiable curiosity about learning it. Morality, that is, social conduct, is also hardwired in as a leaning, and has to be learned.

 

If you think about it, having a general tendency (selected for genetically) toward something that can be programmed based on constantly changing conditions would be a splendid survival strategy that would allow a species to survive by adaptation of CULTURE much faster than by genetic changes. This seems to be the strength that has allowed us to colonize every biome on Earth (though we have a way to go to colonize the sea and Mars -- but we're working on both!)

 

Also, "stealing", which is widely distributed throughout nature isn't wrong, if all you're thinking about is your own survival, which is automagically defined as "right" for you. Making it morally wrong seems to be mostly human, and no doubt has an adaptive value for human culture that has to be learned. I've read that in American Indian cultures, horse stealing was an accepted, but high-stakes social game, full of adulation if successful and really bad news if you got caught. Relative to the context of the culture.

[john_jrambo2000]

I see. So society determines what is good and evil? How do we determine what society has determined?

[infamous]

If morality is genetic, neurological or evolutionary, why is it learned? There is no innate sense of morality. People who are not taught not to steal don't know that it is "wrong".

Exactly; thats why we all need to take responsibility for the prevailing moral code. If we don't partisapate in forming it's construct, then we can't complain if it dosen't conform to our ideals. We decide whats right and wrong, make no mistake, we can't blame it on someone else.

[john_jrambo2000]

What's wrong with complaining if it doesn't conform to our ideals just because we didn't participate? What if we participate but it still doesn't conform to our ideals?