Yes or No: are humans naturally moral?

ScanIAm wrote:


Because you are helping to preserve the gene pool by doing so.  Dr. Herbie touched on this much more eloquently than I can, but there isn't a single moral action that doesn't benefit the person taking the action.

You help the homeless because you know that they are human and you are related to them.  You jump on the grenade because you are 'helping your team' on that side of the war.  You probably feel much closer in relation to the people on your team so, again, you gain from the sacrifice.

Do you help feed poor starving ants?  Would you jump on a grenade to save a flock of geese?  If you did, then you would truly get no benefit and you could argue that you did it for no gain.

But you're basing your argument on the assumption that I care about preserving the gene pool.  I don't.  Why should any helping of the team supercede helping myself?  What good does a healthy gene pool do me if I am suffering or dead?

To say that I personally gain anything of value (I'm dead, remember) by taking the grenade is a bit of a stretch.  Maybe the example is not a wartime example.  Maybe I push someone off the road, but get slammed by the oncoming train.  Why take that risk?  Why not cut your losses and ensure that only 1 person dies instead of potentially 2?

AndyC wrote:



Larsenal wrote: So you truly think there's no intrinsic difference between the two?  You really believe we'd have to gather the herd together to decide who was acting fairly?  I think your opinion would be more clear with the first few strokes of the blade.

Absolutely.

I'm sure it it were my leg in question I'd have a pretty strong view about it. But if I were sawing your leg, I might well have an equally strong, but entirely different, view on it.

I'd like to go on record to say that you should not saw someone's legs off just for fun.  It would be wrong to do so--regardless of cultural norms.

You may have the view that you should saw, but I would say that your view is NOT just as valid one who knows he should refrain.

Is my view (don't saw) right or wrong?

Larsenal wrote:


...

Is my view (don't saw) right or wrong?

I agree with your view, but this is not absolute.

As mentioned above.

To add to the discussion:

There are three qustions to the discussion:

1) Do humans naturally create/abide by morals?
2) How do humans "learn" morals/etc?
3) Are there are universal morals?

My personal definition relies on using society as a moral "base." i.e. everything is related to society; the entire purpose of morality is to help society survive.

Consider society as an organism, and humans within society as cells in that organism (like people have cells - after all there's the rule that "all cells are composed of other cells"). The only purpose of morality is to ensure that the society as a whole survives.

Thus, there are univeral morals across societies. Murder will always be immoral because widespread murder damages the integrity of the society. So will lying, cheating, stealing, and so on.

There will also be abstract morals that change with the times. How many wives is it moral for someone to have? - or somesuch.

Now, I think (as stated earlier) that people have an instinctive tendency towards morals; people will inherently "soak up" and/or invent morals.

The argument that individuals must have an incentive towards all morals is weak, because it's clear most people don't know that actions in line with morality will benefit them greater than actions against morality. In fact, that's just outright false - immoral actions can be better for the individual, even if they're worse for society.

It's also fairly irrelevent to argue that there's some moral compulsion or incentive making people moral because that doesn't stand up.

People lie, cheat, steal, and so on all the time. Even though it's clearly against their morality.

It's also clear that, if morality is a tool society employs to ensure its survival, that society will enforce morality.

There are only so many ways society can go this: execution, banishment, shunning, imprisonment, a fine, etc. In most of the US, the only options are a fine or imprisonment; execution has been banned by most, shunning still occurs at the local level (neighborhoods and church groups), and banishment is frowned upon by our neighbors.

The severity of the punishment will correlate, approximately, to the severity of the offence. Thus, most people aren't punished (much) for lying, except in special circumstances; but murder is heavily punished, as is rape and so on.

You can probably write a function expressing someone's liklihood of making a moral choice as the probability and severity of society punishing you, the gain by breaking the law, and the history of following moral codes.

So, my answers to the three questions:

1) Do humans naturally create/abide by morals? Yes.
2) How do humans "learn" morals/etc? Yes.
3) Are there are universal morals? Sort of (won't apply to an alien species. Consider slavery in this light).

Larsenal wrote:


To say that I personally gain anything of value (I'm dead, remember) by taking the grenade is a bit of a stretch.  Maybe the example is not a wartime example. 

You don't. That's what makes it an act of heroism. You have put aside your natural selfish instinct for self-preservation and performed a truly selfless act.

If the default, natural behaviour is to do good then you can't have heroes, you can only have villains. All good deeds are merely the by-product of default behaviour, the set of pre-programmed morals we are born with.

Larsenal wrote:


Is my view (don't saw) right or wrong?

Neither, it's just an opinion. Opinions are not truths. I may share your opinion in this matter but that doesn't mean it's any more right than if we agree that blue is a nice colour for a car.

AndyC wrote:



Larsenal wrote:  Is my view (don't saw) right or wrong?

Neither, it's just an opinion. Opinions are not truths. I may share your opinion in this matter but that doesn't mean it's any more right than if we agree that blue is a nice colour for a car.

Hold on now, Andy.

I agree that I was expressing an opinion, but are you proposing that opinions can never be aligned with truth?  Or are you saying that truth is simply unknowable?

blowdart wrote:



Larsenal wrote:  I agree that I was expressing an opinion, but are you proposing that opinions can never be aligned with truth?  Or are you saying that truth is simply unknowable?

Only some truths are absolute; I already brought this up because I'm feeling evil.

Even then those truths are absolute by definitions; 1+1=2 in base 10 is true because we defined the mathematical rules to make it so.

"That car is green" may be true for you; but not true for someone with colour blindness.

Even truth can be relative

Someone may not believe it's green, but that doesn't make it true.

Are you also implying that the note of G flat doesn't exist for the deaf?

These things still in fact do exist. perception is not exclusive to existence.

Does air exist?  I don't see it....

Larsenal wrote:


I agree that I was expressing an opinion, but are you proposing that opinions can never be aligned with truth?  Or are you saying that truth is simply unknowable?

Truth is a very different concept from Right and Wrong, it makes no distinction about the relative morality - it simply is, in the same way that 1 + 1 = 2 is true, yet carries no moral weight.

The Truth in that situation is that you were sawing my leg off. That still doesn't determine whether or not you are right to do so.

blowdart wrote:

Even truth can be relative

So, uh, this line is relative too, eh?

Romans 14:11-13

NIV wrote:

11 It is written:
   " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
   'every knee will bow before me;
      every tongue will confess to God.' "
12 So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

blowdart wrote:



billh wrote:  blowdart wrote: Even truth can be relative So, uh, this line is relative too, eh? Romans 14:11-13

Oh I was getting to religion don't worry

I would concede that *you* believe it's true.

But it is the truth. Just as there is an abundance of philosophies in the world, the existence of multiple religions in the world does not constitute that they all have an equal share of the truth. There have been numerous prophets for varying religions throughout history, however, only one person has actually claimed to be the Son of God and has the evidence to back it up.

I keep seeing Larsenal bring up the "what if I don't care about the gene pool".

There is an implied assumption, I think, within this statement. The implication is that "caring about the gene pool" is voliltional and that is an assumption that belies the definition of instinct.

No one "cares about the gene pool" consciously in order to enforce the instinct. I would say no one can NOT "care about the gene pool". That is not to say we can't act to harm the gene pool, we can, but this act is one of volition, not the default (instinct pro-gene pool).

I want to point this out as my take. I would reject Larsenal's tenet due to my take because he purports "caring about the gene pool" is an option, an act of will. It is not, I say, it is an instinct we can only disregard through an act of will.


To say anything is an absolute involves faith. Period. No exceptions.

To say any idea is objective is false. There is no objectivity, I say, which translates to what B says when stating "morality is relative, truth is relative", etc...

I agree there is no objectivity, but I also will assert there is a universality within our subjective experience in life that rings true with words that mean "we are born with knowledge of right and wrong" - (which I think has also been quoted from the Bible already).

Larsenal paints a scenario that compels the righteous to defend another through witness of abuse.

This is not the way to coerce convention on morality -- as a necessity of rule of law. The existence of a "legal" system of morality where we simply must be non-evil or else be prosecuted is a completely different question than whether we are born as moral agents with default moral behavior instincts. Please stop sawing off legs.

JohnAskew wrote:


...

This is not the way to coerce convention on morality -- as a necessity of rule of law. The existence of a "legal" system of morality where we simply must be non-evil or else be prosecuted is a completely different question than whether we are born as moral agents with default moral behavior instincts. Please stop sawing off legs.

Sorry about all the bloodshed.  That was a bit off topic as some were essentially denying that morals had any substance at all.

To return to your original question.... Yes, we are born as moral agents. However, this is not to say that we do the right thing by default and that any bad behavior requires a violation of our nature.  Rather, our nature inclines us to look out for our own interests rather than the interests of others.  I think at least you and I would agree that someone who regards himself above all others is likely to act badly.

So to restate my initial assertion, we know what we ought to do, yet we don't naturally do it.  (edit) That's not to say that we are born without empathy for our fellow man.  However, we're not born completely benevolent creatures.  Often, to do what you know you should requires that you deny your selfish desires.  Haven't you experienced this?