Human race: Naturally good or evil?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Again, morality is a cognitive function and a societal construct. What is moral to one society may not be moral to another. Morality is not an instinctive behavior, it is a learned behavior, one adopted only through socialization. Hence, when you remove the social aspect of the human condition and view us as a naked ape, we are not good or evil, we just are.

Now please tell me how I have an entirely poor and ill-informed view of the nature of man and how I don't understand both the ethical and biological aspects of the question. I've been dying to hear your explanation and waiting patiently.

Morality is almost certainly a cognitive function, but the definition is not nearly as simple or as reductionist as you claim.

While morality may be developed by social constructs, such as religion, political institutions, there are certainly biological roots to it. We are able to view stripped down versions of human in the wild, the great apes. There are elements of morality practiced by chimpanzees and bonobos, both of the reciprocal kind and of pure altruism.

Social morals may differ by distinction between societies, but there is clear indication that we share many of the same basic principles with humans all across the world.

http://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/h...humunivers.htm

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by peter12

Morality is almost certainly a cognitive function, but the definition is not nearly as simple or as reductionist as you claim.

Yeah, it kind of is that simple. Morality is what we define ourselves. It varies from individual to individual and is an incredibly flexible idea. Morality may be modified, may be dramatically changed, or may be completely obliterated under the right conditions. We make up our own morality, so it is most definitely a cognitive function. And that has nothing to do with any bull epistomolgical perspective, it has everything to do with real world application.

While morality may be developed by social constructs, such as religion, political institutions, there are certainly biological roots to it. We are able to view stripped down versions of human in the wild, the great apes. There are elements of morality practiced by chimpanzees and bonobos, both of the reciprocal kind and of pure altruism.

I was waiting for you to walk into the trap of Goodall. The problem with the studies of Goodall and her ilk is that she is projecting "her" cultural trappings onto the subjects she is observing. She sees a society and immediately places her personal moral perspective on it. Anything beyond that can and has been explained by instinctive behaviors. As pointed out earlier, instinctive behaviors are neither good nor evil, they just are. It is our interpretation of actions that defines if something is good or evil, hence it also being a cognitive construct and open to subjective positions. Without the ability to project our cultural expectations onto an action, that action can not be judged to be good or evil, because good and evil do not exist outside of our own minds.

Social morals may differ by distinction between societies, but there is clear indication that we share many of the same basic principles with humans all across the world.

http://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/h...humunivers.htm

And you said things weren't as reductionist as I suggested for morality, yet post that beauty? That's a reduction on the most grand scale. That would be like saying humans and cockroaches are the same (and for some humans that is a fair assessment) because I can list 1,000,000 things that we share in common. The sum of the parts does not make a belief system nor a moral standard. And if it did, we're still back to the fact that there must be a level of cognition involved for any judgement to be made.

[troutman]

From my post # 55 - is altruism different than morality? I think that it is.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4766490.stm

Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful, German researchers have discovered.

In experiments reported in the journal Science, toddlers helped strangers complete tasks such as stacking books.

Young chimps did the same, providing the first direct evidence of altruism in non-human primates. Altruism may have evolved six million years ago in the common ancestor of chimps and humans, the study suggests.

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Could an instinctive behavior be misconstrued as alturism, or even a projection of the observer's frame of reference onto the subjects being studied?

[FireFly]

There is no good without evil and no evil without good. We cannot be inherantly one without the other.

[RougeUnderoos]

In related news, Moses was high as a kite when God told him about the 10 Commandments...

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

[Azure]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

In related news, Moses was high as a kite when God told him about the 10 Commandments...

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Don't know hot it is related...

But, if you actually read what was in the Bible, I'd say it has to be a supernatural 'miracle'....for God to talk to Moses, etc, etc.

Of course if you don't 'believe' that....it MUST have been drugs.