Can science finally explain where we get the morals we believe in?

[Subduction Zone]

What is culture?

I don't know, but my yogurt appears to have it in spades.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

What is culture?

The defining myths of a social unit

 

[blü 2]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Here are some different ways to believe where morals could come from.

1. Supernatural derived morals – moral knowledge based on the will or commandments of the Creator/god/goddess. Morals are defined by the creator

2. Non-natural - neither the natural nor the supernatural but coming from comprehension requiring something comparable to mathematical intuition. (Henry Sidgwick in his book The Methods of Ethics, 1907). I am not so familiar with this view.

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

4. Naturalized morals including rational choice, and pragmatic naturalism. These describe moral facts without absolute moral truth or knowledge and have been described by Nelson Goodman, W Quine, William James, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher

And finally

5. Evolutionary Morals – proposed as early as Darwin who suggested that human morality originated and persisted among our ancestors primarily as an adaptation fashioned by natural selection. This explanation of the origins and persistence of morals among humans undermine the likelihood that moral beliefs are true and hence undermine the possibility of moral knowledge. It is in this last category that advances in neuroscience, evolution, anthropology and psychology are unveiling how human behavior and culture evolved. Here science may not be creating moral beliefs but rather explaining how they came about and the role they serve.

[Interesting in the category of evolutionary moral development there is a division between those that believe the cognitive aspect of the brain in humans has created more complex morals and dominated over a more primitive intuitive/emotional morals (thus humans have an ability not seen in the natural world) and those that believe the cognitive and intuitive/emotions aspects of the brain with respect to morals have evolved together and are co-dependent (those that agree with Darwin that humans are different in degree and not kind).]

So where do you believe human morals come from?

The answer, from anthropological studies and from experiments with children, even pre-verbal infants, is that we get part of our morality from our evolution as gregarious primates, and part from our upbringing, culture, education and experience.

The evolved part is our tendencies towards ─

child nurture and protection
dislike of the one who harms
like of fairness and reciprocity
respect for authority
loyalty to the group
a feeling of self-worth/virtue through self-denial​

We've also evolved with mirror neurons, which allow us to see things through other people's eyes, and to have a conscience, which is making judgments with the feeling that we're applying rules of universal application (even though everyone's list of rules is likely to be different).

The acquired part includes table manners, customs about excreting, birth and marriage ceremonies and requirements, funeral practices, how to dress in particular instances and so on.

 

[Valjean]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Here are some different ways to believe where morals could come from.

1. Supernatural derived morals – moral knowledge based on the will or commandments of the Creator/god/goddess. Morals are defined by the creator.

So Divine Command morality, then.

2. Non-natural - neither the natural nor the supernatural but coming from comprehension requiring something comparable to mathematical intuition. (Henry Sidgwick in his book The Methods of Ethics, 1907). I am not so familiar with this view.

???? --- I can't make heads or tails of this.

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

This isn't clear, either. Are you talking about an ontological category, like moral realism, with actual moral facts embedded in the universe like magnetism or gravity?

4. Naturalized morals including rational choice, and pragmatic naturalism. These describe moral facts without absolute moral truth or knowledge and have been described by Nelson Goodman, W Quine, William James, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher

Not quite following here, either.

5. Evolutionary Morals – proposed as early as Darwin who suggested that human morality originated and persisted among our ancestors primarily as an adaptation fashioned by natural selection. This explanation of the origins and persistence of morals among humans undermine the likelihood that moral beliefs are true and hence undermine the possibility of moral knowledge. It is in this last category that advances in neuroscience, evolution, anthropology and psychology are unveiling how human behavior and culture evolved. Here science may not be creating moral beliefs but rather explaining how they came about and the role they serve.

Yes, this makes sense. Co-operation has a positive survival value, so natural selection would weed out dysfunctional individuals.

[Interesting in the category of evolutionary moral development there is a division between those that believe the cognitive aspect of the brain in humans has created more complex morals and dominated over a more primitive intuitive/emotional morals (thus humans have an ability not seen in the natural world) and those that believe the cognitive and intuitive/emotions aspects of the brain with respect to morals have evolved together and are co-dependent (those that agree with Darwin that humans are different in degree and not kind).]

I think social species are hard-wired with certain attitudes and behaviors. Humans are wont to extend these into elaborate ethical systems.

 

[Valjean]

What is a "culture"?

In a nutshell, a culture is an all-encompassing learned survival strategy.

 

[Valjean]

The defining myths of a social unit

This is part of it, but a culture's more extensive than just a defining mythology.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

No, but sociological anthropology probably could.

 

[HonestJoe]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Moral beliefs or moral behaviours? We all have ideas of what we feel we should do in any hypothetical situation or general context but what we actually choose to do isn’t always the same. Take the various classic hypotheticals involving a train you can switch on to one of two lines, leading to it hitting two differently defined groups of people or only having time to save one person/thing from a burning building. We can sit down and carefully assess all sorts of moral and practical implications of these scenarios but if we’re ever unlucky enough to face such decisions in real life, our instinctive responses in the heat of the moment might be quite different.

I feel morality is entirely cultural, the set of general rules and principles we all nominally agree to abide by to support the consistent and effective running of that society. In practical terms, they’re generally the basis of the laws we write and apply when those moral principles are broken. The very fact they are broken though (often very regularly by many people) suggests that there is more to the picture though.

Our instincts are a much stronger influence on what we actually do, especially when we don’t have long to think things through and are just reacting to events. Those instincts aren’t necessarily moral by conventional definitions and probably are largely evolutionary based, ultimately being about ensuring we and our progeny survive and thrive. How that relates to wider societies we’re part of will depend on how much we instinctively see others in those societies as “one of us” or “one of them”.

 

[exchemist]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Here are some different ways to believe where morals could come from.

1. Supernatural derived morals – moral knowledge based on the will or commandments of the Creator/god/goddess. Morals are defined by the creator

2. Non-natural - neither the natural nor the supernatural but coming from comprehension requiring something comparable to mathematical intuition. (Henry Sidgwick in his book The Methods of Ethics, 1907). I am not so familiar with this view.

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

4. Naturalized morals including rational choice, and pragmatic naturalism. These describe moral facts without absolute moral truth or knowledge and have been described by Nelson Goodman, W Quine, William James, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher

And finally

5. Evolutionary Morals – proposed as early as Darwin who suggested that human morality originated and persisted among our ancestors primarily as an adaptation fashioned by natural selection. This explanation of the origins and persistence of morals among humans undermine the likelihood that moral beliefs are true and hence undermine the possibility of moral knowledge. It is in this last category that advances in neuroscience, evolution, anthropology and psychology are unveiling how human behavior and culture evolved. Here science may not be creating moral beliefs but rather explaining how they came about and the role they serve.

[Interesting in the category of evolutionary moral development there is a division between those that believe the cognitive aspect of the brain in humans has created more complex morals and dominated over a more primitive intuitive/emotional morals (thus humans have an ability not seen in the natural world) and those that believe the cognitive and intuitive/emotions aspects of the brain with respect to morals have evolved together and are co-dependent (those that agree with Darwin that humans are different in degree and not kind).]

So where do you believe human morals come from?

I find the "finally" in the title a bit tendentious, implying that science has attempted a "final" account of the origins of morality. I'm not at all sure that it has.

It seems fairly obvious that quite a lot of basic moral principles can be important for cooperation and cohesion among a group of animals, and thus that the ability to behave in this way is something one would expect nature to select for. But I am quite sure that one could come up with a lot of detailed aspects of the morality of different societies that could not easily be explained in this way. Human animals have language and imagination and create complex cultures, which can throw off all sorts of side effects in terms of attitudes and behaviour.

 

[osgart]

Morals come from the capacity to understand relationships and to the degree that they affect you or not. Things you take offense to, things you find agreeable is a matter of how an individual is affected by understandings of actions, consequences, perceived benefits, or higher motives of compassion, and peace.

An automaton cannot be affected by anything, nor does it comprehend anything and thus has no moral compass.

For some people moral motives are purely selfish, for others there are selfless motives.

 

[charlie sc]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Here are some different ways to believe where morals could come from.

1. Supernatural derived morals – moral knowledge based on the will or commandments of the Creator/god/goddess. Morals are defined by the creator

2. Non-natural - neither the natural nor the supernatural but coming from comprehension requiring something comparable to mathematical intuition. (Henry Sidgwick in his book The Methods of Ethics, 1907). I am not so familiar with this view.

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

4. Naturalized morals including rational choice, and pragmatic naturalism. These describe moral facts without absolute moral truth or knowledge and have been described by Nelson Goodman, W Quine, William James, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher

And finally

5. Evolutionary Morals – proposed as early as Darwin who suggested that human morality originated and persisted among our ancestors primarily as an adaptation fashioned by natural selection. This explanation of the origins and persistence of morals among humans undermine the likelihood that moral beliefs are true and hence undermine the possibility of moral knowledge. It is in this last category that advances in neuroscience, evolution, anthropology and psychology are unveiling how human behavior and culture evolved. Here science may not be creating moral beliefs but rather explaining how they came about and the role they serve.

[Interesting in the category of evolutionary moral development there is a division between those that believe the cognitive aspect of the brain in humans has created more complex morals and dominated over a more primitive intuitive/emotional morals (thus humans have an ability not seen in the natural world) and those that believe the cognitive and intuitive/emotions aspects of the brain with respect to morals have evolved together and are co-dependent (those that agree with Darwin that humans are different in degree and not kind).]

So where do you believe human morals come from?

I'm going to go on a whim here and say empathy/mirror neurons. If history has shown us anything, we can be cruel and are still cruel to entities we don't consider like us. Humans, animals and all species alike. The less we empathise, the less or don't consider if something is wrong. Hence, morality seems to originate from our ability to empathise.

 

[sooda]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

Here are some different ways to believe where morals could come from.

1. Supernatural derived morals – moral knowledge based on the will or commandments of the Creator/god/goddess. Morals are defined by the creator

2. Non-natural - neither the natural nor the supernatural but coming from comprehension requiring something comparable to mathematical intuition. (Henry Sidgwick in his book The Methods of Ethics, 1907). I am not so familiar with this view.

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

4. Naturalized morals including rational choice, and pragmatic naturalism. These describe moral facts without absolute moral truth or knowledge and have been described by Nelson Goodman, W Quine, William James, John Dewey and Philip Kitcher

And finally

5. Evolutionary Morals – proposed as early as Darwin who suggested that human morality originated and persisted among our ancestors primarily as an adaptation fashioned by natural selection. This explanation of the origins and persistence of morals among humans undermine the likelihood that moral beliefs are true and hence undermine the possibility of moral knowledge. It is in this last category that advances in neuroscience, evolution, anthropology and psychology are unveiling how human behavior and culture evolved. Here science may not be creating moral beliefs but rather explaining how they came about and the role they serve.

[Interesting in the category of evolutionary moral development there is a division between those that believe the cognitive aspect of the brain in humans has created more complex morals and dominated over a more primitive intuitive/emotional morals (thus humans have an ability not seen in the natural world) and those that believe the cognitive and intuitive/emotions aspects of the brain with respect to morals have evolved together and are co-dependent (those that agree with Darwin that humans are different in degree and not kind).]

So where do you believe human morals come from?

The expectations of family and tribe.

 

[joe1776]

The answer, from anthropological studies and from experiments with children, even pre-verbal infants, is that we get part of our morality from our evolution as gregarious primates, and part from our upbringing, culture, education and experience.

The evolved part is our tendencies towards ─

child nurture and protection
dislike of the one who harms
like of fairness and reciprocity
respect for authority
loyalty to the group
a feeling of self-worth/virtue through self-denial​

We've also evolved with mirror neurons, which allow us to see things through other people's eyes, and to have a conscience, which is making judgments with the feeling that we're applying rules of universal application (even though everyone's list of rules is likely to be different).

The acquired part includes table manners, customs about excreting, birth and marriage ceremonies and requirements, funeral practices, how to dress in particular instances and so on.

Dislike of one who harms? We don't dislike one who harms in self-defense or one who harms accidentally. Why?

Like of fairness? The question is how do we discern fair from unfair?

Respect for authority? We don't respect someone who abuses authority. Why?

Loyalty to the group? Group pride is disguised arrogance. The man who is especially proud of being Irish and Catholic would be just as proud if, by some twist of fate, he had been raised to think of himself as German and Lutheran. His groups are wonderful because they're HIS groups.

 

[joe1776]

I'm going to go on a whim here and say empathy/mirror neurons. If history has shown us anything, we can be cruel and are still cruel to entities we don't consider like us. Humans, animals and all species alike. The less we empathise, the less or don't consider if something is wrong. Hence, morality seems to originate from our ability to empathise.

Your whim explains why conscience varies in strength. It doesn't explain how we know the difference between right and wrong, fair and unfair.

 

[charlie sc]

Your whim explains why conscience varies in strength. It doesn't explain how we know the difference between right and wrong, fair and unfair.

It does. We have evolved with pleasure and pain/suffering. Empathy generally reflects this when someone is empathetic. Therefore, if I empathise with someone feeling pain, I will dislike this feeling. Therefore, I know it's wrong. To further this, Buddhists will avoid hurting bugs, because they can empathise with themselves being bugs or others being bugs. They wouldn't want to squish another person or loved one, would they? In comparison, most of the western world does not empathise.

 

[Native]

3. Natural morals – there are moral facts are among the natural facts of the world or moral truths. Here Kant argues that moral knowledge cannot be based on experience of the natural world. If we have moral knowledge at all, we must know a general moral truth from which we can deduce specific conclusions. From what I have read there are those who feel moral properties are identical with certain natural properties specified by combinations of non-moral terms found in the natural and social sciences. And others that believe moral facts are natural facts but denies that they are specifiable using the language of the natural and social sciences.

I go very much with the "natural morals". In order to survive for a group of humans, we all have to support each other in all different ways which demands certain moral codex. The very same goes really for our environmentally use and concerns for the nature itself.
Even though native tribes have their sometimes strange tabu´s, their natural moral codex very much was given from the nature itself.

 

[joe1776]

It does. We have evolved with pleasure and pain/suffering. Empathy generally reflects this when someone is empathetic. Therefore, if I empathise with someone feeling pain, I will dislike this feeling. Therefore, I know it's wrong. To further this, Buddhists will avoid hurting bugs, because they can empathise with themselves being bugs or others being bugs. They wouldn't want to squish another person or loved one, would they?

Well, now you've added a little to your whim-explanation. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that your explanation doesn't cover much ground.

How do we know the difference between right and wrong, fair and unfair?

 

[charlie sc]

How do we know the difference between right and wrong, fair and unfair?

It's quite simple: if it doesn't feel pleasurable or is unpleasant. When you see someone intentionally hurt, one might empathise and know it's a bad thing that happened. It's an unpleasant feeling to see someone that is in pain, therefore, if the entity doing it had a choice then it's the wrong one. Vice versa for pleasure. This why the majority of convicts are psychopaths. Psychopathy is primarily diagnosed with a lack of empathy. They have difficulty telling what's right or wrong or don't care altogether unless it helps them.

It gets fairly convoluted when we think people deserve to be punished. This is human beings suspending their empathy to protect the group or distancing the deserved from themselves altogether. This is why slaves were differentiated from people. Slaves were generally thought of as property and some argued they had no soul. In other words, we can avoid being empathetic by thinking they mimic us but they are not us.

 

[Unguru]

if it doesn't feel pleasurable or is unpleasant.

Is that seriously what you put it all down to?

 

[charlie sc]

Is that seriously what you put it all down to?

Yes, this is, in my opinion, the origin of morality and something we can't escape from.