Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
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?
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?
