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

[Bear Wild]

So Divine Command morality, then.
???? --- I can't make heads or tails of this.
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?
Not quite following here, either.
Yes, this makes sense. Co-operation has a positive survival value, so natural selection would weed out dysfunctional individuals.
I think social species are hard-wired with certain attitudes and behaviors. Humans are wont to extend these into elaborate ethical systems.

1. Yes there are people who believe that a creator(god or goddess) commands set what should be a moral and that's where they come from. I do not agree but presented this possibility for those that may still believe this to be our source of morals.
2. non - natural morals - I have no clue - included them for completeness and gave a proponent of this view. Basically morals are not found in nature but in some world of intellectual realm that only with intuitive reasoning of the mind can they be reasoned. Sorry to be unable to give more details but I do not believe in this and have very strong reasons to object to anything out of the natural world. Maybe someone else has heard of this.
3. Natural morals - yes moral realism that morals are a fact of the universe to be discovered. Only through the critical cognitive reasoning can these be truly understood. I do not believe in this either but there is a long line of philosophers that have argued this including Kant.
4. Naturalized morals - this is using natural facts and experiences to determine moral behavior - more of a pragmatic view point. A rational response to experiences and social interaction. Here no moral truth but rather morals needed for social order.
5. Evolutionary morals - I is here where amazing advances are being made and this is where I believe morals for humans as well as animals developed - through natural selection. The collective field studies mixed with experimental studies are beginning to shed light on our own moral behavior.

The research in rats, mice and voles have become the possible models for moral behavior in understanding moral behavior. The role of oxytocin in empathetic behavior, the neural networks through the same regions of the brain that mice and men share. The role of empathy in the development of moral behavior and pro social behavior. These are just the beginning of what we are learning and have learned. Empathy in animals is now clearly demonstrated with neuroscience to support.
What I find most interesting is that some point to the mother child behavior as the initial source for moral behavior that developed in complexity as animals formed more and more complex social behavior. Thus natural selection selected for behaviors that support the social cohesiveness that gave those animals the advantage.

 

[Bear Wild]

I think morals come from consciousness. Because in animals, as consciousness decreases, the morals decrease equally so.

...For instance trees have ansolutely no morals. Neither do they posess any kind of consciousness.

So in what organisms do morals show up. By the way trees of the same species and occasionally different species support each other via a complex fungal network redistributing nutrients to other trees in need. Trees also warn other trees of imminent danger of attack. Not say this is moral behavior but we now know trees are far more complex than we imagined only not to long ago.

 

[Bear Wild]

This isn't a scientific issue, rather, a sociological one. Sociology/Philosophy deals with this.


“How could we ever say, as a matter of scientific fact, that one way of life is better, or more moral, than another? Whose definition of “better” or “moral” would we use? While many scientists now study the evolution of morality, as well as its underlying neurobiology, the purpose of their research is merely to describe how human beings think and behave. No one expects science to tell us how we ought to think and behave.”

Can Science Determine Our Morals?

Science clearly does not determine moral behavior. Natural selection did that for us. Science is just learning how this process developed and the neuroscience behind it. We think and behave because those features of our behavior were selected for as an advantage in a complex social environment. Science does not tell us how to behave.

 

[Bear Wild]

Morals are as innate as the molars in your mouth.

You see that? Moral and molar are anagrams. Anagramming goes back to the days of Moses. It's a means to reveal a deeper meaning of a word.

There are two parts of the human form that represent truth: the squares; teeth and nails.

If i have missing molars, my morals are corrupted.

If i paint my nails black, I'm deadly and hateful. If i paint them clear, I understand something (I'm clear on an issue).

Semiotics. Sign language.

Morals are innate but are developed and fortified through parental guidance. However, we are all born into sin and the wages of sin is death. That means nearly all of us have some degree of corrupt morals.

Actually there is evidence that if your emotions are blunted (via injury to the brain or medications) that your moral behavior can be altered. This was shown in experiments of mice which demonstrated a change in the normal behavior pattern when given benzodiazepines. They stopped caring about the welfare of their fellow mice that they usually would be concerned with.

 

[Bear Wild]

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.

The mirror neurons as demonstrated in the macaques which is important in imitating and mimicking is a an aspect but the accumulating information on empathy as a prosocial behavior is much more complex involving neural networks found in animals from mice to men. From what I have been reading it seems to stem from the parent offspring relationship then progressed as social behavior progressed.

 

[blü 2]

The mirror neurons as demonstrated in the macaques which is important in imitating and mimicking is a an aspect but the accumulating information on empathy as a prosocial behavior is much more complex involving neural networks found in animals from mice to men. From what I have been reading it seems to stem from the parent offspring relationship then progressed as social behavior progressed.

As a parent and grandparent I've been continually astonished at the sheer volume and variety of instinctive behaviors that human infants hit the ground with.
I wouldn't doubt that the same is true of all species. It raises again the question of just how preconditioned our take on reality is.

You may recall from various SF stories the idea that we won't know who and what we really are till we encounter intelligent life with a different origin and evolution.

 

[HolyHolyHolyEvil]

Actually there is evidence that if your emotions are blunted (via injury to the brain or medications) that your moral behavior can be altered. This was shown in experiments of mice which demonstrated a change in the normal behavior pattern when given benzodiazepines. They stopped caring about the welfare of their fellow mice that they usually would be concerned with.

Poverty can also corrupt morals. Which is why poverty is called a known evil.

Morals are innate but that doesn't mean they can't be destroyed through various means. It's no different from breaking a bone.

 

[joe1776]

I don't doubt it. Have you read, or seen a review, of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature?

I didn't read the book but I'm familiar with Pinker's position on the decline of violence. In fact, I've quoted him as a source in one of my threads on RF.

 

[joe1776]

The mirror neurons as demonstrated in the macaques which is important in imitating and mimicking is a an aspect but the accumulating information on empathy as a prosocial behavior is much more complex involving neural networks found in animals from mice to men. From what I have been reading it seems to stem from the parent offspring relationship then progressed as social behavior progressed.

I think you are over-complicating the topic. I suggest you simplify by beginning with the axiom that "All knowledge begins with the senses."

Since scientists can't see, hear, smell or taste the difference between moral right and wrong, then they, like the rest of us, must feel it. Those feelings that we commonly refer to as conscience emerge from the unconscious mind as intuition to act as an internal moral guide immediately upon encountering a moral situation.

Example: A soldier, killing enemy combatants in a just cause is ordered to kill a group of civilians. The ordered act will immediately feel wrong to him. Should he obey the order, he will be nagged with guilt by his conscience for the rest of his life whenever he remembers his immoral act.

Over the last 20 years or so, social scientists have finally figured that part out but they're still confused by the part that reason plays in judging moral situations.

"In contrast to older, conventional accounts that treat ethical decision making and behavior as the result of deliberative and intendedly rational processes, a rapidly growing body of social science research has framed ethical thought and behavior as driven by intuition."

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How did we get our moral beliefs?

By an understanding of how the world works and by necessity as a result of being a social species dependend on cooperation.

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

Undemonstrable tales indistinguishable from fantasy, are never valid options as explanations for origins of anything.

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.

Seems false right out the gates, since we humans are natural. So are all other social species who have a sense of morality to one extend or another.

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 like to break morality down to something like "general/generic rules of conduct" that are "preferable" in any given society.

What these rules consist off, is completely subjective in the sense that they are more often then not, just a means to an end. That end being the answer to the question "in what kind of society would you want to live?"

If a society where minorities can thrive and don't have to worry about discrimination for example, is desirable, then racism will be considered immoral.

In such a context, racism would be objectively immoral. You start with a subjective goal (a society where minorities don't have to worry about discrimination). From there you can reason objectively if a certain act takes you closer to that end goal or further away. Closer would be moral. Further away would be immoral.

So that's where I think morals come from... From the "utopian" ideal we have in mind of how society should look, how it should work. And the moral reasoning that follows will be using that ideal as a guiding principle. We'll combine that with knowledge we have about the world and those together will conclude in moral evaluation and development.


So, imo it's a combination of:
- natural necessity (social species necessarily require SOME minimum of rules of conduct to make it work)
- relatively arbitrary end goals to shoot for. these goals change over time as we gain more experience in "society building"
- knowledge about the world around us (black people are homo sapiens just like the rest of us and not inferior, or better for that matter)


Stuff like that.


The main message here is that morals are derived and developed. They are the result of a reasoning process.

They are NOT laid down by an authority. Needing to appeal to an authority who tells you what is right and wrong, is literally what psychopathy is.
-

 

[HonestJoe]

(This is why, since time immemorial, even the most primitive cultures, regardless of their spiritual values, enforced laws and regulations against homicide and various other acts of evil.)

That simply isn’t true. Historic societies (and contemporary ones for that matter) have often accepted, even promoted, many of the things most of us today consider morally abhorrent, especially when targets against people outside their immediate social group – the tribe in the next valley, the heathens living outside the city walls or the different coloured people living on the next continent.

From where, then perhaps, did we obtain our **universal objective morals**?

You’ve not established any such thing exists yet.

(1) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties don't exist.
(2) If evil exists, objective moral values and duties exist.
(3) Evil exists.
(4) Therefore, objective moral values and duties do exist.
(5) Therefore, God exists.
(6) Therefore, God is the locus of all objective moral values and duties.

1) Unproven assertion, especially if you’re thinking of a specifically defined “God”.
2) Unproven assertion, unless you’re defining “evil” as an “objective moral value”, which makes the statement meaninglessly cyclic – “If an objective moral value exists, objective moral values exist”.
3) Unproven assertion by any definition of evil you might choose to use. Meaningless without that definition.
4) Again, that would essentially be “If an objective moral value exists, objective moral values exist”.
5) That isn’t even logically supported by your assumptions. If not(A)=>not(X) and B=>X, that doesn’t automatically mean B=>A.
6) That’s even further from your assumptions and isn’t supported by anything else you’ve said.

That's to say, as Dostoevsky once mused, "If there is no God, everything is permitted."

If there is a God, everything is permitted. Do you not believe God is capable of doing literally anything he wants?

 

[Maximilian]

That simply isn’t true. Historic societies (and contemporary ones for that matter) have often accepted, even promoted, many of the things most of us today consider morally abhorrent, especially when targets against people outside their immediate social group – the tribe in the next valley, the heathens living outside the city walls or the different coloured people living on the next continent.

You’ve not established any such thing exists yet.


1) Unproven assertion, especially if you’re thinking of a specifically defined “God”.
2) Unproven assertion, unless you’re defining “evil” as an “objective moral value”, which makes the statement meaninglessly cyclic – “If an objective moral value exists, objective moral values exist”.
3) Unproven assertion by any definition of evil you might choose to use. Meaningless without that definition.
4) Again, that would essentially be “If an objective moral value exists, objective moral values exist”.
5) That isn’t even logically supported by your assumptions. If not(A)=>not(X) and B=>X, that doesn’t automatically mean B=>A.
6) That’s even further from your assumptions and isn’t supported by anything else you’ve said.

If there is a God, everything is permitted. Do you not believe God is capable of doing literally anything he wants?

For the purposes of context I need to ask, if I may, do you have ASD?

 

[HonestJoe]

For the purposes of context I need to ask, if I may, do you have ASD?

As in Autism Spectrum Disorder? My instinct would be to say “None of your damn business!” but out of curiosity over what the relevance could possibly be, nothing diagnosed but my mind probably leans in that direction a little.

 

[Maximilian]

As in Autism Spectrum Disorder? My instinct would be to say “None of your damn business!” but out of curiosity over what the relevance could possibly be, nothing diagnosed but my mind probably leans in that direction a little.

And when you went in to have yourself evaluated? What did their tests show?

I ask because research shows that 'high functioning autism is an extreme cognitive processing style that predisposes towards Atheism and Agnosticism.'

 

[charlie sc]

And when you went in to have yourself evaluated? What did their tests show?

I ask because research shows that 'high functioning autism is an extreme cognitive processing style that predisposes towards Atheism and Agnosticism.'

You aren't a particularly good POE.
Urban Dictionary: Poe

You know, because I can tell you are one.

 

[Maximilian]

You aren't a particularly good POE.

You're not making any sense. How does this answer my simple query?

 

[HonestJoe]

And when you went in to have yourself evaluated? What did their tests show?

I've never been assessed or tested. I'm not convinced any of this is relevant anyway. I'm not talking about "atheism", I'm just questioning the pure logic you presented.

Now I've answered your tangential question, will you be responding to my initial post?

 

[Bear Wild]

By an understanding of how the world works and by necessity as a result of being a social species dependend on cooperation.



Undemonstrable tales indistinguishable from fantasy, are never valid options as explanations for origins of anything.



Seems false right out the gates, since we humans are natural. So are all other social species who have a sense of morality to one extend or another.



I like to break morality down to something like "general/generic rules of conduct" that are "preferable" in any given society.

What these rules consist off, is completely subjective in the sense that they are more often then not, just a means to an end. That end being the answer to the question "in what kind of society would you want to live?"

If a society where minorities can thrive and don't have to worry about discrimination for example, is desirable, then racism will be considered immoral.

In such a context, racism would be objectively immoral. You start with a subjective goal (a society where minorities don't have to worry about discrimination). From there you can reason objectively if a certain act takes you closer to that end goal or further away. Closer would be moral. Further away would be immoral.

So that's where I think morals come from... From the "utopian" ideal we have in mind of how society should look, how it should work. And the moral reasoning that follows will be using that ideal as a guiding principle. We'll combine that with knowledge we have about the world and those together will conclude in moral evaluation and development.


So, imo it's a combination of:
- natural necessity (social species necessarily require SOME minimum of rules of conduct to make it work)
- relatively arbitrary end goals to shoot for. these goals change over time as we gain more experience in "society building"
- knowledge about the world around us (black people are homo sapiens just like the rest of us and not inferior, or better for that matter)


Stuff like that.


The main message here is that morals are derived and developed. They are the result of a reasoning process.

They are NOT laid down by an authority. Needing to appeal to an authority who tells you what is right and wrong, is literally what psychopathy is.
-

I agree they are developed but our increasing knowledge of behavior and the neuroscience behind them points to natural selection as the primary cause of their development. In addition the studies argue that reasoning (cognition) evolving with intuition/emotional pathways each affecting the other. The concept that morals are a reasoning/cognitive process primarily is not correct and that both the emotional/Intuitive pathway interacting with the cognitive pathway create the behaviors which we consider moral behaviors. Both evolving together as a selective advantage. Thus there is no moral truth or moral knowledge that can be reasoned out. What we call moral behavior was developed because if its selective advantage for survival. It also shows that we are not different from other animals except in degree of complexity with the same pathways creating similar "moral" behavior especially in other social animals.

 

[Bear Wild]

I think you are over-complicating the topic. I suggest you simplify by beginning with the axiom that "All knowledge begins with the senses."

Since scientists can't see, hear, smell or taste the difference between moral right and wrong, then they, like the rest of us, must feel it. Those feelings that we commonly refer to as conscience emerge from the unconscious mind as intuition to act as an internal moral guide immediately upon encountering a moral situation.

Example: A soldier, killing enemy combatants in a just cause is ordered to kill a group of civilians. The ordered act will immediately feel wrong to him. Should he obey the order, he will be nagged with guilt by his conscience for the rest of his life whenever he remembers his immoral act.

Over the last 20 years or so, social scientists have finally figured that part out but they're still confused by the part that reason plays in judging moral situations.

"In contrast to older, conventional accounts that treat ethical decision making and behavior as the result of deliberative and intendedly rational processes, a rapidly growing body of social science research has framed ethical thought and behavior as driven by intuition."

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

The importance of intuition/emotional involvement has finally become recognized as an equally and more fundamental aspect of what we call moral behavior shaped by its evolutionary advantage and continuously interacts with our cognitive decision making of "moral" decisions. The studies of empathy in animals and the neurologic pathways of the anterior insular cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex show how reactions of pain and the feeling of disgust play a significant role in empathy in mammalian brains.
One pattern that can be described is a perceived distress followed by affective resonance then coordinated with pro-social drive leading to a helping behavior which we interpret as a moral behavior. This explains moral behavior in ways we can evaluate rather than conceived moral entities that are a part of the universe as universal truths or those bestowed on a single organism by some supernatural power.

 

[Bear Wild]

As a parent and grandparent I've been continually astonished at the sheer volume and variety of instinctive behaviors that human infants hit the ground with.
I wouldn't doubt that the same is true of all species. It raises again the question of just how preconditioned our take on reality is.

You may recall from various SF stories the idea that we won't know who and what we really are till we encounter intelligent life with a different origin and evolution.

The other scenario is when a non-human organism develops sufficient language skills to write theories as to how the human species could have gotten the incorrect assumption that they were more special than any other organism on the planet.