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

[joe1776]

Well, since no human being is superior to another no absolute human moral authority can exist and so neither can objective moral values and duties.

Moral judgments are made case-by-case. When all the relevant facts in a specific moral situation are known, the majority opinion of the consciences of a group of people, unbiased on the case, is the standard for judgment recognized world-wide.

That's an objective judgment based on conscience (moral intuition emerging from the unconscious mind), the only moral authority we humans have.

 

[Maximilian]

Therefore, you are using autism in a derogatory way.

That's you, not me.

 

[Maximilian]

That's an objective judgment based on conscience (moral intuition emerging from the unconscious mind), the only moral authority we humans have.

But what happens when that innate moral sense gets mangled beyond all recognition?

 

[joe1776]

But what happens when that innate moral sense gets mangled beyond all recognition?

Please be more specific. How would it happen? Give me an example.

 

[Maximilian]

Please be more specific. How would it happen? Give me an example.

Take child soldiers. They are extremely coldblooded and ruthless. “More than 300,000 children—some as young as 7—are fighting as soldiers in 41 countries around the world,” said an Associated Press dispatch. Most are between the ages of 15 and 18.“

Besides being used as front-line fighters, children are used to detect land mines and also as spies, porters, and sex slaves, according to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Drugs are often administered to make children fearless. Those who refuse drugs are killed said a 14-year-old rebel soldier in Sierra Leone.

Regarding his fighting in 1999 when he was 15, a North African youth reported:

“They put all the 15- and 16-year-olds in the front line while the army retreated. I was with 40 other kids. I was fighting for 24 hours. When I saw that only three of my friends were alive, I ran back.” ​

The Coalition’s report stated that governments recruit children because of “their very qualities as children—they can be cheap, expendable and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience.”

Without a doubt, their innate moral sense is mangled beyond all recognition. What will help these calibrate their conscience so it goes back to functioning properly?

 

[charlie sc]

That's you, not me.

Then why do you keep asking people if they have autism?

 

[joe1776]

Take child soldiers. They are extremely coldblooded and ruthless. “More than 300,000 children—some as young as 7—are fighting as soldiers in 41 countries around the world,” said an Associated Press dispatch. Most are between the ages of 15 and 18.“

Besides being used as front-line fighters, children are used to detect land mines and also as spies, porters, and sex slaves, according to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Drugs are often administered to make children fearless. Those who refuse drugs are killed said a 14-year-old rebel soldier in Sierra Leone.

Regarding his fighting in 1999 when he was 15, a North African youth reported:

“They put all the 15- and 16-year-olds in the front line while the army retreated. I was with 40 other kids. I was fighting for 24 hours. When I saw that only three of my friends were alive, I ran back.” ​

The Coalition’s report stated that governments recruit children because of “their very qualities as children—they can be cheap, expendable and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience.”

Without a doubt, their innate moral sense is mangled beyond all recognition. What will help these calibrate their conscience so it goes back to functioning properly?

Conscience is a moral GUIDE only. It does not influence the exercise of freewill at all. We are free to behave as we choose. So, if the behavior of children can be easily coerced and manipulated, that is not evidence that their conscience has been coerced and manipulated.

In fact, I don't think it just to judge these children as wrongdoers. It seems to me that they have been made tools of the actual wrongdoers.

 

[charlie sc]

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

You did not give a why you are asking people in a forum if they have autism.

And given that all the atheists I've run across here have verified that they actually do have ASD . . .

I said no to you. Are you ignoring what I said?

 

[Maximilian]

Conscience is a moral GUIDE only.

And when your conscience actually stops you from doing something wrong?

 

[joe1776]

And when your conscience actually stops you from doing something wrong?

It doesn't ACTUALLY stop us. We can follow its guidance or not.

 

[Maximilian]

You did not give a why you are asking people in a forum if they have autism.

As anyone who knows individuals with ASD can confirm, there are actually specific patterns of reasoning as well as behavior which make its presence obvious.

 

[Maximilian]

It doesn't ACTUALLY stop us. We can follow its guidance or not.

How odd. So, for instance, you'd commit rape even if your conscience tells you not to?

 

[joe1776]

How odd. So, for instance, you'd commit rape even if your conscience tells you not to?

Now, you're just being argumentative. That's not a logical deduction from what I wrote.

You have anything else or are we done?

 

[Maximilian]

I said no to you. Are you ignoring what I said?

Where did you do so? I may have missed it. Can you link to where you told me your tests didn't show you had ASD?

 

[charlie sc]

Where did you do so? I may have missed it. Can you link to where you told me your tests didn't show you had ASD?

Again, you're an awful POE and not funny. The Reverend Bob puts you to shame.

 

[Maximilian]

That's not a logical deduction from what I wrote.

How so?

 

[Maximilian]

Again, you're an awful POE and not funny. The Reverend Bob puts you to shame.

Now, you're just being argumentative.

You have anything else or are we done?

 

[siti]

By "learned survival strategies", anthropologists mean taught survival strategies, as opposed to inborn.
These include language, toolkit, dress, mythology, food acquisition, economy, politics, &c.
All organisms have what could be termed 'survival strategies', though these may be only simple algorithms.

Trees? They communicate, co-operate, care for their young and assist other trees in need. In a true forest they're all connected through the mycorrhizal internet.

Chimps communicate, they co-operate, they have emotions like ours. They have complex social interactions. They have tribally learned survival strategies. They've been taught a rudimentary sign language. The do have some mirror neurons and learn by imitation, but they don't seem to actively teach.

OK - so if chimps and trees have 'culture' its not the kind of culture anthropologists talk about - I believe I did mention that it would not be the same as 'human culture' once or twice. I think we have to be careful here because anthropomorphization (Good Lord! is that really a word?) can work both ways - we can incorrectly assume that other species have 'anthropo' characteristics when they really do not or that they don't have something that is very similar when in fact they do.

So is 'human culture' a miracle? Has it emerged spontaneously out of 'no culture at all' after the point where our evolutionary tree branched off from the other primates? I am very suspicious of suggestions of that kind of radical emergence. Or is it rather just a more complex expression of an ability that stretches back much further - the propensity for forming groups with 'division of labour' and elements of 'self-sacrificing' strategies that promote the overall survival prospects of the group over the 'selfish individual'? Is human culture really more than that when it comes down to it? Because if it isn't, then it should be amenable to scientific study just as bacterial or other primate 'cultures' are - and perhaps we find the prospect of studying culture with genuine scientific rigour daunting and the subject wrapped in mystery only because it is incredibly complex in its expression, not because it is fundamentally 'other' than that of other species. After all, we are still only scratching the surface of how even bacterial colonies communicate, adapt and cooperate in order to survive...we have a very long way to go to understand how human culture evolves and works from a scientific perspective - and even longer before we have a genuine 'science of morality' - but that doesn't mean there can't be one.

 

[Bear Wild]

Can you cite those studies for me? For my curiosity.

This as an available article discussing oxytocin in prairie vole studies
Empathy in prairie voles: Is this the consolation prize? GE Demas, AM Jasnow - Learning & behavior, 2016

The study on rats was by Bartal.et all.
Bartal, I. B.-A., J. Decety, and P. Mason. 2011. Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science 334:1427–30.

 

[Bear Wild]

By "learned survival strategies", anthropologists mean taught survival strategies, as opposed to inborn.
These include language, toolkit, dress, mythology, food acquisition, economy, politics, &c.
All organisms have what could be termed 'survival strategies', though these may be only simple algorithms.

Trees? They communicate, co-operate, care for their young and assist other trees in need. In a true forest they're all connected through the mycorrhizal internet.

Chimps communicate, they co-operate, they have emotions like ours. They have complex social interactions. They have tribally learned survival strategies. They've been taught a rudimentary sign language. The do have some mirror neurons and learn by imitation, but they don't seem to actively teach.

I do not think you are entirely correct on this. Chimps do not have a formal language to teach as in a formal human system but they do carry and keep toolkits for collecting honey. They demonstrate behavior to their offspring which are not inborn behaviors. They have a complex political system. They transmit cultural behavior which has also been seen in many different primates. So when you say do they actively teach in a way they demonstrate skills but without a verbal language. Clearly not as effective as humans but still effective enough to transmit learned behavior. Again there is a difference in degree but not in kind.