The Moral Instinct

[Jackytar]

Just wanted to reference an excellent piece in The New York Times last year by smart-guy atheist linguist Steven Pinker. Does a brilliant and convincing job to further the notion that morality is a human affair, as opposed to divinely inspired or dictated. A long but engaging read with lots of moral conundrums to ponder.

I'm new here and would be surprised if this wasn't referenced before so forgive me if I'm revisiting old news. The search feature of this forum is not that useful.

Anyhow, here's the article:

The Moral Instinct
By STEVEN PINKER
Published: January 13, 2008

Jackytar

 

[Jackytar]

Without God there is no morality.
Moral law comes from God not man.

This article may challenge your beliefs so you best not read it.

Jackytar

 

[Heneni]

The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. One can easily say, “I don’t like brussels sprouts, but I don’t care if you eat them,” but no one would say, “I don’t like killing, but I don’t care if you murder someone.”

Lets look at this stament from the article above. It can also be said that a murderer, who fancies murder, like a serier killer, would say, ''i like killing, but I dont care if you dont murder someone' That would contradict the first line of the above quoted piece, that the first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal.

 

[Storm]

Guys, you're in the atheist DIR. It's not the place for debate.

 

[Heneni]

Oops sorry, my bad. Interesting article none the less.

 

[Jackytar]

Lets look at this stament from the article above. It can also be said that a murderer, who fancies murder, like a serial killer, would say, ''i like killing, but I dont care if you dont murder someone' That would contradict the first line of the above quoted piece, that the first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal.

I think that even the serial killer would experience some degree of moral righteousness regarding murder. In general and speaking to less severe circumstances, the research shows that there is a disconnect between what we know to be right and our actual behavior. We all fail, to some degree, to live up to our "better selves". Serial killers often report wanting to be stopped, even executed. They know that what they are doing is wrong. I do agree that there are true sociopaths, though, seemingly devoid of morality.

But even in the hard sciences, like physics, an exception to the rule doesn't necessarily render the rule useless or false. We still rely on Newtons laws of motion as a practical matter even though special relativity has chipped away at the universality of them as we approach the speed of light. It seems that the social or "soft" sciences even more so has to accept some fuzziness at the edges.

Are we debating or discussing the article?
I'll refrain from any more discussion if this is not allowed in this forum.

Glad you liked the article!

Jackytar

 

[3.14]

interesting though i wonder at his train track example (push fat man in front of trolly and the flip switch to kill man)
When pressed for a reason, they can’t come up with anything coherent, though moral philosophers haven’t had an easy time coming up with a relevant difference, either.

is it just me or are there easy to spot diffrences in that example?

 

[Luke]

Just wanted to reference an excellent piece in The New York Times last year by smart-guy atheist linguist Steven Pinker. Does a brilliant and convincing job to further the notion that morality is a human affair, as opposed to divinely inspired or dictated. A long but engaging read with lots of moral conundrums to ponder.

I'm new here and would be surprised if this wasn't referenced before so forgive me if I'm revisiting old news. The search feature of this forum is not that useful.

Anyhow, here's the article:

The Moral Instinct
By STEVEN PINKER
Published: January 13, 2008

Jackytar

med ni överens, tack. this i s good post. i never hear abaout Norman Borlaug befojr. i will take this t o study tech with me.

 

[MSizer]

Hey kids, unfortunately I wasn't able to link to the article (bummer - I really wanted to read it actually) but anyone who wants to debate goodness without god, please do let me know, 'cuz IO am a firm believer that god has nothing to do with morality, and I have arguments to back it. Of course my most obvious argument is that god doesn't exist, so morality can't have anything to do with god, but most people don't consider it an argument. So, I have gone on to do some research and have found some interesting stuff on the matter.

 

[lunamoth]

Just wanted to reference an excellent piece in The New York Times last year by smart-guy atheist linguist Steven Pinker. Does a brilliant and convincing job to further the notion that morality is a human affair, as opposed to divinely inspired or dictated. A long but engaging read with lots of moral conundrums to ponder.

I'm new here and would be surprised if this wasn't referenced before so forgive me if I'm revisiting old news. The search feature of this forum is not that useful.

Anyhow, here's the article:

The Moral Instinct
By STEVEN PINKER
Published: January 13, 2008

Jackytar

Long article, did not have time to read it. I skimmed the first page and found this nice sentence:

Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings.

Totally agree. IMO, that we have a sense of morality (and reason, for that matter), is a gift from God and points to God. However, the devil really is in the details. The foundation of morality is in 'love one another.' The details of how that is carried out can vary from culture to culture, age to age, and are not dictated by the Bible or any other holy book. Nevertheless, I think we do 'evolve' toward greater 'morality' because the world shrinks and we increasingly include more people as 'our neighbors and ourselves.'

BTW, jackytar, the DIRs are reserved for people who all basically agree with one another. If you would like debate or dissenting opinions discussed, you can ask to have this thread moved to debate. I probably should not have posted here.