Morality — Biological or Philosophical?

loid_void writes to mention The New York Times is reporting that Biologists are making a bid on the subject of morality. "Last year Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, proposed in his book 'Moral Minds' that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, a universal moral grammar similar to the neural machinery for learning language. In another recent book, 'Primates and Philosophers,' the primatologist Frans de Waal defends against philosopher critics his view that the roots of morality can be seen in the social behavior of monkeys and apes."

Comments

The Beginning of Morality.

[frogstar_robot]

Morality got started when we finally figured out that it isn't nice to throw poop at one another.

Re:The Beginning of Morality.

[PitaBred]

...it's not nice? Damnit, now how am I supposed to communicate on slashdot...

Re:The Beginning of Morality.

[UbuntuDupe]

They say that a defining characteristic of self awareness is being able to recognize that the figure in the mirror is you

bool figure_is_self()
{
  bool output=TRUE;
  for (int i =0;i<10;i++)
  {
  Action = random_action();
  perform(Action);
  if (foward_observe != mirror(Action) )
  output=FALSE;
  }
  return output;
}

Did I just program self-awareness?

Re:No Kidding

[darth_MALL]

I beg to differ.
I brought a lion to a party I went to once and that son of a bitch was anything but social.

Genetics

[Mark_MF-WN]

Well, everything about the mind is inherently genetic. But depression drugs fixing your morality? I wasn't aware that chronic unhappiness was immoral. So the seriously depressed are evil, bad people? Thanks for that awesome insight!

Re:Genetics

[suitepotato]

So the seriously depressed are evil, bad people?

Only those in tech support.

Re:Genetics

[Gilmoure]

Go to hell! I'm going to crawl down the phone line, rip your keyboard from your hands and smash your fingers with it. I will then insert your mouse so far up your alimentary canal that you will just have to cough to click on your virus and spam laden 'work related' sites! Finally, I will bill you for this service call, at x2 Geek Squad rates.

Re:All well and good

[at_slashdot]

I, for one, wholly approve of anyone sacrificing for my own good.

Normally I would have plenty to say

[iminplaya]

but ol' boy has it covered. Suffice it to say that both morality AND philosophy are biological. Everything about us is biological. It puts the "grrr" in girl, baby.

Re:All well and good

[slimjim8094]

By sacrificing resources you prove your worth to the opposite sex.

So that's why I let my girlfriend take all my money...

Re:I think its Genetical actually..

[x2A]

"Why should getting addicted to something like heroin destroy someones life?"

Mostly, because they're illegal.

Why are they illegal? Because they ruin peoples lives. Why do they ruin peopl... oh yeah, back to there again :-/