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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."
for explaining why the brain seeks out morality, but says nothing of why any given action is moral or not.
Morality got started when we finally figured out that it isn't nice to throw poop at one another.
with all kinds of religious ideas and such.
If you just think of it as a cooperation strategy, with "moral" being defined as "behaving in a way that benefits others", it's all quite simple, and it should be obvious that animals have a form of morals too.
I don't see how you can argue there isn't a biological component to the sometimes vague concept that is morality. Extremes tend to highlight fundamental truths which are muddled in the averages.
1. There are obviously beings who are born sociopaths, which no amount of positive socialization or negative reinforcement can temper.
2. There are obviously beings who are born moral/ethical, which no amount of negative socialization can remove.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This is an interesting discussion and I've heard this argued many times as theory, especially by those pushing a religious interpretation of "absolute morality".
On the other hand (and as TFA points out), the key word is empathy. Without empathy, social structures cannot exist. If everyone and everyone is solely self-interested, groups of cooperating individuals could never thrive as they would be destroyed internally by conflicting self-interest.
However, to claim that there are *specific* moral rules that are hard-wired is a bit silly, since it can be evidenced that there are a great many cultures in human history that use generalizations to appease the natural sense of empathy, while doing acts that would otherwise trigger an empathic reaction.
For example, cultures which practiced human sacrifice justified it by either portraying those sacrificed as "not quite human" or as "chosen by god" (being an honor, not a sacrifice). The Moors in Spain categorized Christians as "infidels" and were therefore justified in burning them by the thousands. The Nazis convinced their people that Jews were "subhuman" and people therefore often felt vindicated at sending them to their death. Blacks in pre-civil war America (and some time afterwards) were also seen as "subhuman" (legally, actually 1/3 of a person) and therefore slave owners were justified in treating them as domesticated animals.
Even today, we see the phrase "not quite human" bandied about to refer to criminals, especially murderers and sex offenders, to appease people's sense of empathy when calling for them to be "skinned alive" or "sliced into little pieces" as two well known political bloggers recently and eloquently demanded of pedophiles caught in the act.
However, our sense of morality is not so solid as one might think. Using the same example, for almost a thousand years, pederasty was not only a tolerated condition, but actually an expected behavior amongst social elite. Not only was it accepted by it was celebrated. Death has been similarly consecrated into social norms in past societies with warrior cultures killing merely for the sake of killing and maintaining their warrior culture.
Our sense of empathy may be ingrained. In fact, it may be essential to our humanity, but empathy is not so firmly defined as a set of "thou shalt not" rules and can't be assumed to imply those either.
I still contend that the (often religious) argument "all humans have some hard-wired moral rules" is a sham, created to perpetrate the spread of ignorance on controversial topics. We should always question our judgments using our intellect... because that is really what separates us from other mammals.
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
This is basically Chomsky (Universal Grammar) but applied to morality. So human morality has some universal set of rules which are isomorphic to some biological mechanism/structure in the brain. The reason that there is a common "universal morality" is not because these moral statements are True but rather we all share a common mechanism for creating these statements. A mechanism that was shaped by evolution.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
It may sound persuasive to you to say that not believing in God means that there is suddenly no right or wrong and we can do anything, but real atheists, with very few exceptions, don't really believe that. And for every exception (Pol Pot and Stalin come to mind) I can give you more examples of people who thought God wanted them to commit atrocities. Hitler, Torquemada, Jim Jones, David Koresh, and so on. Yes, some power-mad wackos are atheists, but the fact that there are also plenty of power-mad wackos who believe in God should tell you that the atheism isn't the root of that particular problem. It happens that there are murderous psychos in the world, some who believe in God and a few who don't, and all of them bring their own beliefs, or lack thereof, to the table with them.
And we don't really think you're stupid, any more than you think people who believe in Shiva or Mithra are stupid. Yes, Dawkins is mouthy. He's one Oxford zoology professor who is rather vocal about his atheism. When the President of the USA says that religious people whouldn't even be considered citizens (like Bush Sr. said about atheists when he was President) then you may have a case. But even then, it falls a bit short of true intolerance or persecution. Dawkins is entitled to his beliefs. If Christians enjoy the right to think that Dawkins deserves to roast for all eternity in a lake of fire, I think he's entitled to think this is a crazy, illogical, and sadistic doctrine.
All you need to know to tell you that physical structures in the brain are important to behavior is contained in the story of Phineas Gage.
We all know that people change throughout their lifetime in response to their experiences. So we don't need to prove the nuture part. That's obvious. But cases like that of Gage prove that the physical structure is at least as important, and is probably far more significant, than the experience that shape you. You are vastly more (and in some other ways, less) than the sum of your experiences.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So the seriously depressed are evil, bad people?
Only those in tech support.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Why do some aquatic animals push injured companions to the surface so they can breathe? Bottle-nosed Dolphin are known to do this, and so are some aquarium fish. Do you think this is based on "philosophy", or do you think there is some basic hard-wiring in there that arose from a biological imperative similar to the idea that that keeping the group healthy has a generally positive effect on the individual (and hence its genes)?
Why will a cat or dog or pig or any number of other animals accept another species to nurse at its teats, even when, as in many of these cases, said species is considered natural prey or predator?
Why will cats in particular, highly independent creatures who are extremely good at providing for themselves, go into a burning building to attempt to wake and save their owners, sometimes at the cost of their own lives? I understand the argument for saving one's kittens is that of propagating the gene (though cats could always make more kittens, and that is certainly a more effective strategy both at the personal and genetic levels) but why save some human? Cats don't generally need humans for survival. It is just one of several strategies available to them - and they do it. Many convert from one to the other, sometimes more than once. Cognition? Or wiring?
Do ethics and/or morals have to be "systems" in order to be valid, useful, or characterized as such? If yes, why? Could it be that such an outlook is primarily an exercise in hubris? Isn't it sufficient to choose not to do something based on a vague feeling that it isn't the right thing to do, or a simple situational evaluation that detects dissatisfaction as a likely outcome if a particular course is followed, or not?
Do such behaviors have to be high level cognitive products at all? If so, why? Many humans get their ethics and morals "canned", that is, from books or mentors in what amounts to final form. Do this. Don't do that. Most adhere to those admonitions; we generally consider them moral people as long as they do so. But is the bad feeling about taking what is not yours incurred by having your hand smacked by dad for stealing sister's lollipop any different than having your instincts and endocrine system twist your stomach in a knot when contemplating the bloody suffering of another? Both encourage what look like what we commonly call moral behaviors; neither one can reasonably be called "philosophy" on the part of the primary actor by any stretch of the imagination. They both come into play very early in events that call for them.
Personally, I don't think we're nearly as sophisticated as we'd like to imagine. Those of us who exhibit the most "sophistication" usually fall into a category of those who have a lot of time to think available to them, time often provided by channeling wealth from others, one way or another. The rest just muddle along. There are a number of structures in society that have existed for quite a long time that encourage and reinforce this precise pattern.
In the end, these questions all go to how the mind operates, and as we know very little about that, it seems to me that answers which assert certainty are probably untrustworthy at best. No matter the reputation of the "philosopher" who might put those ideas forth.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Is mathematics biological or metaphysical?
Is logic biological or reasonable?
Is reason biological or sensible?
Is fruit an apple or an orange?
My opinion is that these so-called "scientists" are pushing a moral agenda that is merely wearing biology as its latex glove. It looks to me like a media-endorsed reincarnation of the various licentious systems, this time based in the recently popular thinking that morality is subject to and arises from DNA. It is a backwards view that claims reality is subject to awareness or to a physical adaptation meant to sense it, rather than vice versa.
Humans have a reliable way of experiencing some kinds of things: Heat, light, taste, sound, viscosity, gravity, density, hardness, etc., etc. These sensations form the basis of science as well as the natural law philosophies of the empiricists.
The fact that individuals may experience the "sensations" of morality differently from one another can not logically invalidate any absolute attributes that morality might encompass. If external senses arose from primitive ancestors, this does not mean that the nature of heat has changed. Likewise, if moral senses arose from primitive ancestors, this does not mean that the nature of morality has changed or suddenly come into existence. If two individuals possess different notions of quantity, this doesn't mean that two plus two no longer equal four. There are definite laws that govern the physical and the abstract, regardless of how well our minds are designed to comprehend them.
The discipline of philosophy has always held that the metaphysical realm of logic is likewise governed by definite laws, and that from these laws are derived the realities of propriety, merit, and so forth.
I have hope that good scientists avoid the sort of dogmatic proselytizing represented in this NYTimes article. I will venture to say that morality will never be subject to the empirical sort of testing that science demands, and that scientists therefore have nothing to say about it (as scientists). At best, the scientist might claim that animals seem to have a sort of moral sense which is nicely facilitated by the wonders of genetics, and leave it at that. Science can't give us the value of such a statement. That belongs to philosophy.
Antidepressants aren't meant to make people happy. They're meant to make people stable, which is entirely different.
Jesus, if we wanted pills to make people happy, we'd be handing out heroin or vicodin. People get addicted to drugs that make them happy, and then that destroys their lives.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Hardly! Derived morality from survival isn't Nietzschian, it's societal. Frankly, me and my family and friends working together will crush you regardless how strong you are. Help each other and spread our genes faster than any greedy fool with boots on the throat of others. The rules aren't hard to hash out.
Help others.
Help yourself.
Help a group that helps you.
Help another who helps you.
Have sex. (lust)
Have sex with pretty people.
Protect your children. (love)
Protect those in your group. (love)
Protect children.
Hurt those who hurt you. (revenge)
Don't do things which would make you feel bad if they were done to you.
Don't do things which make you feel bad. (empathy)
Work with the group, do as they do.
Believe what you are told.
Protect others.
Share with the group.
Ask for help.
Dislike outsiders.
Really, these moral instructions are fairly easy to evolve. The group which possesses them is more fit than the series of individuals which doesn't. Some of them tend to misfire and don't work as well as they might have in the past. Doing what the group does is a great way to learn, it's also a great way to do horrific and sinister wrong to non-group individuals. And, in fact, when engaging in immoral acts, it is best to exclude the non-group completely to get around the brain's build in moral compass. That way they have no moral group worth to you.
Really we see this group activity rather regularly in the wild as well as in other primates. Chimps will go without food when getting food will give another chimp an electric shock. Even plants will release chemical signposts when attacked so that other plants will be more apt to protect themselves. Philosophy has been rather good at hashing out certain elements of this moral code, though they tend to miss some of the finer details. For example, utilitarianism works remarkably well... though you would be hard pressed to find any mother who would choose to let her child die over the children of five strangers.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Not at all. The fact is, these things are still 100% accepted by our society, and in some cases, enshrined into law. It is simply that the class which bears the brunt of these actions has changed slightly. For example, the 13th amendment enshrines slavery as perfectly acceptable for the very broad class of people "convicted of a crime", giving it the force of law at the very base of our system. Public executions are still performed, more so and more publicly in countries informed by Sharia law, but we still gather up family, friends and witnesses here in the USA. Rape is common in prisons, and we, as a society, don't even lift a finger to do anything about it - so while it may not have the force of law, it is certainly a normal part of our social functioning. Classing in general has actually devolved in some ways; the Romans wouldn't think twice about knowingly entrusting a homosexual with public office or their children for instruction; our society rarely does this. The Romans also understood that sexually mature teenagers were valid and reasonable sexual partners, while today, classing separates teenagers from (for instance) those in their twenties who might make very good mates indeed for them, as well as sexual mentors. I wouldn't get too excited about any supposed "moral sophistication" of today's society. A lot of that is illusion, more of it is socially enforced style without great moral substance.
What you are talking about here are collisions of culture, which you are conflating with the idea that morals are absolute - which they certainly are not. In the past, when a severe collision occurred, the survivor's answer was to fight until only one culture survives. The Islamists still understand this, but the (quite different) morals of the west reject the idea of putting down an entire culture, even though that culture is polarizing against them in the most obvious manner possible, and has no such scruples. The answer that beckons with survival as the prize - from history - is clear and obvious (and it is the same answer the Islamists have come to.)
When someone has a different set of morals than you do, this does not mean that you are biologically different. Many outlooks are inset at an early age. Some are preset. Depends on the animal how many and which way, but that still leaves more than enough room for the dog that will rescue your broken body, and the dog that will eat you and tear off chunks for its puppies; the person who will help you homestead and the one that will take your land; the priest who will stand between you and your enemy, and the priest who will put you on the rack.
It also doesn't mean that you can "fix" or "educate" those with attitudes that clash with yours. That is why it was traditional - and acceptable - to kill all members who could fight (now, or later, as in male children) of any particular conquered group.
Some morals cost too much; no society can afford to pay with everything they have if they want to survive.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.