sooda
Veteran Member
Jefferson?
Did Jefferson say that?
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Jefferson?
Yes of course it is ─ that's the entire point. Some of our instinctive behaviors involve and/or attract moral judgments and some don't. They're not the two different worlds that your argument urges. They overlap all the time.This is irrelevant. Whether a moral dilemma is or can take place does not change the instinctive behavior.
Whether something is 'praiseworthy!', or not, is a moral judgment.
Why are sociopaths considered an aberration in humanity? Most of them were raised 'moral,' but chose to 'switch off' that part of their psyche, or some other psychobabble theory. Why would there be any morality in humans, if it is not there inherently?
A male lion will kill cubs, if he can, with no consequence. Theft is a common virtue, in the animal kingdom. How are these human moral platitudes different, from the rest of the animal world, if they are just instinctive? Or, why should we submit to moralizing platitudes from manipulators, and follow their constructs?
This is a logical progression, based on an assumption. There are 2 possible universes:@usfan I’m still struggling to understand your reasoning. What it looks like to me now is saying that all people have a kind of intuition about some kinds of behavior to practice and some kinds to avoid, which we sometimes codify into laws and rules of conduct. Even though there are disagreements about the details, there’s enough agreement on some points to consider that intuition as a response to some kind of reality, and not entirely generated by each person in pursuit of private interests. Just like our physical senses. As much as we might disagree about details in the world around us, there’s enough agreement on some points to consider those senses as communicating something about some reality. In fact, that might be where the idea of “reality” comes from in the first place: nearly universal agreement on some things that we experience and observe.
It seems to me that that the senses of sight and hearing, and what we see and hear, are as real and as common to all people, as what you’re calling “morality.” I don’t see how that forces a conclusion that there’s some kind of being that “embedded” them in us.
Maybe you’re thinking that humans having that intuition serves a purpose that can’t be denied, and because we are born with it, can only be explained as being put there by some being or being with a purpose. If that’s what you’re thinking, then it looks to me like a variation on intelligent design. Good luck with that.
..but this has not happened. You merely assert the condition of morality as an evolved trait. You do not show how or why 'evolution!' would choose to arbitrarily embed moral absolutes, in an amoral universe.when the origins of morality are already much examined and well explained without reference to 'God'?
No, there is only instinct. No reasoning or moral dilemmas are wrestled with in the animal kingdom. That is an exclusively human trait, in spite of anthropomorphic projection.There is 'morality' in other primate groups as it is necessary to negotiate coalitions which are needed for survival.
Why? No other animal species needs morality. They work fine with instinct. Why saddle humans with artificial, manipulative burdens for behavior that animals lack? Why not just follow our instincts, and reject all that manipulative mumbo jumbo?Humans have morality because they need to,
Merely redefining instinct as morality does not address the issue. They are different, often conflict, and overlap, at times, but morality is unique to humanity.
Why? No other animal species needs morality. They work fine with instinct. Why saddle humans with artificial, manipulative burdens for behavior that animals lack? Why not just follow our instincts, and reject all that manipulative mumbo jumbo?
Did he not?Did Jefferson say that?
Did he not?
You merely equate morality and instinct, when they are 2 distinct mechanisms in the human psyche.I disagree. It's an artificial distinction to see 'morality' as something apart from other aspects of social interaction that are present in many social species.
In a godless universe, you get backlash from moralizing, arbitrary values from controlling manipulators.Act exactly how you like at all times and see where that gets you.
You seem to be disputing the quote.. why the coy questions?Don't know.. Its your quote.
You seem to be disputing the quote.. why the coy questions?
That is a non sequitur.To claim that God "imbedded morality" is absurd. Many moral people are not Christians.
That is a non sequitur.
If God embedded morality, it will be there, regardless of anyone's beliefs.
If God did not embed morality, then it is a human construct, for manipulation. Beliefs are irrelevant in that universe, as well.
This is about natural law, not specifically, morality. But they derive from the same source, and Natural Law is based on the universal sense of a common moral code.*We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights*
Natural law is an extrapolation of universal morality:
IF... God or some Creative Power has imbued morality into mankind, as evidenced by the universal acceptance of conscience, THEN.. it follows that this same endowment would include rights, as well as obligations. If murder is 'wrong', then each person has a 'right' to life. If property is a 'right', then theft is 'wrong!'. Morality and natural law are 2 sides of the same coin.
But both morality and natural law are contingent on an Embuing Power. A godless universe has no such power, but only human law and animal instinct. Morality and natural law are human constructs, for manipulation, in a godless universe.
Of course I did. I gave you more than enough information at all times, and as to how evolution works, I gave you a reason why each of the evolved moral tendencies that all humans have, exist because they're functional ─ and NOT because someone had arbitrarily invented them, as you've suggested. Where? Most specifically in #75...but this Edithas not happened. You merely assert the condition of morality as an evolved trait. You do not show how or why 'evolution!' would choose to arbitrarily embed moral absolutes, in an amoral universe.
I take it that you believe Adam and Eve literally. How do you account for all the terrible murders,slaughters and burnings carried out by Christians. Did God imbed the slaughter of the Canaanites, Cathars, Templars and maiden Joan of Arc. Was slavery also "imbedded " morality?