On Balance, do Religions Serve more to Unite People or to Divide Them?

[Augustus]

False analogy. Families are natural divisions of humanity, not artificially created divisions based on opinion. Without religion, those divisions would disappear. Not so with families.

Wrong way round.

Families are natural divisions, but religions are not artificial divisions, they are artificial ways of uniting people.

Natural unity comes from direct personal contact, all else is 'artificial'. You can't artificially unite people without ideologies or narratives that create a fictitious bond, in anthropology sometimes called 'fictive kinship'.

 

[joe1776]

Wrong way round.

Families are natural divisions, but religions are not artificial divisions, they are artificial ways of uniting people.

Natural unity comes from direct personal contact, all else is 'artificial'. You can't artificially unite people without ideologies or narratives that create a fictitious bond, in anthropology sometimes called 'fictive kinship'.

You started your reasoning at step two. If you start at step one, you will begin with humanity as one group.

The opinions and beliefs of religion are manmade, therefore artificial. When religions were formed they divided humanity into separate groups. Those groups then further divided themselves into sects.

We don't need to artificially unite humanity. We only need to recognize that our effort to survive and thrive unites us. That's the way it is -- naturally.. We don't have to create anything.

 

[Augustus]

You started your reasoning at step two. If you start at step one, you will begin with humanity as one group.

Simply belonging to the same species as another doesn't make you part of the same 'group' in the context of this discussion. Humanity as a taxonomic label is very different to Humanity as a reference to a real world socio-cultural bond creating a common in-group relationship.

Humanity isn't 'one group' and never has been. To claim that they are is unscientific given our evolved cognition, and is against all logic and history. Humans, like other animals, have always competed for resources. And humans evolved to live in small groups, thus creating division and potential conflict between different groups of strangers..

Monkeys aren't 'one group', wolves aren't 'one group', gorillas aren't 'one group', humans aren't 'one group'. That some of us see Humanity as a single group is the product of religious creation mythology.

The opinions and beliefs of religion are manmade, therefore artificial. When religions were formed they divided humanity into separate groups. Those groups then further divided themselves into sects.

All unifying ideologies are man-made, they certainly aren't innate to us which is evidence by their almost complete absence from human history prior to 2000 or so years ago.

Religions unified larger groups of people via the creation of a fictive kinship. Once they reach a certain size our natural propensity towards diversity and thus division lead to these larger religions fragmenting into many sects.

Also of note is the 'religious divides' be they inter or intra-faith often reflect other forms of difference, linguistic, cultural, ethnic, etc. Historically, many peoples adopted different religion to differentiate them from their neighbours.

 

[joe1776]

Simply belonging to the same species as another doesn't make you part of the same 'group' in the context of this discussion..

It does for me. It seems obvious to me that the survival interests of our species are linked regardless of the artificial divisions we have created.

The moral advance made by our species called the abolition of slavery didn't stop at national borders. It took three hundred years but it gradually swept across all recognized nations because treating others as equals serves the survival interests of our species.

 

[Augustus]

It does for me. It seems obvious to me that the survival interests of our species are linked regardless of the artificial divisions we have created.

Only because you have been exposed to the artificial category of (capital H) Humanity.

Your view is based on an ideological interpretation of the completely artificial conditions of modernity, conditions that we did not evolve to live in.

What you say may be desirable, but that doesn't make it natural. Nothing much about modern society is.

The moral advance made by our species called the abolition of slavery didn't stop at national borders. It took three hundred years but it gradually swept across all recognized nations because treating others as equals serves the survival interests of our species.

It swept across many nations due to 'artificial', mostly religious, ideology as well as the power of Royal Navy gunboats, Empires and other 'artificial' human institutions.

Very few societies 'treat each other as equals' anyway, they just are banned from enslaving others.

There are also maybe 70 million slaves worldwide, and exponentially more grossly abused and exploited workers. I'd say that there would be many more slaves too if it weren't for the threat of force which prevents it. There are hundreds of millions of those who see other humans as fair game for whatever economic, physical and sexual exploitation they can get away with.

This is true in the sheltered West, let alone much of the rest of the world where ethics aren't quite as humanistic as you seem to imagine.

 

[Revoltingest]

Religion unites some against the others.
So it does both.

 

[joe1776]

All unifying ideologies are man-made, they certainly aren't innate to us which is evidence by their almost complete absence from human history prior to 2000 or so years ago.

That we are one species with common survival interest is a fact. We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

Only because you have been exposed to the artificial category of (capital H) Humanity.

Your view is based on an ideological interpretation of the completely artificial conditions of modernity, conditions that we did not evolve to live in.

What you say may be desirable, but that doesn't make it natural. Nothing much about modern society is.

You found three different ways to say "You're wrong" without offering reasoning to support it.

It swept across many nations due to 'artificial', mostly religious, ideology as well as the power of Royal Navy gunboats, Empires and other 'artificial' human institutions.

The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam condoned slavery. Yet, you claim that the abolition of it was mostly religious ideology?

Very few societies 'treat each other as equals' anyway, they just are banned from enslaving others.

That's because we humans have an arrogant side to our nature. Still, most agree that enslaving others is wrong.

There are also maybe 70 million slaves worldwide, and exponentially more grossly abused and exploited workers. I'd say that there would be many more slaves too if it weren't for the threat of force which prevents it. There are hundreds of millions of those who see other humans as fair game for whatever economic, physical and sexual exploitation they can get away with.

Yes, it's true that "good" has to be enforced. I don't think that's relevant to our topic.

This is true in the sheltered West, let alone much of the rest of the world where ethics aren't quite as humanistic as you seem to imagine.

I've said nothing to make you think that I can't see the world as it is. But I also look at history and see that the old world was morally much worse. So, the trend shows moral progress. And, a little foresight takes me to my position.

 

[Augustus]

That we are one species with common survival interest is a fact. We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

Often one human's survival instinct are very much at the expense of another's. We learn this by reasoning too (although I'd say it is to some extent innate when the circumstances are 'right').

You are assuming that humans care as much for the survival interests of distant others as they do for the survival of themselves and their nearest and dearest. If you are not assuming this, then your logic falls apart. It only lasts as long as our environment can happily sustain all of us.

How willing do you believe people are to severely sacrifice their quality of life just so someone in a strange far off land can have things much better? In a severe drought, when a river passes through your lands are you going to let your people die, just so enough water can reach the next country downstream? Or would you build a dam to maximise the well being of your own people? Would your people even let you have such a choice?

With overpopulation/global warming it could very well be the case that, some time in the future, certain groups come to see their survival interest is not best served by trying to find some kind of consensus between 20 billion people agreeing to severely ration resource use. It is very possible that they see their survival as linked to culling a huge section of humanity.

A few centuries of 'moral progress', can easily be reversed when people come to fear for their very existence again.

Our brains haven't evolved from the way there were when the Nazis and Commies were exterminating hundreds of millions, that such things will happen again is highly likely sooner or later. Next time, given modern technology and the potential competition for scarce resources, the scale could be far greater.

You found four different ways to say "You're wrong" without offering reasoning to support it.

1. Do you believe modern society reflects the natural environment humans evolved to live in? Idea say this is self-evidently not the case.
2. That we are part of a common Humanity is an ideological belief by definition. You said we arrive at it through reasoning about the best way to live in this world of ours. Can you explain why you think it isn't ideological? Can you support it scientifically for example?
3. The circumstance surrounding the abolition of slavery is historical fact. What do you disagree with?

 

[joe1776]

Often one human's survival instinct are very much at the expense of another's.

You have switched topics from the survival of our species to individual situations.

You are assuming that humans care as much for the survival interests of distant others as they do for the survival of themselves and their nearest and dearest

No, I'm assuming that what we care about isn't going to change the truth about the nature of our survival interests one bit.

How willing do you believe people are to severely sacrifice their quality of life just so someone in a strange far off land can have things much better? In a severe drought, when a river passes through your lands are you going to let your people die, just so enough water can reach the next country downstream? Or would you build a dam to maximise the well being of your own people? Would your people even let you have such a choice?

Millions of souls from 55 nations fought and many died to stop the oppression of the Axis forces in World War Two.

With overpopulation/global warming it could very well be the case that, some time in the future, certain groups come to see their survival interest is not best served by trying to find some kind of consensus between 20 billion people agreeing to severely ration resource use. It is very possible that they see their survival as linked to culling a huge section of humanity.

The "culling" process isn't necessarily moral or immoral. It depends on many factors. We have been culling cold-blooded murderers from our midst for centuries. It promotes the survival of our species.

A few centuries of 'moral progress', can easily be reversed when people come to fear for their very existence again.

Hollywood likes your scenario because it's dramatic. But it's unlikely that evolution will turn on dime. Our course is set.

Our brains haven't evolved from the way there were when the Nazis and Commies were exterminating hundreds of millions, that such things will happen again is highly likely sooner or later. Next time, given modern technology and the potential competition for scarce resources, the scale could be far greater.

As I noted earlier, it's a good thing that our brains haven't changed course. The Nazis were defeated because the most powerful force in our nature is cooperation in a worthy cause. Moreover, we learn from experience. It's far less likely today that a bully-dictator will grab power in a major nation than it was in the past.

1. Do you believe modern society reflects the natural environment humans evolved to live in? Idea say this is self-evidently not the case.

I'd say it's still evolving.

You said we arrive at it through reasoning about the best way to live in this world of ours.

Quote me please.

3. The circumstance surrounding the abolition of slavery is historical fact. What do you disagree with?

I disagree with your version of what happened. In particular your claim that religion was the cause of this moral advance. I've explained those disagreements. If you want to challenge my objections, quote me.

 

[Augustus]

You have switched topics from the survival of our species to individual situations.

People in general care far more about survival of themselves than the survival of other people in far off lands. My point was regarding how your 'global harmony' will hold up in a potential crisis of the kind that has caused problems throughout human history.

The "culling" process isn't necessarily moral or immoral. It depends on many factors. We have been culling cold-blooded murderers from our midst for centuries. It promotes the survival of our species.

If powerful countries A, B & C decide to cull half the world's population, I'm not sure how this fits into your 'global harmony' perspective.

Hollywood likes your scenario because it's dramatic. But it's unlikely that evolution will turn on dime. Our course is set.

The last completed century was one of the, if not the most murderous in human history, even adjusting for population (which is a dubious metric to crudely apply). There are people alive today who have lived under some of the worst regimes in human history from Germany to China to USSR to Cambodia.

Short term trends should not be assumed to be permanent, the stock market was booming in 2007 and had been for years.

A lot of 'moral progress' has coincided with periods of great economic growth and rising standards of living due to technological advances. It is possible that living standards may start to decline in the future for many people amid fierce competition for resources.

Historically, this situation often ends badly, and it would be unwise to assume such things could happen again in future seeing as we are the same animals we were then.

As I noted earlier, it's a good thing that our brains haven't changed course. The Nazis were defeated because the most powerful force in our nature is cooperation in a worthy cause.

One of the main cooperators was Stalin who gave Hitler a run for his money in terms of awfulness.

Moreover, we learn from experience.

If there's one thing you can say about humanity is that it definitely doesn't learn from experience. Hence the fact that we repeat the same mistakes over and over and over (such as assuming global harmony was just around the corner)

It's far less likely today that a bully-dictator will grab power in a major nation than it was in the past.

China is run by a dictator. Russia might as well be. The rise of the far right in many Western countries and 'strongmen' leaders in places like Turkey, Philippines, etc tell you it is not something we should be complacent about.

Quote me please.

We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

I disagree with your version of what happened. In particular your claim that religion was the cause of this moral advance.

This is where the difference can't be bridged. Literally any advance is simply 'conscience'.

No matter how rare in human history, or uncommon among contemporary societies, or how many counterexamples to the universality of this principle, the belief system is judged completely irrelevant as everything is just 'conscience' and 'progress'.

If someone goes back 2000+ years tracing the intellectual genesis of a way of thinking, it just gets dismissed with 'conscience did it'.

For me, conscience relies on axioms from which to reason, and these axioms are culturally dependent. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[joe1776]

People in general care far more about survival of themselves than the survival of other people in far off lands. My point was regarding how your 'global harmony' will hold up in a potential crisis of the kind that has caused problems throughout human history.

That wasn't your point. You switched topics on survival in response to my comment that: That we are one species with common survival interest is a fact. We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

If powerful countries A, B & C decide to cull half the world's population, I'm not sure how this fits into your 'global harmony' perspective.

And if pigs had wings, pork would be a lot higher. No one doubts your ability to dream up unrealistic scenarios for the future that would challenge my argument.

The last completed century was one of the, if not the most murderous in human history, even adjusting for population (which is a dubious metric to crudely apply). There are people alive today who have lived under some of the worst regimes in human history from Germany to China to USSR to Cambodia.

The issue we are discussing concerns my contention that we humans have made moral progress. You can't measure that by the number of people killed in wars because:

What we would like to know is -- were the average soldiers in the Crusades better human beings than those who fought in WW 2 and we can't figure that out from the numbers killed. because: 1) The Crusader carried less effective weapons. 2) Many more soldiers were transported to the battlefields in WW 2.

Short term trends should not be assumed to be permanent, the stock market was booming in 2007 and had been for years.

I don't have the time right now to dig it out for you, but I authored a thread on this topic which would persuade unbiased readers that we humans have made substantial moral progress.

A lot of 'moral progress' has coincided with periods of great economic growth and rising standards of living due to technological advances. It is possible that living standards may start to decline in the future for many people amid fierce competition for resources.

You are pulling that 'statistic' out of thin air.

Historically, this situation often ends badly, and it would be unwise to assume such things could happen again in future seeing as we are the same animals we were then.

Your comment assumes that you're right that we humans aren't morally better than our ancestors. Why do you consider this useful debate?

One of the main cooperators was Stalin who gave Hitler a run for his money in terms of awfulness.

And this fact supports your argument how?

If there's one thing you can say about humanity is that it definitely doesn't learn from experience. Hence the fact that we repeat the same mistakes over and over and over (such as assuming global harmony was just around the corner)

We humans ARE learning from experience. In technology progress is visible. Social progress is happening also but at a slower pace. Technology moves faster because progress can't be denied. It isn't slowed by tradition and conservatism.

China is run by a dictator. Russia might as well be. The rise of the far right in many Western countries and 'strongmen' leaders in places like Turkey, Philippines, etc tell you it is not something we should be complacent about.

China and Russia are not run by dictators. The major nations in the world have limited the power of their leaders..

This is where the difference can't be bridged. Literally any advance is simply 'conscience'.

Give me an example of a moral advance that you think wasn't caused by conscience. Earlier you wrote that religion was responsible for the abolition of slavery. How did you come up with that? The sacred texts all Judaism, Christianity and Islam condone slavery. How about women's right and equality for homosexuals? Are those advances due to religion?

If someone goes back 2000+ years tracing the intellectual genesis of a way of thinking, it just gets dismissed with 'conscience did it'.

It has to be. Conscience is the only moral guide we have.

For me, conscience relies on axioms from which to reason, and these axioms are culturally dependent. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

You are advocating the rationalist model to explain conscience that can't be defended logically. The intuitionist model, which I favor, has been backed by science over the past 20 years or so. Jon Haidt's research, back in 2000, found that the judgments of conscience were immediate and intuitive. The reasoning was done post hoc and often didn't offer a good explanation. The science since then has supported Haidt's research. There is no science supporting your rationalist position for conscience.

You said we arrive at it through reasoning about the best way to live in this world of ours.
.

What I said was: That we are one species with common survival interest is a fact. We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

You cut the first sentence from my comment in order to misquote me.

 

[Augustus]

That wasn't your point. You switched topics on survival in response to my comment that: That we are one species with common survival interest is a fact. We don't know that fact innately. We discover it by reasoning.

This is the problem about treating an abstraction like Humanity as if it were an actual thing. Obviously we have a common interest in the sense that if all humans die, however survival isn't a binary all or nothing.

It is very possible that one person sees their survival (or simply well-being) as being best served by killing you. In that case we don't have a common survival interest.

And if pigs had wings, pork would be a lot higher. No one doubts your ability to dream up unrealistic scenarios for the future that would challenge my argument.

This is why humans never learn from experience. Despite major problems happening throughout history, people never cease to think 'something bad on a major scale couldn't possibly happen again'.

Do you believe there is even a small chance that climate change is a real thing? If so it is not unrealistic to consider significant ecosystem collapse as being a possible consequence. If that were to happen you would have a situation of mass population movement to countries who couldn't support hundreds of millions of refugees. In this case there is no 'common survival interest'.

Beyond this though, who knows what calamities could occur in the future. Your argument is that such a thing couldn't happen, all I'm saying is of course it could. Given enough time, it is almost inevitable that there is some form of global crisis.

You are advocating the rationalist model to explain conscience that can't be defended logically. The intuitionist model, which I favor, has been backed by science over the past 20 years or so. Jon Haidt's research, back in 2000, found that the judgments of conscience were immediate and intuitive. The reasoning was done post hoc and often didn't offer a good explanation. The science since then has supported Haidt's research. There is no science supporting your rationalist position for conscience.

It's not a 'rationalist' position, it is the idea that conscience relies on cultural axioms in order to reach judgement, which is the same position as Haidt. We are the products of our culture, and there is plenty of science to show this.

Also, you seem to be misrepresenting the scientific arguments by claiming that there is some kind of universal conscience independent of culture, class, education, etc. making global harmony inevitable.

Haidt's initial field work in Brazil and Philadelphia in 1989, and Odisha, India in 1993, showed that moralizing indeed varies among cultures, but less than by social class (e.g. education) and age. Working-class Brazilian children were more likely to consider both taboo violations and infliction of harm to be morally wrong, and universally so. Members of traditional, collectivist societies, like political conservatives, are more sensitive to violations of the community-related moral foundations. Adult members of so-called WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies are the most individualistic, and most likely to draw a distinction between harm-inflicting violations of morality and violations of convention.[4]

Subsequent investigations of moral foundations theory in other cultures have found broadly similar correlations between morality and political identification to those of the US. In Korea and Sweden, the patterns were the same, with varying magnitudes.[13]


Humans are morally pluralistic. If you grow up in a collectivist tribal society your conscience will tell you something very different about certain issues than someone raised in a highly individualistic society. Rights are based either at the level of the collective, or that or the individual and this leads to some very different moral judgements (blasphemy/apostasy laws, honour killings etc.)

If I'm wrong, can you point me to an article/book that supports your viewpoint from a scientific perspective (or even quote it)?

 

[Quintessence]

I find it important to remember that uniting and dividing have tradeoffs; they are neither good nor bad. The Way of the Four has much to teach in this regard, as unity and division relate to the two active qualities of the Elements: hot and cold. Note that in natural philosophy, these do not refer to physical qualities, but abstract principles.

Humans typically regard the mechanisms of hot "dividing" and the mechanisms of cold "uniting." But the two principles actually do both at the same time. A thing hot brings together things of a like type, but to do so it must destroy the mixture. Hotness is what allows for diversity, individuality, and uniqueness. A thing cold brings together things of different types, and to do so it must destroy diversity. Coldness is what allows for congruity, conformity, and sameness. In our realm, nothing is ever pure hot or pure cold; both are understood to have their place.

From this vantage point, I don't view religion (or other aspects of human culture) as "uniting" or "dividing." They necessarily do both in tandem. The question to me is if they are more Fire-like (hot-themed) or Water-like (cold-themed), and in what way. Extremes of either are equally destructive. Those who claim to call for unity overlook that their call requires the destruction of diversity. And those who call for diversity overlook that their call requires destruction of unity. Which one prefers is a question of values, really, and the extremes are relatively uncommon in any case.

 

[BilliardsBall]

On balance, do you think religions serve more to unite people or to divide them?


I think it depends on the religion. Some seem far more divisive than others, and others seem far more unifying.

Of interest, the founder of one religion said, "I CAME TO DIVIDE" and His book says, "Rightly divide the word of truth."

 

[joe1776]

This is the problem about treating an abstraction like Humanity as if it were an actual thing. Obviously we have a common interest in the sense that if all humans die, however survival isn't a binary all or nothing.

I see humanity as one large group of people, undivided. That's not an abstraction.

It is very possible that one person sees their survival (or simply well-being) as being best served by killing you. In that case we don't have a common survival interest.

Evolution is taking our species in one direction. How one person sees their survival interests isn't relevant to the interests of the species.

This is why humans never learn from experience. Despite major problems happening throughout history, people never cease to think 'something bad on a major scale couldn't possibly happen again'.

I'm not sure what world you've been watching but we humans (overall) do learn from experience. For example, leaders were once regarded as gods and their reputation has been trending downward since.

Do you believe there is even a small chance that climate change is a real thing? If so it is not unrealistic to consider significant ecosystem collapse as being a possible consequence. If that were to happen you would have a situation of mass population movement to countries who couldn't support hundreds of millions of refugees. In this case there is no 'common survival interest'.

I don't think anything can happen that will turn evolution in a different direction. So, no, our moral intuition would face a severe challenge and overcome it eventually to assure survival of our species.

Beyond this though, who knows what calamities could occur in the future. Your argument is that such a thing couldn't happen, all I'm saying is of course it could. Given enough time, it is almost inevitable that there is some form of global crisis.

Quote me please. What did I write that has you believing that I deny the possibility of calamities?

It's not a 'rationalist' position, it is the idea that conscience relies on cultural axioms in order to reach judgement, which is the same position as Haidt. We are the products of our culture, and there is plenty of science to show this.

You're wrong about that entire paragraph. But I will only give you Jon Haidt's paper from the year 2000 which supports my position.

https://www.motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

Also, you seem to be misrepresenting the scientific arguments by claiming that there is some kind of universal conscience independent of culture, class, education, etc. making global harmony inevitable.

I'm not claiming that scientific research confirms my entire position.But it's headed that way. So, far, it's confirming that moral judgments are intuitive and not the products of reason.

Haidt's initial field work in Brazil and Philadelphia in 1989, and Odisha, India in 1993, showed that moralizing indeed varies among cultures, but less than by social class (e.g. education) and age. Working-class Brazilian children were more likely to consider both taboo violations and infliction of harm to be morally wrong, and universally so. Members of traditional, collectivist societies, like political conservatives, are more sensitive to violations of the community-related moral foundations. Adult members of so-called WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies are the most individualistic, and most likely to draw a distinction between harm-inflicting violations of morality and violations of convention.[4]

Subsequent investigations of moral foundations theory in other cultures have found broadly similar correlations between morality and political identification to those of the US. In Korea and Sweden, the patterns were the same, with varying magnitudes.[13]

You didn't read further in that article that you partially quoted. It reads:

"As Haidt and his collaborators worked within the social intuitionist approach, they began to devote attention to the sources of the intuitions that they believed underlay moral judgments."

Humans are morally pluralistic. If you grow up in a collectivist tribal society your conscience will tell you something very different about certain issues than someone raised in a highly individualistic society. Rights are based either at the level of the collective, or that or the individual and this leads to some very different moral judgements (blasphemy/apostasy laws, honour killings etc.)

You are confusing cultural biases with conscience. Slavery was once a cultural bias, everyone in the world thought that the strong had a right to enslave the weak. That changed. But things don't change themselves, What was the mechanism driving change? So, what changed the attitude on slavery if not our moral intuition (conscience)?

If I'm wrong, can you point me to an article/book that supports your viewpoint from a scientific perspective (or even quote it)?

The article you quoted supports my position on moral intuition as does Haidt's paper from 2000 that I linked earlier. Here's an excerpt from the NY Times that I picked up a while back:

"According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."

 

[Augustus]

I'll just focus on the article, as we won't make progress with any of the other stuff.

I'm not claiming that scientific research confirms my entire position.But it's headed that way. So, far, it's confirming that moral judgments are intuitive and not the products of reason.

Thanks for providing the article. It is interesting, but doesn't actually support your worldview.

First, the article says people arrive at moral judgement by 2 methods, systematic (reason) and heuristic (intuition). The latter tends to be more common in any issue involving conflict or emotion, whereas the former can be activated if one is more detached or is not under pressure.

In addition, it notes "The model is a social model in that it de-emphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals, emphasizing instead the importance of social and cultural influences."

This is exactly what I said, intuition is significantly dependent on culture:

Children in Orissa constantly encounter spaces and bodies structured by purity, and they learn to respect the dividing lines. They learn when to remove their shoes, and how to use their heads and feet in a symbolic language of deference (as when one touches one’s head to the feet of a highly respected person). They develop an intuitive sense that purity and impurity must be kept apart. By participating in these interlinked custom complexes, an Oriya child’s physical embodiment comes to include experiences of purity and pollution. When such children later encounter the intellectual content of the ethics of divinity (e.g., ideas of sacredness, asceticism, and transcendence), their minds and bodies are already prepared to accept these ideas, and their truth feels self-evident (see Lakoff, 1987).

American children, in contrast, are immersed in a different set of practices regarding space and the body, supported by a different ideology. When an American adult later travels in Orissa, he may know how rules of purity and pollution govern the use of space, but he knows these things only in a shallow, factual, consciously accessible way; he does not know these things in the deep cognitive/affective/motoric way that a properly enculturated Oriya knows them.

Here you have a clear explanation. of cultural differences that result in a fundamentally different perception of certain aspects of reality. This is hard to reconcile with the assumption of inevitable harmony.

Also, as I noted about the problems that may occur when one's survival is at stake:

When people are asked to think about their own deaths, they appear to suppress a generalized fear of mortality by clinging more tightly to their cultural world view. Death-primed participants then shift their moral judgments to defend that world view. They mete out harsher punishment to violators of cultural values, and they give bigger rewards to people who behaved morally (Rosenblatt et al., 1989). Death-primed participants have more negative attitudes towards those who do not fully share their world view (e.g., Jews; Greenberg et al., 1990). From a terror management perspective, moral judgment is a special kind of judgment, since moral judgments always implicate the cultural world view.

This basically says the exact opposite of your statement that "I don't think anything can happen that will turn evolution in a different direction. So, no, our moral intuition would face a severe challenge and overcome it eventually to assure survival of our species."

By "survival of our species", I assume you mean something that maintains the inevitable global harmony you are advocating.

In numerous discussions I've expressed the opinion that when people are fearful of their safety, harmony is anything but inevitable. Your article seems to support this view, as does the entirety of human history.

The article you quoted supports my position on moral intuition as does Haidt's paper from 2000 that I linked earlier. Here's an excerpt from the NY Times that I picked up a while back:

"According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."

The animal kingdom is full of examples of behavioural change between infants and adults, so I wouldn't assume too much, especially given that the article you provided clearly notes the importance of socialisation and culture in intuitive moral judgements.

 

[joe1776]

I'll just focus on the article, as we won't make progress with any of the other stuff.



Thanks for providing the article. It is interesting, but doesn't actually support your worldview.

First, the article says people arrive at moral judgement by 2 methods, systematic (reason) and heuristic (intuition). The latter tends to be more common in any issue involving conflict or emotion, whereas the former can be activated if one is more detached or is not under pressure.

In addition, it notes "The model is a social model in that it de-emphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals, emphasizing instead the importance of social and cultural influences."

This is exactly what I said, intuition is significantly dependent on culture:

Children in Orissa constantly encounter spaces and bodies structured by purity, and they learn to respect the dividing lines. They learn when to remove their shoes, and how to use their heads and feet in a symbolic language of deference (as when one touches one’s head to the feet of a highly respected person). They develop an intuitive sense that purity and impurity must be kept apart. By participating in these interlinked custom complexes, an Oriya child’s physical embodiment comes to include experiences of purity and pollution. When such children later encounter the intellectual content of the ethics of divinity (e.g., ideas of sacredness, asceticism, and transcendence), their minds and bodies are already prepared to accept these ideas, and their truth feels self-evident (see Lakoff, 1987).

American children, in contrast, are immersed in a different set of practices regarding space and the body, supported by a different ideology. When an American adult later travels in Orissa, he may know how rules of purity and pollution govern the use of space, but he knows these things only in a shallow, factual, consciously accessible way; he does not know these things in the deep cognitive/affective/motoric way that a properly enculturated Oriya knows them.

Here you have a clear explanation. of cultural differences that result in a fundamentally different perception of certain aspects of reality. This is hard to reconcile with the assumption of inevitable harmony.

Also, as I noted about the problems that may occur when one's survival is at stake:

When people are asked to think about their own deaths, they appear to suppress a generalized fear of mortality by clinging more tightly to their cultural world view. Death-primed participants then shift their moral judgments to defend that world view. They mete out harsher punishment to violators of cultural values, and they give bigger rewards to people who behaved morally (Rosenblatt et al., 1989). Death-primed participants have more negative attitudes towards those who do not fully share their world view (e.g., Jews; Greenberg et al., 1990). From a terror management perspective, moral judgment is a special kind of judgment, since moral judgments always implicate the cultural world view.

This basically says the exact opposite of your statement that "I don't think anything can happen that will turn evolution in a different direction. So, no, our moral intuition would face a severe challenge and overcome it eventually to assure survival of our species."

By "survival of our species", I assume you mean something that maintains the inevitable global harmony you are advocating.

In numerous discussions I've expressed the opinion that when people are fearful of their safety, harmony is anything but inevitable. Your article seems to support this view, as does the entirety of human history.

The animal kingdom is full of examples of behavioural change between infants and adults, so I wouldn't assume too much, especially given that the article you provided clearly notes the importance of socialisation and culture in intuitive moral judgements.

Earlier I explained to you that "all knowledge begins in the senses." Since we humans can't see, hear, smell or taste the difference between moral right and wrong, we must feel it. You probably gave this little thought before you jumped into your explanation for conscience founded on reason.

If not for the intuitive feelings we refer to as conscience, we humans would know absolutely nothing about morality. But, as David Hume pointed out a few centuries back, we humans are much too proud of our ability to reason.

Having learned from conscience , we then set about to make laws and rules to improve on what we had learned from the Master. The sacred texts of religion offer moral advice which, at best is useless, and at worst creates biases capable of sending moral judgments off course. Here's an example:

The Bible's commandment on killing might be interpreted as a general rule or an absolute rule. If it interpreted as a general rule, allowing for exceptions, it is useless because the guidance is needed to judge specific cases which might be exceptions.

If it is interpreted as an absolute rule: we should never kill, then it conflicts with the judgments of conscience given a clear case of a killing in self-defense creating a bias.

At some point, we brilliant humans figured that what we needed was a more comprehensive law on killing, one which amounted to an absolute rule to guide judgments in future cases which happen in an infinite variety. This is about as smart as trying to write rules for the construction of snowflakes.

In the 50 states of the USA, we have 50 massive laws which are all different. The same killing might be justified in some states but not in others.

Three years after Jon Haidt's 2000 research, 15 years ago Harvard's Moral Sense Test went online. It's still there. The introduction message is still there. I've clipped it some and added bold for you to read:

About the Moral Sense Test: Nothing captures human attention more than a moral dilemma. Whether we are soap opera fanatics or not, we can’t help sticking our noses in other people’s affairs, pronouncing our views on right and wrong, permissible and impermissible, justified or not. For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that our moral judgments arise from rational, conscious, voluntary, reflective deliberations about what ought to be. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is a slowly developing capacity, founded entirely on experience and education, and subject to considerable variation across cultures. With the exception of a few trivial examples, one culture’s right is another’s wrong. We believe this hyper rational, culturally-specific view is no longer tenable. The MST has been designed to show why and offer an alternative.

Most of our moral intuitions are unconscious, involuntary, and universal, developing in each child despite formal education. When humans, from the hunter-gathers of the Rift Valley to the billionaire dot-com-ers of the Silicon Valley generate moral intuitions they are like reflexes, something that happens to us without our being aware of how or even why. We call this capacity our moral faculty.

Our aim is to use data from the MST, as well as other experiments, to explain what it is, how it evolved, and how it develops in our species, creating individuals with moral responsibilities and concerns about human welfare. The MST has been designed for all humans who are curious about that puzzling little word “ought” — about the principles that make one action right and another wrong, and why we feel elated about the former and guilty about the latter.

Edge: THE MORAL SENSE TEST

This study could be better designed in my opinion because it offers moral dilemmas and researchers haven't figured out yet that moral dilemmas involve the reasoning function as well as moral intuition. If optional actions A and B both feel intuitively wrong. The reasoning function of the brain is probably going to weigh the consequences and choose the one that does the lesser harm.(supporting my theory on this, I've read that two parts of the brain light up under fMRI when people are thinking about moral dilemmas)

Nevertheless, preliminary findings of the Moral Sense Test were showing similar results across all demographics and cultures.(I read them four-five years ago and tried to find them again for you but gave up after 20 minutes. Then I read that they aren't being published any longer since the findings might influence the on-going test)

 

[Augustus]

Earlier I explained to you that "all knowledge begins in the senses." Since we humans can't see, hear, smell or taste the difference between moral right and wrong, we must feel it. You probably gave this little thought before you jumped into your explanation for conscience founded on reason.

Please read the following as you are misrepresenting my position.

It's not a 'rationalist' position, it is the idea that conscience relies on cultural axioms in order to reach judgement, which is the same position as Haidt. We are the products of our culture, and there is plenty of science to show this.

the article says people arrive at moral judgement by 2 methods, systematic (reason) and heuristic (intuition).

Having learned from conscience , we then set about to make laws and rules to improve on what we had learned from the Master. The sacred texts of religion offer moral advice which, at best is useless, and at worst creates biases capable of sending moral judgments off course.

So, to clarify, are you saying that moral judgement are influenced by man-made cultural dimensions?

If religion can negatively effect moral judgement, why can't it affect them positively? Seems irrational to me.

Three years after Jon Haidt's 2000 research, 15 years ago Harvard's Moral Sense Test went online. It's still there. The introduction message is still there. I've clipped it some and added bold for you to read:

Again, if you hadn't misrepresented my arguments, you would realise that I'm not arguing for the "hyper-rational" position that the article considers untenable.

Morality can rely on intuition of reasoned judgement in certain situations. In situations where it is intuitive, it relies heavily on culturally specific axioms that can lead to people intuitively arriving at very different judgements on the same issue depending on culture. When people feel threatened, they 'circle the wagon' around their cultural worldview, and form negative perceptions of incompatible worldview.

While there may be some values that can be seen as more or less universal, there are countless other ones which are based purely on subjective cultural dimensions. Philospohically, this position is called value pluralism. This means that an assumption of inevitable global harmony based on a universal intuitive conscience is untenable as moral diversity is an inescapable aspect of large scale human society.

I quoted the parts of your paper which support this position. Have you got any response to this, particularly the evidence from the paper you handpicked to support your position, rather than arguing against a position I don't hold?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Others, like Islam and Shintoism, have been guided by ideals of integrating the whole human race under the umbrella of a uniform, overarching cultural hegemony or common civilization.

I'm pretty sure "Shintoism" is a typo here.

 

[joe1776]

Please read the following as you are misrepresenting my position.

I didn't misrepresent your position because you have been taking a rationalist position since the beginning. You only began claiming that yours was an intuitionist position after I linked you to John Haidt and you found a Wikipedia article on the foundation of the intuitionist theory.

Before that you wrote that religion caused the abolition of slavery. The sacred texts of religion and their interpretations are products of reason. That's a rationalist position.

You also wrote that "For me, conscience relies on axioms from which to reason, and these axioms are culturally dependent. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one." That's a rationalist position.

You have made the claim that yours is an intuitionist position but you're written nothing to support that claim.

So, to clarify, are you saying that moral judgement are influenced by man-made cultural dimensions?

No.

If religion can negatively effect moral judgement, why can't it affect them positively? Seems irrational to me.

Example: When the sixth commandment is interpreted as a general rule, it is useless as a moral guide because we need guidance in specific situations which could be exceptions to the rule.

If the commandment is interpreted as an absolute rule "We should never kill" then it will become a bias, conflicting with conscience, in a case of a killing in self-defense.

So, the products of moral reasoning like the interpretations of the Ten Commandments can be negative (conflict with conscience), or neutral (not conflict with conscience) but never positive (superior to conscience).

Again, if you hadn't misrepresented my arguments, you would realise that I'm not arguing for the "hyper-rational" position that the article considers untenable.

I wouldn't know that from what you've written.

Morality can rely on intuition of reasoned judgement in certain situations.

The intuition of reasoned judgments? You have somehow gotten the unconscious mind and the conscious mind to collaborate. Give me an an example of how that works, please.

In situations where it is intuitive, it relies heavily on culturally specific axioms that can lead to people intuitively arriving at very different judgements on the same issue depending on culture. When people feel threatened, they 'circle the wagon' around their cultural worldview, and form negative perceptions of incompatible worldview.

You don't seem to have a clear idea of the difference between intuition and reason.

No one knows how we develop intuition but it emerges from the unconscious mind. But we learn from conscious reasoning. People learn to react to threats through the reasoning function of the conscious mind. They don't intuitively change and "circle their wagons."