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The Problem of Morals

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Yes I would say so among other things. Also If people regard life as useless and unworthy of survival that leads to self destruction of humanity. Add love into the equation and life becomes worthy, and worthwhile. Moral principles that are accurate will preserve the person living by them, and be beneficial to others, and they'll have the opportunity to love. Love changes the logic of everything. I consider life worthwhile because of it. If I had no love then I'd be ambivalent about living and dying but I'm not. Even in the face of ceasing to exist, love is what makes life necessary and worthwhile. For me that means moral principles afford me the opportunity to love, and hopefully others will experience that for themselves in their lives. I have lost a lot of people, but I'm glad I knew them.

Like I said, this emotion feedback system has its pluses. It had to in order for us to survive. So I'm not saying it is entirely bad, just limited.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Yes, we all like our emotions right?:)

But, that's the point. The fault is not with science. The fault is with our own flawed nature.

Blame the universe!!!

Wait the sentence "The fault is with our own flawed nature." is not a scientific fact, it is a subjective judgment. OMG, you are irrational, flawed, not sane, abnormal and all the rest; and not a human like the of us. ;) :D Please report yourself to science and prepare to be changed to a true scientific human. :p
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Some claim morals is not something which "science" can deal with

That's more or less the conclusion of 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who "found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and that it is not obvious how one can coherently move from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones." Philosophers call this the is-ought problem. One cannot get from an knowledge of what is to what ought to be.

Sam Harris disagrees, and makes his case in this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions?language=en#t-90307 If you prefer reading a transcript, it can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions/transcript?language=en

Here's a teaser from the transcript to give you a sense of whether this would be of interest to you, since I might not be addressing the matter of interest to you here. You'll see that Harris doesn't frame the matter as you do - a contest between feeling and reason: "instead of increasing the likelihood of making correct choices, we rely on our feelings to make value judgements. Those values are generally not the best choices for us but the choices that will provide the desired feeling."


I'm going to speak today about the relationship between science and human values. Now, it's generally understood that questions of morality -- questions of good and evil and right and wrong -- are questions about which science officially has no opinion. It's thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value. And, consequently, most people -- I think most people probably here -- think that science will never answer the most important questions in human life: questions like, "What is worth living for?" "What is worth dying for?" "What constitutes a good life?"

So, I'm going to argue that this is an illusion -- that the separation between science and human values is an illusion -- and actually quite a dangerous one at this point in human history. Now, it's often said that science cannot give us a foundation for morality and human values, because science deals with facts, and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres. It's often thought that there's no description of the way the world is that can tell us how the world ought to be. But I think this is quite clearly untrue. Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.​

I don't know that I agree with Harris that we can determine ought any way other than intuitively - what feels right and wrong - and then apply reason in order to devise a set of norms to facilitate that goal. He refers to morality being centered around the fact that certain living things can suffer, and that this is undesirable. I agree, but I can't give you a reason for feeling that way. It's an intuition. It's simply what I want. I could give reasons for not wanting to suffer myself that are purely based in reason and the understanding that I don't want to suffer, but in order to want to apply that attitude to others, I need empathy, not reason.

Still, one can decide what kind of a person one wants to be based on the expected life it produces, and this could be pure reason applied to experience. For example, I could decide that the best life is the one where I have maximum wealth or power, and choose a life intended to realize those goals based in reason without any moral intuition. A wiser person might decide that if he can do it, he ought to embody the classic virtues such as integrity, loyalty, kindness, etc.. to maximize life's experience. If that ever happens, then we can say his kindness is not borne of any moral intuition, but reason. Don't con men try to imitate this for advantage, until they reveal their actual intentions. Imagine having no other intentions apart from enjoying the benefit that a life well lived offers.

But it also occurs to me that you may be discussing the battle between man's higher self and his animal self when you talk about feelings versus science. Freud's language is adequate for this purpose, where Freud sees the superego attempting to restrain the id, the superego being the higher self that reasons using symbols and has moral inclinations, the id being the base urges, which you alluded to with the words "Fear, anger, love, lust etc... are triggered by a subconscious process, which is not a rational process." And of course, Freud's ego, which is the observer, and receives instructions from both the id and superego, often depicted like this:

upload_2021-10-26_10-51-50.jpeg


Or the man can be seen as reason mediating between the moral faculty and the baser desires. That's what Plato does with his metaphor of a chariot rider with reins: "The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature."

You might have been referring to this struggle. If this is what you mean by the problem of morals - how to keep the higher self in charge, yes, that's the human condition, and we must all mediate between these conflicting desires. We have two wills, the one from reason or reason plus conscience, and one inherited from our pre-human ancestors. To a neuroscientist, these are the cortex and the limbic system.

This is also a good formulation for discussing free will, which becomes more interesting when we consider that we have two wills that can be in conflict. For example, a smoker wants to quit, and repeatedly experiences a will to smoke and a will not to do so at the same time. Think of it as a tug-of-war. For many, the urge to smoke prevails some of the time. Maybe after three days of successfully reining in that urge, one backslides and has a cigarette. This isn't a moral issue at all unless one wants to call smoking immoral.

Was any of this what you were looking for?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
That's more or less the conclusion of 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who "found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and that it is not obvious how one can coherently move from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones." Philosophers call this the is-ought problem. One cannot get from an knowledge of what is to what ought to be.

Sam Harris disagrees, and makes his case in this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions?language=en#t-90307 If you prefer reading a transcript, it can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions/transcript?language=en

Here's a teaser from the transcript to give you a sense of whether this would be of interest to you, since I might not be addressing the matter of interest to you here. You'll see that Harris doesn't frame the matter as you do - a contest between feeling and reason: "instead of increasing the likelihood of making correct choices, we rely on our feelings to make value judgements. Those values are generally not the best choices for us but the choices that will provide the desired feeling."


I'm going to speak today about the relationship between science and human values. Now, it's generally understood that questions of morality -- questions of good and evil and right and wrong -- are questions about which science officially has no opinion. It's thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value. And, consequently, most people -- I think most people probably here -- think that science will never answer the most important questions in human life: questions like, "What is worth living for?" "What is worth dying for?" "What constitutes a good life?"

So, I'm going to argue that this is an illusion -- that the separation between science and human values is an illusion -- and actually quite a dangerous one at this point in human history. Now, it's often said that science cannot give us a foundation for morality and human values, because science deals with facts, and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres. It's often thought that there's no description of the way the world is that can tell us how the world ought to be. But I think this is quite clearly untrue. Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.​

I don't know that I agree with Harris that we can determine ought any way other than intuitively - what feels right and wrong - and then apply reason in order to devise a set of norms to facilitate that goal. He refers to morality being centered around the fact that certain living things can suffer, and that this is undesirable. I agree, but I can't give you a reason for feeling that way. It's an intuition. It's simply what I want. I could give reasons for not wanting to suffer myself that are purely based in reason and the understanding that I don't want to suffer, but in order to want to apply that attitude to others, I need empathy, not reason.

Still, one can decide what kind of a person one wants to be based on the expected life it produces, and this could be pure reason applied to experience. For example, I could decide that the best life is the one where I have maximum wealth or power, and choose a life intended to realize those goals based in reason without any moral intuition. A wiser person might decide that if he can do it, he ought to embody the classic virtues such as integrity, loyalty, kindness, etc.. to maximize life's experience. If that ever happens, then we can say his kindness is not borne of any moral intuition, but reason. Don't con men try to imitate this for advantage, until they reveal their actual intentions. Imagine having no other intentions apart from enjoying the benefit that a life well lived offers.

But it also occurs to me that you may be discussing the battle between man's higher self and his animal self when you talk about feelings versus science. Freud's language is adequate for this purpose, where Freud sees the superego attempting to restrain the id, the superego being the higher self that reasons using symbols and has moral inclinations, the id being the base urges, which you alluded to with the words "Fear, anger, love, lust etc... are triggered by a subconscious process, which is not a rational process." And of course, Freud's ego, which is the observer, and receives instructions from both the id and superego, often depicted like this:

View attachment 57046

Or the man can be seen as reason mediating between the moral faculty and the baser desires. That's what Plato does with his metaphor of a chariot rider with reins: "The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature."

You might have been referring to this struggle. If this is what you mean by the problem of morals - how to keep the higher self in charge, yes, that's the human condition, and we must all mediate between these conflicting desires. We have two wills, the one from reason or reason plus conscience, and one inherited from our pre-human ancestors. To a neuroscientist, these are the cortex and the limbic system.

This is also a good formulation for discussing free will, which becomes more interesting when we consider that we have two wills that can be in conflict. For example, a smoker wants to quit, and repeatedly experiences a will to smoke and a will not to do so at the same time. Think of it as a tug-of-war. For many, the urge to smoke prevails some of the time. Maybe after three days of successfully reining in that urge, one backslides and has a cigarette. This isn't a moral issue at all unless one wants to call smoking immoral.

Was any of this what you were looking for?

Short answer:
That values are facts is correct, the problem is that they are subjective facts and science only deal with the objective. Science can't test which of 2 different subjective value facts is objective with evidence.
It is so simple, once you get that there are not just objective facts.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Genetic drift, culture, like religious beliefs. Experience, we all have different lives which develop our brains in different ways. Our brains are very malleable throughout our lives. We may start with a common set of DNA with whatever drift might exist, but at birth our brains start to develop independent of that.
Our brain is constantly changing.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-brain-plasticity-2794886

Artificial Intelligence?
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
The question of morals is pretty complex, but I believe the biggest factor involved is feelings.
I know there are cultural factors, experiential factors, theological factors, still I think it mostly boils down to what you feel is right or wrong. These other factors contribute to what you feel is right or wrong.

Some claim morals is not something which "science" can deal with, and I generally agree.

A pure moral relativist takes the stance that nothing can be said to be "good" or "bad". For example, for the relativist, torturing and then slowly eating alive babies and kittens is no worse than being a loving, nurturing parent.

So if you're taking the stance of a moral relativist, then I think we have to accept your claims in the OP.

But if you allow us to say that some things are morally "better" than others, then I think science can be used to understand morality.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
The fault is that science does not exist outwith our flawed nature.

The universe does, we just happen to be part of it.
Emotions have carried us quite a ways, it's true but at some point we will have to decide whether it limitations outweigh its benefits.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Used to be my interest when I was younger but at the time, it was more trying to emulate intelligence than actual intelligence.
AI has advanced quite a bit since.

The Most Advanced AI in the World explains what AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning are! | R-bloggers

Think, just for curiosity's sake. Don't you think that most of what you have said about our "feelings" are not based on empirical evidence but your own "feelings"? Or do you have another theory of knowledge?
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
A pure moral relativist takes the stance that nothing can be said to be "good" or "bad". For example, for the relativist, torturing and then slowly eating alive babies and kittens is no worse than being a loving, nurturing parent.

So if you're taking the stance of a moral relativist, then I think we have to accept your claims in the OP.

But if you allow us to say that some things are morally "better" than others, then I think science can be used to understand morality.

Possibly, but can science make the choices which benefit our individual emotional well being? Maybe in the future when the brain and consciousness are better understood.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Think, just for curiosity's sake. Don't you think that most of what you have said about our "feelings" are not based on empirical evidence but your own "feelings"? Or do you have another theory of knowledge?

A lot of it is observation, but that anecdotal. Neuroscience is providing some evidence, but my view about the problem with emotions and morals I haven't see any studies which directly support. I don't really find any studies looking in this direction.

My feelings, ultimately yes, I am a victim of being human. So I feel enthusiasm for new ideas.
 

1213

Well-Known Member
The question of morals is pretty complex, but I believe the biggest factor involved is feelings.
I know there are cultural factors, experiential factors, theological factors, still I think it mostly boils down to what you feel is right or wrong....

I disagree with that. All though for many good and right may be a feeling-based idea. For example, the idea, do other what you want to be done to you is rational and logical idea. the whole idea comes to that, whatever right you take, you also give to others. For example, if I would steal, I would give the same right for others, because I would have nothing to defend that i only have that right. And this means, if I don't want that people steal from me, i don't do that to others.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
A lot of it is observation, but that anecdotal. Neuroscience is providing some evidence, but my view about the problem with emotions and morals I haven't see any studies which directly support. I don't really find any studies looking in this direction.

My feelings, ultimately yes, I am a victim of being human. So I feel enthusiasm for new ideas.

Thats not a problem. Its always good to think I suppose.

This is a vast subject. I think people are crazy about it. From philosophers to scientists are raving mad about this subject. You might find some interesting reads in Moores institute research on perceptual studies.

Cheers.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Possibly, but can science make the choices which benefit our individual emotional well being? Maybe in the future when the brain and consciousness are better understood.

Ok, it seems like you'd like us to focus on emotions. I could argue that good health is a strong component of emotional well being, but I'll set that aside for now - no worries.

First I'd say that cognitive scientists give "feelings" and "intuitions" far more credibility than they used to. In cog. sci. circles they use the term "expert intuition", but we can use "feelings" just as well.

Imagine you're watching a tournament chess game between two chess masters. Their expertise is not in question. They became masters by performing consistently well over hundreds of tournaments. But if you ask them to explain how they made their last move, they will be unable to accurately explain themselves. And they might very well say things like "it felt right". The bottom line here is that MUCH of what humans are good at, cannot (yet) be verbalized. How does the master mechanic quickly diagnose what's wrong with your car? She listens to the engine and says "that doesn't sound right". Computer programmers talk about "code smell". They look at some code and say "that doesn't smell right" :)

Next, I'd look at motivation science. Much of what motivates humans isn't widely acknowledged. More money? Not so much. A big factor in emotional well being is being masterful or if not that, at least competent. "Being better, is better." If you're a good cook, then it's probably the case that the act of making a great meal is gratifying. The same goes for chess players, tennis players and musicians. This is all predicted by motivation science.

Jaak Panksepp(?) studied the play drive in mammals. (It's probably true for crows and parrots as well.) ALL mammals have strong "play" drives, and it doesn't go away when an individual matures. Neuroscientists understand more and more how serotonin and dopamine and cortisol and such impact our well being. When mammals play, the "good" brain chemicals get engaged.

I could go on, but I hope you get my drift. Science can already help us predict behaviors that will improve our emotional well being.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
That's more or less the conclusion of 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who "found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and that it is not obvious how one can coherently move from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones." Philosophers call this the is-ought problem. One cannot get from an knowledge of what is to what ought to be.

Sam Harris disagrees, and makes his case in this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions?language=en#t-90307 If you prefer reading a transcript, it can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_answer_moral_questions/transcript?language=en

Here's a teaser from the transcript to give you a sense of whether this would be of interest to you, since I might not be addressing the matter of interest to you here. You'll see that Harris doesn't frame the matter as you do - a contest between feeling and reason: "instead of increasing the likelihood of making correct choices, we rely on our feelings to make value judgements. Those values are generally not the best choices for us but the choices that will provide the desired feeling."


I'm going to speak today about the relationship between science and human values. Now, it's generally understood that questions of morality -- questions of good and evil and right and wrong -- are questions about which science officially has no opinion. It's thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value. And, consequently, most people -- I think most people probably here -- think that science will never answer the most important questions in human life: questions like, "What is worth living for?" "What is worth dying for?" "What constitutes a good life?"

So, I'm going to argue that this is an illusion -- that the separation between science and human values is an illusion -- and actually quite a dangerous one at this point in human history. Now, it's often said that science cannot give us a foundation for morality and human values, because science deals with facts, and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres. It's often thought that there's no description of the way the world is that can tell us how the world ought to be. But I think this is quite clearly untrue. Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.​

I don't know that I agree with Harris that we can determine ought any way other than intuitively - what feels right and wrong - and then apply reason in order to devise a set of norms to facilitate that goal. He refers to morality being centered around the fact that certain living things can suffer, and that this is undesirable. I agree, but I can't give you a reason for feeling that way. It's an intuition. It's simply what I want. I could give reasons for not wanting to suffer myself that are purely based in reason and the understanding that I don't want to suffer, but in order to want to apply that attitude to others, I need empathy, not reason.

Still, one can decide what kind of a person one wants to be based on the expected life it produces, and this could be pure reason applied to experience. For example, I could decide that the best life is the one where I have maximum wealth or power, and choose a life intended to realize those goals based in reason without any moral intuition. A wiser person might decide that if he can do it, he ought to embody the classic virtues such as integrity, loyalty, kindness, etc.. to maximize life's experience. If that ever happens, then we can say his kindness is not borne of any moral intuition, but reason. Don't con men try to imitate this for advantage, until they reveal their actual intentions. Imagine having no other intentions apart from enjoying the benefit that a life well lived offers.

But it also occurs to me that you may be discussing the battle between man's higher self and his animal self when you talk about feelings versus science. Freud's language is adequate for this purpose, where Freud sees the superego attempting to restrain the id, the superego being the higher self that reasons using symbols and has moral inclinations, the id being the base urges, which you alluded to with the words "Fear, anger, love, lust etc... are triggered by a subconscious process, which is not a rational process." And of course, Freud's ego, which is the observer, and receives instructions from both the id and superego, often depicted like this:

View attachment 57046

Or the man can be seen as reason mediating between the moral faculty and the baser desires. That's what Plato does with his metaphor of a chariot rider with reins: "The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature."

You might have been referring to this struggle. If this is what you mean by the problem of morals - how to keep the higher self in charge, yes, that's the human condition, and we must all mediate between these conflicting desires. We have two wills, the one from reason or reason plus conscience, and one inherited from our pre-human ancestors. To a neuroscientist, these are the cortex and the limbic system.

This is also a good formulation for discussing free will, which becomes more interesting when we consider that we have two wills that can be in conflict. For example, a smoker wants to quit, and repeatedly experiences a will to smoke and a will not to do so at the same time. Think of it as a tug-of-war. For many, the urge to smoke prevails some of the time. Maybe after three days of successfully reining in that urge, one backslides and has a cigarette. This isn't a moral issue at all unless one wants to call smoking immoral.

Was any of this what you were looking for?

What I see is our system of emotions/feelings is a system of reward/punishment. The reward being the feelings we desire, the punishment being the feelings we do not desire. The basic subconscious system without conscious interference. Maybe Freud's id. Consciousness comes in and starts to observe how rewards and punishments are being caused. IOW what behavior makes of feel "good" and which feel "bad". From that observation we start to develop the ideal situation where it is all reward i.e. heaven. The superego is what we think we ought to be to achieve this state of heaven. Consciously I suspect we deal with the id, the base system of punishment and reward developed by evolution and the ideal we've created of that would bring constant reward.

IMO, this ideal of the superego which we develop is itself flawed. It is what we think would bring about the feelings we desire. Doesn't mean it actually would but it is our best guess.

So we end up with different religions, spiritual ideology of how to achieve this desired state.

Could science enable us to bring about this desired state? Maybe but I suspect we still don't know enough about the brain or even exactly what we want yet to use science.

Though not really the point. The point is the flaws is our emotional system and the complaint that science can't help us there. So maybe the problem is not the emotional system but our lack of understanding of it.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I disagree with that. All though for many good and right may be a feeling-based idea. For example, the idea, do other what you want to be done to you is rational and logical idea. the whole idea comes to that, whatever right you take, you also give to others. For example, if I would steal, I would give the same right for others, because I would have nothing to defend that i only have that right. And this means, if I don't want that people steal from me, i don't do that to others.

Yes, that is rational, logical. Ultimately scientific.
However our feelings can get in the way of this.

So then why do people steal? I imagine there are exceptions but IMO people usually steal for pleasure. Logic may give you the better answer, but the best answer may not give a person the pleasure they are looking for.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What I see is our system of emotions/feelings is a system of reward/punishment. The reward being the feelings we desire, the punishment being the feelings we do not desire. The basic subconscious system without conscious interference. Maybe Freud's id. Consciousness comes in and starts to observe how rewards and punishments are being caused. IOW what behavior makes of feel "good" and which feel "bad". From that observation we start to develop the ideal situation where it is all reward i.e. heaven. The superego is what we think we ought to be to achieve this state of heaven. Consciously I suspect we deal with the id, the base system of punishment and reward developed by evolution and the ideal we've created of that would bring constant reward.

IMO, this ideal of the superego which we develop is itself flawed. It is what we think would bring about the feelings we desire. Doesn't mean it actually would but it is our best guess.

So we end up with different religions, spiritual ideology of how to achieve this desired state.

Could science enable us to bring about this desired state? Maybe but I suspect we still don't know enough about the brain or even exactly what we want yet to use science.

Though not really the point. The point is the flaws is our emotional system and the complaint that science can't help us there. So maybe the problem is not the emotional system but our lack of understanding of it.

OK, but I'm not seeing where this is an issue involving morals. I assume that we all identify that which we like and don't like, and attempt to maximize the former while minimizing the latter. We assemble a mental map over the course of time relating to how we think the world works so that we navigate it optimally. To do that, we use reason applied to experience, and develop a first estimate of how to do this, adapting according to outcomes - what works as expected and what doesn't.

None of this involves religion with me.

Regarding science, yes, if we mean informal science - the kind we all do every day, where we collect data, formulate a hypothesis, and test it empirically. Data collection: Maybe I see a menu online of a new restaurant, I see that it specializes in a cuisine I like, the price is right, and the location convenient. Hypothesis: I'll enjoy a meal there. Empirical testing: Try the restaurant and either confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis. Basically, any time one is applying reason to empirical evidence, he is doing what I have called informal science. By that definition, yes, learning to manage one's feelings, desires, and emotions is a scientific process, one of self-discovery (what makes one happy or unhappy) discovery of how the world works, and making choices to optimize conscious experience.

The moral faculty is a part of this, because it rewards and punishes, and we strive to optimize that experience as well, but it doesn't make this process a moral one.

This illustrates that reason is only a means to an end, and a Spock-like existence, where reason is the end, is empty. The rational is best used to manage and optimize the irrational, by which I mean any conscious experience not reasoning itself. If the irrational disappears, as with the anhedonia of depression, it often leads to suicide, so empty is pure thought without feeling.
 

DNB

Christian
Why do you aid your enemy? Because you "feel" it is the right thing to do? Because you "feel" compassion?
Your life is a conflict of emotions which you navigate the best you can in the hopes of achieving the correct feelings.
Not as the primary catalyst, nor the definitive catalyst - ultimately it is because you know and understand that it is the right thing to do despite not always feeling up to it.



Morality stems from "love"? Really? Is love not also an emotion?;)
Not in the manner that you described it. You made as a capricious and subjective arbitrator, it is not, it is an absolute that supersedes our emotions. In time, with maturity, our emotions will align with what's right and best for all parties - even admitting when one is wrong, which very few enjoy doing.
 
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