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Where do you think morals come from?
In another thread on this site, someone popped up with the idea that morals are handed down to us by authority and that we follow them because we will be punished otherwise. This notion offended me enough that I had to respond in blog form. It is a sad state to be in, to suggest that the only reason why you are good is because you would be punished if you were not. It appeared to me that people might be mistaken about where morals come from, so I decided to lay it out:
http://www.dontfeedtheanimals.net/2011/04/overview-of-moral-evoluti...
In short, morality is a memetic device in which we use common sense to determine what is right and what is wrong. Authority may have the ability to enforce laws (arbitrary and otherwise) but they do not have any authority over what is right and what is wrong.
What do you think about it?
Tags: bad, evil, good, memetics, morality, morals, rationalism
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Freeman Dyson on -
I have throughlydestroyed all your points in the other thread. You add few new points here. Try respdonding to the points I made there. You start by saying in your blog:
"Morality is an evolutionary trait."
No, it isn't. That is a totally unprovable assumption.
"one that is derived out of common sense"
This term is so vague to be meaningless. You say morality is based on things like "common sense" and "gut feelings". That isn't an argument. Belief in God are based on the same justifications. It's a gut feeling that God exists. I feel him. You're going to have to do a lot better justifying morality than common sense and gut feelings.You don't believe that your view on morality is wrong, because you don't want to believe it. The thought of it makes you uncomfortable. It goes against what you think the world is, or want it to be. Even though all evidence says the opposite. You keep totally mixing up ought/is and keep insisting that things are that way because they SHOULD be that way.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on -
I hate to carry a conversation between two threads, but dude, every argument you made in the other thread was either cutting down a straw man or throwing up a red herring. You need to practice some intellectual honesty. Nazis and the Milgram experiment have nothing to do with where morals come from. After all, our desire to do good may be overridden by our desire to appease authority. That does not mean that authority supplants our sense of good. That is absolutely BONKERS to suggest.
Common sense, by the way, is not a gut feeling. Common sense is a democratic process. Look up memetics to understand how information propagates throughout society. Come back when you understand what you're trying to discuss here. So far, you have failed to address anything for what it is.
But thank you, I have decided to update the wording within the first paragraph to be more clear: Morality comes about through its own evolution; it is derived out of common sense and communal experience.
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Permalink Reply by Freeman Dyson on
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Of course those situations have something to do with where morality comes from. It proves that morality can easily be manipulated by environment, in other words, created, erased or changed by environment.
Democracy does not make right either. Something that is wrong does not become less wrong because a lot of people believe in it or support it. To the vast majority of people on earth, the idea that a higher power is pulling the strings is common sense. It is self evident to them. Just as you think morals are. You are falling into every trap, every hole, that every religious argument falls into. No serious question on Earth has ever been answered by common sense and never will be.
And please stop bringing pseudoscience by Dawkins and Harris in here. Neither has brought anything new or insightful to the table.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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Once again, I did not say common sense is self-evident. It is memetic. You are not arguing against the points I make. That is called a straw man.
You are, however, right about democracy not being right all the time. After all, if that were the case, then I would be forced to say god exists simply because so many people believe in him. I know, however, that it is not the case. So much for common sense, eh?
But to your first point, the only one that addresses something I actually said, you are mistaken in your understanding of what is being manipulated when authority conflicts with morality. It is not morality that changes, as we can observe from the outside, the person is still doing something WRONG. We will never say that he is doing something right BECAUSE he is in authority. If you think authority gives you supreme righteousness, well, I never want to be under your authority.
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Permalink Reply by Freeman Dyson on
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Jesus, man. Memes don't even have a mechanism and aren't even fucking real. Neither is anything else in the Selfish Gene. Even the people who used to endorse them, don't anymore. Dawkins seems quite embarrassed about them actually and quickly changes the subject whenever somebody asks him about it. They were brought up in in a throwaway fashion in an outdated pop science book from nearly 40 years ago, and where has the idea gone since? Nowhere. There isn't a memeticist, or memeticist researcher alive. Not one single class in academia that even mentions the idea.
That entire book is also based on the false premise that the gene is the unit of selection. In short, don't believe anything Richard Dawkins says about anything.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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Memes were never meant to be taken so seriously, dude. It's just a handy way to describe how ideas permeate through society from an objective viewpoint. No college courses necessary. The people who DO take memetics too far by saying that we are just carriers for information are kinda kooky. They're like the people who look at quantum physics and say that we can change our reality if we think hard enough.
Now, do you want to address the point I made?
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Permalink Reply by cooper on -
This topic is so broad as to be impossible to address in these types of forums. Philosophers and theologians have all debated this for eons, and I doubt it will end now.
Andrew, in actuality in some cultures an appointed authority does have the right to determine right and wrong. Is this right? Well, in this culture it would not be, but in many cultures, both current and past, it is and or was.
As anyone who as even taken a class in which the "How is moral knowledge possible" question is asked knows you can spend three months or three years and you aren't going to have a right answer,
Moral knowledge exists and is relative to the social group in which THE moral sensibility is formed with the result that no moral truths are known to hold universally. The group my be a religious group or a primitive tribe it doesn't matter.How does is exist? The greatest thinkers in the world have and still do argue over it. I'm not even going to attempt it, I do that only when intoxicated and with very good friends.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew G on
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Hey cooper, thanks for your input. I just want to give you some encouragement because you appear to be overwhelmed. It is because people have been thinking about this for ages that we have the ability to get closer to the answer today. You see, someone comes up with a good idea and it sticks. That idea is then put through the ringer of experimentation and logic. There are some brilliant minds tackling this issue right now and their knowledge can be had quite easily. Sam Harris just published a book called The Moral Landscape where he argues, through his background in neuroscience, that morality can be scientifically determined. If his premise sticks, it means that people who would rather have it be a vacuous, undefinable concept need to reevaluate their stance. This is all to say that it's not too big a problem.
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Permalink Reply by Owen on -
This seems like an unnecessary debate. There are multiple definitions of morals and, therefore, multiple opinions on where they come from. I derive my sense of morality from what I read in my religion's doctrines. Other people who don't hold religious doctrine in such high esteem derive their sense of morality from somewhere else.
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Permalink Reply by K. E. Argonza on -
Evolutionary development that allowed us to develop and work together as a group; it increase our chances of survival in the long run.
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