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Sir Taffsalot

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I just watched the finale of Breaking Bad. It was awesome! I've got to say that Brian Cranston is one Hell of an actor where his character does horrible things yet I still feel sympathy for him and want him to come out on top of every situation he gets in. But anyway it got me thinking about why people do bad things.

 

First of all what exactly is morality? The dictionary says it's "conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct." Whose rules exactly? To me morality is a man made definition. Animals do things like murder to survive. Eg defend themselves or hunt for food. As far as I know animals have no concept of write or wrong, just an understanding of what they need to do to survive. so am I right in assuming that morality is a man made concept? It seems that morality is defined from religion eg the ten commandments in the Holy Bible.

 

Here are two instances of morality I struggled with in my life:

 

Religion

 

Although I consider myself to be an atheist these days, I was brought up as a catholic. My family was quite strict and I was forced to go to confession every week. If I had committed a sin or not was irrelevant. The assumption was that I must have committed a sin therefore I must go and confess. The truth is that most weeks I had nothing to confess. But because I was forced to go to confession I felt I had to say something so I lied in confession. Ironic huh? I would say things like "I stole money from my parents", " I bullied other children in school", none of which ever happened. The priest who was always the same as I could tell by his silhouette in the confession box and tone of voice, always told me to say either "Ten Hail Mary's and 6 Our Father's", or 8 Hail Mary's and 9 Our Father's", or some variation of. . Assuming that the priest knew who I was as I went at the same time every week and like him, he recognized my voice, I came to two conclusions:

  • The punishment (as in what prayers and how many) does not fit the crime as I was always confessing the same sins (real or not) on a regular basis.
  • Confession forgives my sins but in no way stops me from repeating them. This went on for two years and instead of telling me to say "#Hail Mary's and # Our Father's", asking me why I would do it and what it would take for me to stop would be much more effective, therefore eliminating religion altogether.

This is based my experience with the Catholic religion so is not an attack on religion as a whole or the Catholic religion itself. I'm just relating a personal experience I had with religion.

 

Main question: Does religion define what is right or wrong?

 

Nature versus Nurture

 

A couple of years ago I read a newspaper article about two teenage brothers who went to a park and abducted two younger boys and took them to an abandoned industrial estate. They did horrible things to those two boys such as burn cigarettes into them, make them eat dog turds and when they got bored they smashed their brains in with bricks. I considered those two older boys to be absolute monsters. A week later a newspaper article came out about their parents. Apparently their mother hadn't left the house for a year because she was scared that people would see her face. Apparently every weekend her husband (the father of the two kids) would get pissed at the weekend and carve her face up with a knife. To me it's notsurprise those two kids turned into monsters and if they get married and start a family I have no doubt they will behave the same way to there loved ones. But where does one break the chain?

 

There is also various articles on psychopaths that suggest parts of the brain that produce empathy does not work. This implies that people are born who are not capable of feeling the emotions that result in the consequences of their actions eg harming other people or committing murder.

 

Main question: Are people born evil or are they made that way based on how they are brought up? If the latter how do you break the chain?

 

 

Sorry for the long post but your an intelligent lot and shouldn't have a problem with long thought out posts :)

Edited by Sir Taffsalot
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"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

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As far as I know animals have no concept of write or wrong, just an understanding of what they need to do to survive.

 

Correct, which is why we don't hold them to moral standards of behaviour. The key to judging someone's actions lies in whether they have the capacity to understand that what they're doing is wrong. If they don't (because they're non-sentient, mentally ill, or too young) we don't judge them as moral actors.

 

It seems that morality is defined from religion eg the ten commandments in the Holy Bible.

 

Main question: Does religion define what is right or wrong?

 

 

Most of the 10 Commandments (and there are more than one set of them) don't have anything to do with morality. There's nothing "moral" about working on a particular day of the week or worshipping idols or boiling a goat in its mother's milk.

 

In brief, religion does try to define what is moral and immoral, according to the divine commands of a supernatural being. However, there's no particular reason to assume that these divine commands are _actually_ moral. The Bible clearly endorses slavery as a moral action, for example, but even most fundamentalists today would not consider that moral. If there is no morality beyond obeying divine commands, then something can be moral one day and immoral the next, rendering the concept meaningless.

 

Morality is based on avoiding the suffering of conscious creatures, and promoting their well-being. You don't need religion for that; just a healthy sense of empathy and compassion.

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Personally I think that terms like right or wrong, moral or immoral are what they are, terms. What they describe however, is just something abstract that should serve as an explanation on why we are doing what we are doing, and why we should not do otherwise. Religion for example is just the next step, which should provide us a reason on where those abstract terms come from.

 

In this case I tempt to stick to Confuzius. Simple because his approach seams most reasonable to me.

 

Religion normally says that you should not kill because it is wrong, and God (or the Gods) don't want you to do something that is wrong. If you take away god, the allmighty individual which will punish you for you deeds, you are left without reason.

 

However, Confuzius said that you should not kill, because killing someone will most probably motivate someone else to kill you, which will than motivate someone else to kill him and so one. The problem here is, that it is not really possible to build a functional society on this behaviour. So not killing anyone is not neccessary because killing is "wrong", but because it is a neccessarity to keep our society working. Everybody has to play its role and everbody has to follow some rules.

 

To sum this up, it just makes sense to forbid some deeds. If you do so because out of logical reasons, or because you think they are wrong or just because you think that your god will punish you for those does not play a big role in the end. What is important is that you behave "right" to ensure social stability.

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There are 2 main schools for the origins of morality, both human, both separate from religion, Hume and Kant. According to Hume, morality is a human emotion that certain things "feel" right or wrong, and all our moral concepts fall back on those emotions, whatever we say to rationalize them after the fact. According to Kant, morality is defined by reason, basically something close to the golden rule... You imagine everyone follows the same moral code as you, and if society collapses, it's wrong, because of those reasons whatever we feel. You make your code universal and ask if it's rational.

 

In practice it's hard to tease them apart, since it's sort of a chicken-egg problem, whether emotion is doing the work or reason. I think it's both depending on the context for similar reasons as I'll bring up for the next issue in the next paragraph.

 

As for the nature/nurture debate, I think the question isn't framed well. First, the Sherrington model of mind, where humans are triggered by stimulus to act (like an S/R system) isn't correct, so the question which stim has priority, instinct or learning or even environment, is already misleading. I think neuroeconomics has a good answer, where there's an involved decisionmaking pipeline where the mind makes a "free" decision after feeling and weighing the influence of many factors, including instinct and learning. Which one you give priority to is ultimately up to you, granting that some stims may be more strongly felt for you than others and still have a role depending on the context, since you're making the decision, not a simple S/R trigger. Seriously, the people that debate the nature-nurture question IMO assume the brain is less complex than our game AI... No way.

 

Edit: my favorite system of morality, the one I think is best for determining what's actually right and wrong to do, comes from Scanlon's book What We Owe to Others. It's a justifacatory system, in that it's wrong to do things to other people you can't justify to them. You owe everybody treatment they can accept by its justification.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Animals do things like murder to survive. Eg defend themselves or hunt for food.

 

Animals do not murder. They probably do not plan about the act much, they do it out of necessity.

 

Main question: Does religion define what is right or wrong?

 

No. A society defines what is right and what is wrong. It could be a religious society, though, and catholic church is a society.

 

There are levels of societies:

*You are a society of one. You have some personal moral codes you consider right and wrong. They may be different from mine, but you probably inherit some personal moral code from your upbringing.

*Your family is a larger society. That unit has its own rules of right and wrong. No swearing or mommy gives you detention.

*This internet community is a society. Excessive trolling is wrong and Springheel will ban your sorry ass for it.

*Your country is a large society and has its laws and moral codes. No stealing. No tax evasion... or the state fines you or puts you in prison.

*The entire humanity is a huge society and we all are members. There are some fundamental morals about genocide and stuff like that.

 

Generally speaking, "right" is something that if everyone does it, there isn't much of a problem, but rather life is improved for everyone. If nobody steals, people can enjoy relaxing around their property.

 

"Wrong" is something that, if everyone keeps doing it, life gets quite miserable. If killing is a standard thing a society, then everyone is worried all the time, peeking around their shoulders, walking around armed and twitchy and life will not be much fun.

 

Main question: Are people born evil or are they made that way based on how they are brought up? If the latter how do you break the chain?

 

No. People aren't born evil. Some societies set moral codes that are problematic from the perspective of another society. In your example the moral code of the family was terribly wrong: it's okay to hurt people. They boys were corrupted and there was conflict with the outside world morals with their own. With their corrupted moral code, the boys would be completely unfit to live in a normal modern society.

 

How to break the chain? That family was a member of a larger society (the neighbourhood, the city, the country) and the larger society's responsibility is to react. When stuff like that happens, larger society has failed. Social services exist for stuff like this.

 

But once the children are 'broken' I fear they are lost and cannot be mended. They will probably end up in prison or dead and it is really a sad thing... But the chain is probably broken, if they failed to produce offspring they would abuse. Or if the social system 'saved' the offspring from their corruption.

 

So it looks like "wrong" comes from misaligned moral code of a smaller social unit with respect to the larger social unit.

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Morality is based on avoiding the suffering of conscious creatures, and promoting their well-being. You don't need religion for that; just a healthy sense of empathy and compassion.

Not for some "visceral" humans, it seems they need pain&suffering, tribulation and eventually "redemption".

It's why religion still exists today, 'cause it seems to work with them where a rational (mine and yours, demagogue's one, etc.) approach fails.

 

Damn human psychic dynamics :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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I think a morality - as itself - is not existing at all.

 

There are only interests - and around those interests "morality" is constructed.

There are different levels of interests - as are different kinds of moralities:

  • biological: It feels wrong to kill or harm your parents, children or brothers (=interest: success/survival/spreading of your genes) (instinct-based morals)
  • individual: People have belief systems - like old people or young parents should be granted more advantages, or rich people should pay more taxes to support poor people etc. (Marx :"Existence determines consciousness.") - People see the world usually - at least somewhat unconsciously - from their very own subjective standpoint. It is very common for people to confuse their own perspective and experiences with a superior "morality" position - but again, this "morality", at its base, comes from self-interest ("WeAreThe99% vs. Wall Street, Old vs. Young, Rich vs. Poor, GIfted vs. Dumb,...)
  • societal : The most modern - and most dynamically changing - morals. Stuff like religion or state dictated morals (Nazi morals vs. Communist States morals, Patriotism (USA, Nazi Germany) or - even disconnected from religion - sex (like more or less extreme feminism, gay pride,allowed promiscuity level,...). Those serve interests of groups of people who try to shape society by imposing morals to further their (more or less hidden) interests.

"Morality" and "Interests" are siamese twins.

I would even say that in some sense - morality is nothing else than propaganda for interests.

 

 

 

Nietzsche called one kind of morality "Slave Morality" - Slaves were teached to discern "good" and "evil".

Masters, on the other hand, were teached to discern "good" and "bad".

http://en.wikipedia....3slave_morality

 

Morality, as the problem of "good" or "evil", are totally subjective-, time-, place-, circumstances- etc.-dependent.

 

The accusation of being "immoral" usually comes from someone whose interests are threatened.

 

 

 

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"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

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"Main question: Does religion define what is right or wrong?"

 

Hell no! There are some religions that have out-right horrible practices/rules. I'm not a religious person, so I don't take any religions' side or anything like that either.

 

"Main question: Are people born evil or are they made that way based on how they are brought up? If the latter how do you break the chain?"

We're all evil to some extent. Some of us are just better at suppressing it than others. Have you ever gone out of your way to inconveeniance another person, even though all you get out of it is the satisfaction of seeing them worse off?

I have! I don't think people are born particularly evil. When we're born, we know how to scream and breathe and that's about it. As we age and we experience more things, (happiness, sadness, friendship, betrayal), it influences our outlook on things. If a person has a lot of friends in life that screw them over, or their parents routinely treat them like animals, they will go further down the path of evil.

 

On the other hand, if the vast majority of people you are close with in life treat you with respect, you are bound to spend less time thinking about revenge and other evil things.

 

Now you're making me think of a conversation in the game "NOLF" which touches this subject. A couple of guards were discussing this very topic. hahaha

 

I believe an exact quote is "Like it or not, we are all a product of our environment!"

 

(a quote I generally agree with)

 

The funny part is, the other guard then says "Surely you're not suggesting that people aren't responsible for their actions!"

 

... they really get into the subject. I think you would enjoy the conversation.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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Religion defines is OWN morality and principles, this is the nasty trick, and it's a trick that million persons seem to love (maybe because they can be "evil" in a safe way, there's the misericordia dei above all and for all sinners, in the Christianity case).

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Clearly morality isn't universal. There's variation between societies. And what people find acceptable can change over time.

 

But it's probably useful for a social species to have empathy for each other and natural for a social group to develop some expectations for behaviour. I'd not be confident that other social species don't do something similar ~ though obviously not with the writing it down in books.

Edited by jay pettitt
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Actually, empathy can also be observed by other species living in social groups, primates for example. For example they tend to share food with each other, in the expectation that they will get something in return later on.

 

If you look at this topic in an evolutional scale, thus meaning millions of years, things like society, law and religion are only a temporal side-effect which are trying to define some basic rules on "right" behaviour. However, empathy isn't something that requires any of this.

 

I think that over the millions of years it just was an advantage to show empathy for individuals living in social groups, so that this behaviour (or a general tendency to this behaviour) has survived in our genetic code, while other more selfish populations died out over the time. It's like with the above mentioned case, if you help someone else you help yourself on long sight because if your are in need you may get something in return.

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Hmm, I think most of morality, like the idea of a "self" even, is a rather recent innovation through language; not much exists outside of language I think. What I think is more instinctive are what you might call proto-norms, not themselves full blown morality, but they're on the way to it... The things studies find in pre-linguistic infants before they've been influenced too much by their home culture. Like a feeling of unfairness when one person gets something another person doesn't when they're equally situated, or a sense of understanding what another person is feeling.

 

I suspect the most important of all is the sense of authority that a person with power or control over a young life has (a parent or leader), that also comes very early on & very strongly (and BTW that humans share but our primate cousins don't) and that's the real engine of bringing the rules of morality into our minds. I think it's the real engine, but there may be different vehicles parents use to deliver it, religion or "discipline" or a worldview being a few, though I tend to think the packaging isn't as important as the engine.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Actually, empathy can also be observed by other species living in social groups, primates for example. For example they tend to share food with each other, in the expectation that they will get something in return later on.

 

If you look at this topic in an evolutional scale, thus meaning millions of years, things like society, law and religion are only a temporal side-effect which are trying to define some basic rules on "right" behaviour. However, empathy isn't something that requires any of this.

 

I think that over the millions of years it just was an advantage to show empathy for individuals living in social groups, so that this behaviour (or a general tendency to this behaviour) has survived in our genetic code, while other more selfish populations died out over the time. It's like with the above mentioned case, if you help someone else you help yourself on long sight because if your are in need you may get something in return.

Well, religion CAN override empathy too: think about human *ritual* sacrifices. Religion is something fearful sometimes, it can really reach some (perverted?) heights.

The other thing with equal (dark) power is sex, another "defining own-and-sometimes-overriding-good-sense principles" field: and no, I'm not referring to "articulated" kinky perversions like BSDM, just plain sex: think about FEMALE rape fantasies (=GIRLS having them): their only existance is really a cannonball for a "polite and educated" mind. But human reality is sometimes counterintuitive and deranged.

 

To be human is scary, my friends, better to be a taffer :D

 

:ph34r:

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Oh and wanted to say something about religion as a moral compass.

 

While religion isn't necessary for one to strive for a "good" life and seculatization is a great thing as it makes us think on our own and more critical, rather than just accepting what holy books give us...

 

One might argue that something precious is lost from the society. Many religions value moderation, patience, compassion and humility, but with the change in the larger society, these are not necessarily "good" traits in a person anymore.

 

The modern times are centered on the individual and we see a lot of arrogance, pride, greed and callous optimization emerging as "good" traits, especially in economics.

 

Anyone noticed this? Do you contribute to the society or do you contribute to yourself? Both are important, but during these days, the emphasis of "good" is pointing towards the narcissistic worship of the self. We are more individual than ever before.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Damn, why do the most interesting discussions start when I have the least time? :P

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The modern times are centered on the individual and we see a lot of arrogance, pride, greed and callous optimization emerging as "good" traits, especially in economics.

Yes, but these things are above the buried-inside animal level. They ARE (simply different) values: better, they are values in a rotated value space (excuse, it's the engeneering education :D): so there's nothing new or strange if they can form a moral system.

 

But watch "down", deep inside, and the things can really have an entangled quantum-like behaviour :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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they are values in a rotated value space (excuse, it's the engeneering education :D)

As a mathematician I could now start arguing with you. :P

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As a mathematician I could now start arguing with you. :P

First question and maybe the more obvious: there are some moral eigenvectors? :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Ah, just to throw in some more morality meat, here's one quote I think all videogamers (yeah, those bithin' never grown-up kids with no connection to the real world) know very well :D

 

  • You can't break a man the way you break a dog or a horse. The harder you beat a man, the taller he stands. To break a man's will, to break his spirit, you have to break his mind. Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd. It's anaesthetic; we need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. You must destroy that idea. Show them what a messy, terrible thing it is to kill a man, and then show them that you relish in it. Shoot to wound, then execute the wounded. Burn them. Take them in close combat. Destroy their preconceptions of what a man is and you become their personal monster. When they fear you, you become stronger. You become better. But let's never forget: it's a display, it's a posture, like a lion's roar or a gorilla thumping at its chest. If you lose yourself in the display, if you succumb to the horror, then you become the monster. You become reduced; not more than a man, but less—and it can be fatal.

 

It sounds pretty real world grown-up concept to me. And few men can stand these words.

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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I find it interesting that a game like TDM where the player plays the part of someone who's main objective is to commit a sin, stealing, is made to feel like it's morally OK. Eg the person you are stealing from is an evil rich git. The only exceptions that spring to mind are where you rob an abandoned tomb eg grave robbing. How would people feel about playing a thief that was a completely evil git?

 

Lord Goodheart was awarded a golden medallion for all the money he has donated to help improve the poor houses in Bridgeport. Tonight I'm going to steal his medallion. Why? Because I can. Also I need to sell it to my fence so I can get money to feed my mandrisolla addiction. If anyone gets in my way I'll just knock them out with my blackjack and risk giving them brain damage.

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"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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I find it interesting that a game like TDM where the player plays the part of someone who's main objective is to commit a sin, stealing, is made to feel like it's morally OK. Eg the person you are stealing from is an evil rich git. The only exceptions that spring to mind are where you rob an abandoned tomb eg grave robbing. How would people feel about playing a thief that was a completely evil git?

 

Lord Goodheart was awarded a golden medallion for all the money he has donated to help improve the poor houses in Bridgeport. Tonight I'm going to steal his medallion. Why? Because I can. Also I need to sell it to my fence so I can get money to feed my mandrisolla addiction. If anyone gets in my way I'll just knock them out with my blackjack and risk giving them brain damage.

'cause it's mitigated by Garrett memory off course :D

 

Garrett is a true anti-hero (for a more deadly&tragic version think to Daud in Dishonored): everyone who feels " I'm a cynical EVILworld-proof BADASS ( :D ), simply don't stand in my path" can relate to Garrett (or Daud).

This is not evil, this is.....survival of the fittest at its finest mixed with that sense of noble loneliness: truly the ability to live with own self, through own self, and in own self.

 

Problem is: anti-heroes are romantic, a fiction in a fiction, and real world "tough" persons are more gritty assholes than elegant badasses.....so wake up from the dreams :(

Am I sounding like a little girl? :P

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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The way I hold my moral compass is I treat others the way they treat me I think religion is a whole different ball of wax.

 

I personally don't believe in religion or atheism I just believe it is an irrelevant thing topic to being a person and it certainly doesn't control your morals. People forget that morals have always been with us it wasn't like raping/stealing/murder etc was ok then all of a sudden religion came along and people went "oh yeah maybe that is really bad to do" we all have this internal feeling that tells us whats right or wrong and it's upto us if we ignore it or follow it.

 

As for the stealing aspect, I love the idea of breaking into a place and stealing everything and sneaking through the shadows and never being caught BUT I would never do that in the real world because that is a horrible thing to do to another person and I wouldn't want that to happen to me so I wont do it to others.

 

Luckily we can explore our more darker thoughts and desires inside a computer game which does no harm to anyone!

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Don't have a lot of time but this is a great topic and I wanted to hit a few points:

 

Actually, empathy can also be observed by other species living in social groups, primates for example.

 

Yes, there have been numerous studies of primates that show that they have well-developed senses of fairness and empathy, including one where rhesus monkeys gave up extra food when they realized that accepting it caused a shock to a different monkey in a nearby cage. Chimps and other higher primates will help someone if they can figure out what the person is trying to do (like when the experimenter drops something and pretends to be unable to reach it, chimps will go and get it for them). Capuchin monkeys get very angry when they know someone is getting a better reward for the same task that they're doing. This seems like pretty solid evidence that a sense of morality is innate in social creatures, probably because the groups with a sense of empathy and fairness out-compete those that do not.

 

Hmm, I think most of morality, like the idea of a "self" even, is a rather recent innovation through language;

 

What do you mean by this? Higher primates and even elephants have been shown to have a sense of self.

 

 

One might argue that something precious is lost from the society. Many religions value moderation, patience, compassion and humility, but with the change in the larger society, these are not necessarily "good" traits in a person anymore.

 

It's hard to judge attributes as being moral or immoral. Morality is more about behaviour (or at least the intended consequences of the behaviour, if not the behaviour itself). You can't say that "compassion" is necessarily moral, for example, because someone could be so compassionate that they give away their family's life savings to someone in need, resulting in their family suffering. That would be an immoral act.

 

That said, religion has always been good at building communities and encouraging social bonds between people that would otherwise have little in common. Humans are in-group/out-group thinkers, and religion can build larger in-groups than those that family ties or enlightened self-interest could maintain. It is believed that organized religion was the precursor to the large architectural projects of early civlizations--without the common cause created by relgion, and the promises of rewards in the afterlife--it would have been difficult to mobilize the huge amount of manpower needed.

 

 

we all have this internal feeling that tells us whats right or wrong

 

Not psychopaths.

 

That internal feeling can only begin to function if the person has a healthy sense of empathy, and the ability to see others as human beings. Take away either of those pillars, and people are capable of all kinds of things.

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Somewhat interesting perhaps is that quite a few things we'd consider moral or humane behaviour can be explained by a clumsily evolved sense of empathy. Where we might expect generosity to evolve due to benefits from reciprocation or to be attractive to mates - well apparently we don't know where to stop and empathise with anything and everything. People on entirely other continents, different species etc etc.

 

Torture also requires a well developed sense of empathy. Or so I heard.

Edited by jay pettitt
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    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
    • Ansome

      Well then, it's been about a week since I released my first FM and I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by its reception. I had expected half as much interest in my short little FM as I received and even less when it came to positive feedback, but I am glad that the aspects of my mission that I put the most heart into were often the most appreciated. It was also delightful to read plenty of honest criticism and helpful feedback, as I've already been given plenty of useful pointers on improving my brushwork, level design, and gameplay difficulty.
      I've gotten back into the groove of chipping away at my reading and game list, as well as the endless FM catalogue here, but I may very well try my hand at the 15th anniversary contest should it materialize. That is assuming my eyes are ready for a few more months of Dark Radiant's bright interface while burning the midnight oil, of course!
      · 4 replies
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