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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 370491" data-attributes="member: 4720">Nothing personal intended with the "..it's a problem with the reader" bit.  I was having a bad day, and that tends to make my tongue a bit acidic.That aside, whether or not morality is an artificial construct, the statement that "Success and survival are the two greatest human virtues" will be the doom of humanity as a species.  Or have you failed to notice that all the most effective methods of reproductive success and survival we've developed rely upon harm to others of our kind?  Yeah, let's continue to encourage that behavior.  That'll help group survivability.That aside, the most animals follow a rather strict moral code.  It varies from species to species, but the effect is the same: they do what's right for themselves or what's right for the group (pack, herd, whatever) depending on the species.  Interestingly, from what I've seen in many years in the field is that the most successful species follow the group-first philosophy.  You could argue that ultimately, they're just doing what's most effective for propagating their genes rather than following some form of altruism, and you may be right.  Either way, the morality is imposed for a reason.For the record, I believe there's a higher arbiter of morality.  But it really doesn't matter much since about 95% of the morality "construct" given us by the world's religions agrees with the optimal survival strategy for the species.  Of course, we could probably have an interesting discussion about THAT, too.</blockquote>

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