Philosophical thread of the day: Is morality inherent to our human nature?

[Kahuna Burger]

regardless of dictionary definitions, many people use morality, ethics and empathy somewhat interchangably. While I don't, I interpreted the orriginal question that way.

 

[reveal]

regardless of dictionary definitions, many people use morality, ethics and empathy somewhat interchangably. While I don't, I interpreted the orriginal question that way.

The original question was "Is morality inherent to our human nature?"

That seems pretty cut and dry to me. Yes, people use the terms morality, ethics, and empathy interchangably. Morality builds upon a set of ethics which are established, in part, by empathy for others.

However, if we are to answer the question asked, you have to narrowly focus the scope of human understanding. Do human beings know, inherently, right from wrong? The answer is no. How could they? How can you know what is right and what is wrong if you're not taught what is right and what is wrong in your society?

Now, broaden that scope and you come to empathy and ethics. That sense of empathy, which I do believe is inherent, suddenly comes into practice. The person sees how others interact and feels a need to become part of the pack. This longing builds a sense of ethics based upon peer interaction. Said ethics form a sense of morality.

When presented with a situation in which peer interactivity is either limited or cut off completely, the "sense of self" inherent to all humans rears its head. RPG piracy, as has been presented here, becomes "less damaging" because the person does not see, or feel, any problems that are actually occuring, thereby cutting off the sense of empathy needed to form ethics.

 

[Umbran]

But we're not talking about empathy, we're talking about morality. All cultures have a set of rules that they call morality. They've been set up because generations of people have found what works best and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, these moralities are made into laws.

I think that is an incomplete picture. There is a solid argument that many societal mores have little to do with what works best, and instead have to do with maintenance of a particular societal structure, which may or may not have anything to do with what is actually best overall. People in power can create morals, and they may create them for less than altruistic reasons.

 

[reveal]

I think that is an incomplete picture. There is a solid argument that many societal mores have little to do with what works best, and instead have to do with maintenance of a particular societal structure, which may or may not have anything to do with what is actually best overall. People in power can create morals, and they may create them for less than altruistic reasons.

"Works best" can be anything. I purposefully left it vague. In some cultures, what works best may be what is needed to maintain the greater good. In some cases, it may be simply because a "benevolent" ruler needs more land to build his ego-stroking monument to himself that takes up half the city (think Nero).

 

[Darrin Drader]

Spoiler

testing

Just testing something. Ignore this post.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Spoiler

testing

You know me, I'm the curious type. I just had to highlight it.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

"Theft" is to me an extremely interesting concept.

We in the west live in a world where private ownership is not only allowed but valorized. (By "west" I'm talking about the nation states that are: Liberal Capitalist, White Euro-American, consider themselves Modernist, emphasize Rationalism & Individualism, & possess the largest economies & militaries.) Private ownership allows an individual the ability to not only bring up a family with the privilege earnt but also to pass this on to the next generation (i.e. inheritance). A "good" parent can thus provide material benefit to their children while a "bad" parent cannot. That is, the child of the "bad" parent, by the sins of their father, are not given an equal chance in the formative years of their life.

Back then to "Theft". We live in a world with extreme inequality with a deeply entrenched system which not only perpetuates this but increases the gap. Many of the children of "bad" parents grow up & find that they have been groomed in such a manner to not be best equiped to become a "good" parent. Some of these resort to aquiring wealth outside the systematic norm (i.e. commit crime), but this of course is not a riskfree venture & the prisons fill up with grown up children of "bad" parents.

By now you can probably guess where I am coming from. I consider the perpetuation of this unequal world to be a moral outrage & yet there are senior members of mine & your society that not only defend this but launch attack upon any attempt to change the status quo. I consider such figures to be the stooges of a morally bankrupt social structure. In short, they are the removed but present participant in every "theft".

I cannot hope to answer the nature versus nurture debate, by default I split it 50/50. Such fiqures seem to genuinely believe in what they are perpetuating. They have a background reason to act as they do having learned it from the "good" parents but also they, like everyone, do have a choice I think. Perhaps the continuation down this dark path points to humankind automatically losing our tenuous grasp of morality when given a chance to entrench beneficial inequality. Then again we have the example of most people from woeful backgrounds doing good in this world, which perhaps points to an inherantly moral human spirit?

 

[WayneLigon]

By now you can probably guess where I am coming from. I consider the perpetuation of this unequal world to be a moral outrage & yet there are senior members of mine & your society that not only defend this but launch attack upon any attempt to change the status quo.

And yet every society on Earth has, and always has, engaged in such things, from European tribes to Kalihari bushmen. That's not 'Western' society or 'wealthy First World' society, that's human society. Put three people in a room and you will eventually have an unequal distribution of whatever resources are available to them.

I think a morality is inherent in humans. Morality deals with issues of right and wrong. Those values are determined by society, not by anything inherent in the human animal itself, but it seems that creating a society is inherent in humans. Put three people together and you will get a society, with a leader and followers, laws, understandings, codes of behavior, the whole nine yards. You will also get morals appropriate to the situation and what the strongest (as in, 'most capable', not really the physically strongest) can impose on everyone else. (That also seems to be a kind of circular arguement; the person or group that succeeds in imprinting everyone else with their moral code and having it perpetuated is the 'most capable' aside and apart from any actual merits of the moral code involved. Note, too, that they may imprint people with a different moral code than they themselves possess.)

Humans can create almost any kind of society imaginable (and probably quite a few we cannot imagine) and each of those societies are going to have a different moral code (or none, but that's usually an artificial construct - it would be fascinating to try and create a closed society that espuses no moral code but I can't even begin to imagine how you'd do that or how you'd measure the results).

That means you are going to get some kind of morality, ie, any group of people is going to decide that X is Good and Y is Bad. What X and Y are, though, is totally up in the air. X usually will not be something like 'It is good to kill and eat babies' because that hurts the survival of the society in the long run but it can and has happened that a society chooses a self-destructive path. The survivors either leave and join another society, or there are no survivors and you're left with some stone rings and fire pits for future archeologists to puzzle over.

Also, no society is static. All of them change, and what was good and true at one point can become less good and true later, or even reverse itself and become something reviled. As society changes, so does morality.

 

[Yair]

Is morality inherent to our human nature?

Yes and no.
I believe human beings have a sense of morality, much like they have a sense for aesthetics (I know of one philosopher that thinks they are one and the same), logic, or color. Most see morality in much the same way, much like they see color similarly, and will indeed justify significant vices to themselves, wrapping them in layers of denial and rationalizations to ease their conscience.
I do not, however, think this is the case for most criminals.

It isn't that most criminals aren't moral, their moral sense functions just fine when they excercise it. It's more like they are walking with their moral eyes closed. From the little I've gathered, their disregard for morality stems from not looking at things from a moral angle at all. When forced to contemplate their actions morally, most will repent or show remorse to some extent, but that won't stop them the next time. They just don't use their moral sense to guide them. This could be manifested in outbursts of rage and anger where their moral sense is temporarily (but frequently) blinded, or in a more constant state of being.
And yes, I believe this applies to most serious criminals, from thugs to rapists.

And then there are those whose mind is screwed up, sociopaths that are just "color blind" and don't have "our" moral sense at all. But they are rare.

Of course, while we all share the same basic morality sense culture influences it just like it influences what is beautiful, right, or what language we speak.

So in conclusion while morality is inherent to human nature, many criminal's morality functions differently than the common man's, and some have no morality at all. This doesn't make them inhuman, not anymore than being color-blind or lame makes someone inhuman despite the fact that having color vision and two legs is inherent to human nature.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Not a simple answer; I believe it is depends on our culture, what is right and wrong are based on country, location, belief, parents, family, etc. Humans are a social animal and as such wired for right and wrong to survive in that social structure.