(italics in original)...from a moral point of view, sex, race, and nationality, beauty, and intelligence ought to have no predictive value with respect to well-being...
Ethical naturalism cannot tell us what we ought to do in particular situations, to be sure, other than the general dictum that we ought to do what we think is best for ourselves and others, for those, that is we consider to be our community. — Janus
I'm trying to understand is whether we can say 'thou shalt not kill' is 'good' because in the environments we're familiar with those groups that failed to adopt this precept were outcompeted and either withered or went extinct. — JosephS
Can this sense of 'good' as correlative of group success (within certain environments) be the basis for an 'objective' moral good? — JosephS
The essay says that ‘everyone accepts’ that individuals are entitled to humane treatment - but I think it originates with Christian social philosophy. — Wayfarer
most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. — Echarmion
The essay says that ‘everyone accepts’ that individuals are entitled to humane treatment - but I think it originates with Christian social philosophy. — Wayfarer
Where do you people get this kind of bullshit from. Have you done any kind of historical or anthropological research at all before spewing this covertly racist bile?
The white-western man comes to save the fuzxy-wuzzies from their barbaric savagery...please! — Isaac
What does this have to do with racism? Religious law was important in all societies around the globe. The specific paths it took from there differed.
Christianity does have a message of universal equality that is absent from, say, Hinduism. It's difficult to say how operative this message was at any point in history, since there are so many factors influencing social norms. — Echarmion
The racism comes from the creation of a 'club' based on a white-western model. Graciously 'allowing' other cultures into that club on the sole basis that they're similar does nothing to diminish the extent to which the myth of the brutal savage is used to justify the systematic extinction of tribal cultures. — Isaac
Ok, but this seems completely unrelated to anything I wrote. — Echarmion
most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power. — Echarmion
To make the 'moral development' argument is to implicitly condone the idea that those less 'well-developed' are less moral. — Isaac
The only alternative is to include in your definition of 'religious law' any and all tribal spiritual beliefs — Isaac
which basically reduces to the original position of ethical naturalism you raised the point in opposition to - that all humans have a moral sense simply by virtue of being human. — Isaac
Well not necessarily only christian social philosophy, but in general most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power. — Echarmion
Obviously all humans have a "moral sense", or else morals wouldn't ever form. — Echarmion
It is clearly associated with the Christian doctrine that Christ died for all mankind. — Wayfarer
Previous cultures had no such ideal, society was rigidly stratified. — Wayfarer
The whole concept of human rights as developed in liberal political philosophy was unarguably a product of the Christian west; other cultures don’t necessarily share it, the PRC doesn’t have such a concept to this day. — Wayfarer
Plenty. There’s nothing ‘racist’ about it. — Wayfarer
it would be a matter of doing what we feel like doing, and that being best for society. — Isaac
Otherwise you end up in this rather contrary situation where you say that people should suppress their basic desires in favour of some goal (social welfare, say), but that the desire for this goal is biologically programmed. — Isaac
Cite me a collection of anthropologists stating that all non- or pre-Christian cultures do not think individuals are entitled to humane treatment. In fact, just one single source from your extensive research showing that non-Christian cultures have no concept of humane treatment. — Isaac
It is well established that the idea of the importance of the individual did not hold much cultural sway in Eastern cultures nor in the West until the times of Socrates and the advent of Judaeo-Christian thought. — Janus
Cite me a collection of anthropologists stating that all non- or pre-Christian cultures do not think individuals are entitled to humane treatment — Isaac
It would be an objective measure, at the least. The problem is how we get from an objective descriptive fact to an objective normative rule.
Honestly the search for "objectivity" in moral philosophy is kinda weird. What would it even mean for some moral rule to be "objective"? — Echarmion
the myth of the brutal savage — Isaac
The specifics of European feudalism and the strength of the Catholic Church also played a role in making western Europe significantly more individualistic than the rest of the world. — Echarmion
If we regard moral propositions as purely subjective, enforcing law and order amounts to nothing more than 'might makes right', right? Even if that is what it means, it's not how we treat them or talk about them. — JosephS
People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense.
In fact, the very idea of an “ought” is foreign to evolutionary theory. It makes no sense for a biologist to say that some particular animal should be more cooperative, much less to claim that an entire species ought to aim for some degree of altruism. If we decide that we should neither “dissolve society” through extreme selfishness, as E O Wilson puts it, nor become “angelic robots” like ants, we are making an ethical judgment, not a biological one. Likewise, from a biological perspective it has no significance to claim that I should be more generous than I usually am, or that a tyrant ought to be deposed and tried. In short, a purely evolutionary ethics makes ethical discourse meaningless.
When did I ever speak about development? — Echarmion
Obviously all humans have a "moral sense", or else morals wouldn't ever form. The point was that religious rules were an important step in regulating society. This is especially true for ideas like inalienable human rights, since this implies an absolute limit to the use of force. Historically, such limits to power were almost always religious. — Echarmion
I think you are over-analyzing this, and making it more black and white than it really is. So, regarding the above what if what I feel like doing is not best for society? Say I feel like raping someone, for example. — Janus
I'm also not concerned with the question of whether desires for social harmony are "biologically programmed". I haven't used that language at all. What I am saying is that mores evolve in the communal context where social harmony is obviously the underlying goal. — Janus
The underlying general feelings of desire for social harmony and empathy, for example, may be inherently biological as they can be observed in social animals as well as humans. — Janus
Typically in ancient cultures humane treatment is predominately a matter of compassion, not of what was rationally considered to be fair and just treatment warranted by the mere fact of being an individual who is entitled to it. — Janus
It is well established that the idea of the importance of the individual did not hold much cultural sway in Eastern cultures nor in the West until the times of Socrates and the advent of Judaeo-Christian thought. The idea of the universal rights of the individual was first comprehensively articulated by Locke, if my memory serves, and more fully elaborated by Kant. — Janus
that individuals are entitled to humane treatment - but I think it originates with Christian social philosophy — Wayfarer
Why do they evolve, and why would social harmony ever be the underlying goal? Because... — Isaac
You said "Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power" ie, before religious law there was arbitrary use of power, after it less . That's moral development. — Isaac
It's the same argument that justifies missionaries going into tribal areas and wiping out their culture (and more often than not their actual population with foreign disease) but I suppose that's nothing to worry about too much if they were all backward savages anyway. — Isaac
I'll ask you the same as I asked Wayfarer then. What evidence are you basing this assertion on?
You said "most ideas of inalienable rights and equality are, at least historically, connected to religious ideas. Religious law was the first real check on arbitrary use of power." So provide me with the anthropological evidence you're using to suggest that there is frequent abuse of power and no equality in tribal societies, or that where you find these sentiments, they are enforced by religion. — Isaac
The development of the concept of the individual person is actually very much an aspect of culture. I bought a book on that a few years ago, although I must admit it was excrutiatingly boring. But the literary critic Harold Bloom, I recall, wrote a book on how Shakespeare invented the concept of the modern person - an intriguing idea which I don't know is widely accepted but he makes a case for it. — Wayfarer
the concept of human rights, in the modern sense, certainly didn't exist in pre-modern cultures, for a vast number of reasons. — Wayfarer
The essay says that ‘everyone accepts’ that individuals are entitled to humane treatment - but I think it originates with Christian social philosophy. — Wayfarer
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