Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S
Mythically, the root of human ethics is in the freedom to choose what seems to be in the ego's best interest, without regard for the interests of the whole ecosystem. That's how mammal's evolved-over-eons innate-Emotional-directives are subject to being over-ridden by homo sapiens' still naive Reason, based on local & limited information. It's the ago-old conundrum of Nature versus Culture. And it's why we have to use that same rational faculty to get us out of the tight-spots that it previously got us into. :cool:Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S
Yes. It is called the agency. We have the innate agency to form a system that addresses moral concerns. At any given point in time, we have agency. But whether it's undeveloped, underdeveloped, or advanced is a condition brought about by time and civilization.But is it inevitable that humans with a complex language would always have constructed such formality? — David S
Animals have a different system of existence. We shouldn't be comparing human agency with animal existence. That we are able to extend this notion of agency and acknowledge that animals have intelligence, or whatever, is our own issue.Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S
That’s the symbolic meaning of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in my view. — Wayfarer
Yes. That's why humans were forced by their internal rational conflicts to develop Laws, Ethics, and Morality : we worry too much about the unintended consequences of our freedom. :smile:But other than worrying about food, threats or a mate - ie sex they do not appear to worry. — David S
But other than worrying about food, threats or a mate - ie sex they do not appear to worry. — David S
Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S
But so far researchers have failed to locate lawyer bees. Bees don’t need lawyers, because there is no danger that they might forget or violate the hive constitution. — Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens)
Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S
That’s the symbolic meaning of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in my view. — Wayfarer
It’s the burden of self. Humans are able to abstractly reflect on their own existence, and existence generally, to think ‘this is mine’. Animals can’t do that. Comes with language and abstract thought. That’s the symbolic meaning of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in my view. — Wayfarer
By the way, I want to pick your brain on something that I just realized which is that being immoral, even in the worst possible sense, even though it breaks moral laws does not violate a law of nature. — TheMadFool
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature – even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man – frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason
Having a comparatively large forebrain that enables counterfactual thinking, planning and predicting, human animals learn to prevent behavioral conflicts which we humans foresee and attribute blame to those who cause or exacerbate such conflicts. Nonhuman animals that are not endowed with human-level foresight, however, cannot prevent behavioral conflicts and instead, IME, by instinct, react with fear or disgust, aggression or play, immediately to corresponding behavioral cues from one another. — 180 Proof
The human mind, the main protagonist in the tale of the good and bad, is then, from some other, as of yet, unknown universe. — TheMadFool
Humans have a more expansive cosmological outlook so interactions with fellow humans and interacting with the future makes morals/ethics a useful ‘tool’. — I like sushi
They ate the apple and became self-aware — Hermeticus
I see the clouds of a rebellion (disobedience) on the horizon...better do something about it before all hell breaks loose. — Yahweh
Whereas in Greek philosophy 'reason' was what marked humans off from the animal kingdom. — Wayfarer
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. — Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals)
It also works the other way around: The first step to creating a problem is thinking there is a problem. All was well in Garden of Eden until humans got too cognitive.The first step towards a solution to a problem is to realize that there is a problem. Humans have, in a sense, awakened to the fact that all is not well in the garden of Eden. — TheMadFool
Morals are an entirely human concept. There are no morals in nature. Again - this is only a problem if you make it one. Either all is just or all is unjust. It's our complicated set of morals that we made up which puts us somewhere inbetween.being immoral, even in the worst possible sense, even though it breaks moral laws does not violate a law of nature. — TheMadFool
I don't think this is true. Nature was respected, revered but also feared. Primarily, nature was seen as the enabler of life. All of the first Gods of mankind were aspects of nature deified.In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason
It also works the other way around: The first step to creating a problem is thinking there is a problem. All was well in Garden of Eden until humans got too cognitive. — Hermeticus
Morals are an entirely human concept. There are no morals in nature. Again - this is only a problem if you make it one. Either all is just or all is unjust. It's our complicated set of morals that we made up which puts us somewhere inbetween. — Hermeticus
I don't think this is true. Nature was respected, revered but also feared. Primarily, nature was seen as the enabler of life. All of the first Gods of mankind were aspects of nature deified. — Hermeticus
That's simply due to how we define good and evil. Or rather it's due to us defining death as evil. The other view is that death is a part of life just like anything else and there is nothing inherently evil about it. Then rather than a death match, we're suddenly looking at a game of life.Nice! However, I fail to see how a death match, which life is, can be thought of as "...all was well in the Garden of Eden..."? — TheMadFool
we're part of nature and if nature somehow made us think of morals, the idea that "morals are an entirely human concept" doesn't make sense. — TheMadFool
Reciprocity? Cooperation? Yeah, for extrinsic benefits only like e.g. social stability, deescalating violent conflict, trade. Mere (social) animality; not moral, I think, until the benefits sought are instrinsic, or self-cultivating, via (non-reciprocal) practice e.g. sympathetic altruity. (To wit: "What you find hateful, do not do to anyone." ~Hillel the Elder :flower:) A meta-cognitive breakthrough after maybe dozens of millennia of human eusociality ...This is good and evil:
Good, someone who I can trust. Bad, someone who is a threat to me.
Everything else, the varied aspects of morals and ethics simply evolved from there. — Hermeticus
Correct. Consequences (extrinsic as well as intrinsic) follow decisions (conduct) just as effects follows causes. The ancient Vedic dharma calls this "karma". :fire:I just realized which is that being immoral, even in the worst possible sense, even though it breaks moral laws does not violate a law of nature. What's up with that? 180 Proof, care to take a stab? — TheMadFool
Correct. Consequences (extrinsic as well as intrinsic) follow decisions (conduct) just as effects follows causes. The ancient Vedic dharma calls this "karma". — 180 Proof
Reciprocity? Cooperation? Yeah, for extrinsic benefits only like e.g. social stability, deescalating violent conflict, trade. Mere (social) animality; not moral, I think, until the benefits saught are instrinsic, or self-cultivating, via (non-reciprocal) practice e.g. sympathetic altruity. A meta-cognitive breakthrough after maybe dozens of millennia of human eusociality. — 180 Proof
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