Morality is linked to biology, not philosophy

Originally posted by jsobecky
Neither do I, now that you mentioned it. That possibility never crossed my mind. That's what I love about ATS.

Thanks for the (missing) link.

Well that is the truth. It wouldn't be the first time we used our smarts to cause an entire species to go extinct. I always wondered what it would be like to live with another species that was either slightly less as intelligent or as intelligent as us human beings. I then wondered why it never happened. Thought about it and realized, it did happen, and we just killed them off.

Killed them off like we would try to kill off aliens if they tried to move in. If there is a threat to human life, we kill it. They were a threat, so we killed them. Seems pretty simple to me, and believable.

That is one wild but believable theory, grim. I wonder if any mainstream research has been done on it.

Originally posted by supercheetah

Originally posted by AceWombat04
... My belief is that we are more than the sum of our parts, however, as others have stated, that does make my belief factually correct.

It does or does not make it factually correct? Did you mean the latter?

Anyway, everything you wrote in that post is beautifully ambiguous, and can't really be measured, and so it's more art than science, which is great, but it's just not science.

Another user pointed out prior to your post that I left out a "not" in my final sentence (i.e. it should have read "that does not make my belief factually correct.") I replied to them saying "Indeed I did." Too much time had passed and the edit button was gone lol.

Your interpretation of my post is correct; that was my intent. That's why I used terms like opinion and began by emphasizing that my words were the expression of a belief and not a fact. I was just sharing my thoughts and feelings on this extremely fascinating subject.

Originally posted by supercheetah

Originally posted by liquidself
I have to say that I find the concept of morality repugnant. These discussions seem to be revolving around the concepts of rationality and choice, which are simply not used by animals. This does not make them any less aware or rob them of the ability to feel pain and indignity. Animals are masters of feeling and sensing. Morality is a system of beliefs developed over time in a culture usually for the purposes of societal control. What scientists conclude about morality is not of very much interest without an examination of what morality is. The preying mantis rips the head off its male partner and eats it at the conclusion of mating - is this moral? The attempt to find evolutionary reasons for morality is headed towards extinction - morals are nothing more than behavioral habits inculcated by society. Do animals have ethics? seems more germane to the discussion. The obsession with finding genetic reasons for isomorphic behaviors is at full bloom. The logical result is to find ourselves consigned to a genetic fatalism that obviates choice.

You seem to be playing pedantics here. I used to try to get people to understand the difference between ethics and morality, but I gave up that battle to fight more important battles.

Also, notice that the animals in question are social creatures. Praying mantises are not social. Social cohesion through some form of ethics is of far greater import to social creatures than to non-social ones like praying mantises.

Finally, genetics do not dictate the type of person any of us becomes. They give us a foundation for being human that we use to build ourselves within the environment we live. Living in certain environments may mean that certain genes are never expressed, but are in others. There is no genetic fatalism--only genetic predispositions.

Given the context of the article I'd you are right that mantisses are not a fair comparison - but my point is that even chimpanzees exhibit a full range of behavior related to human social groups, not just the sympathic ones. The idea that morality has a precursor in primates is not really all that shocking to me; I suspect (very) early humans/hominids had tribes and relatively complex social groups/tribes without really being sentient or rational in the strictest sense. The dividing line here for me is the use and understanding of metaphor - no animal understands the concept of a universal - if chimpanzees understand metaphor then they would be sentient to my way of thinking (and I do not rule this out - but that I would say they were able to learn it from humankind). Morality often seems to me to be an add-on or adjunct to instinct; instinct is akin to an inherited habit; if a morality is not aquired environmentally then it must be an instinct. It seems that these scientists involved in this work are re-examining the old philosophical idea of trying to observe the human in a "state of nature" (ala Hobbes), a purpose for which primates have been used for quite some time now. The problem is that I often notice a great deal of social projection into those humanlike animal groups; when scientists thought of evolution being soley about dominance and agression, then that was what they saw in those primate groups. Now that it is slowly being understood that cooperation is possibly a superior survival strategy to competition they are now seeing that in animal groups as well, when in reality it was there to be seen all along. There is sometimes a tendency to think that science is somehow either the only way of knowing (and I am not referring to mystical knowledge here either) or that science is somehow totally distinct from other questioning disciplines - which is not the case. Every scientific venture has its axiomatic assumptions which influence perception. This issue is not just pedantic, but underlies many battles.

Every thing is linked to every thing.

Philosophy comes from biology as does biology from philosophy.

All these recent news articles are becoming more and more miss leading and, excuse my language, stupid.

First off, you're a great debater. Thanks for that. Secondly, please, please use paragraphs. That's my only complaint about your posts.

Originally posted by liquidself
Given the context of the article I'd you are right that mantisses are not a fair comparison - but my point is that even chimpanzees exhibit a full range of behavior related to human social groups, not just the sympathic ones. The idea that morality has a precursor in primates is not really all that shocking to me; I suspect (very) early humans/hominids had tribes and relatively complex social groups/tribes without really being sentient or rational in the strictest sense. The dividing line here for me is the use and understanding of metaphor - no animal understands the concept of a universal - if chimpanzees understand metaphor then they would be sentient to my way of thinking (and I do not rule this out - but that I would say they were able to learn it from humankind).

I like Kant. I really do, but the law of universality is little more than the golden rule couched in verbosity and ornate philosophical trappings. Beyond that, I must echo the criticism others have given in that he believes in both the free will and determinism of humanity, despite the fact that those two concepts are logically contradictory.

Morality often seems to me to be an add-on or adjunct to instinct; instinct is akin to an inherited habit; if a morality is not aquired environmentally then it must be an instinct.

No one can put boundaries or lines of definition between nature and nurture on any scale, including psychologically (and, inclusive within that, ethics). The natural foundation of ethics is reworked, reordered, and filtered throughout our lives, just like everything else we inherit from our parents, and from their parents, etc. To put it another away, some genes undergo change in the way they're expressed, others lessen or increase in their expressiveness, and still others are never expressed simply because the environment within which an individual lives does not require them.

It seems that these scientists involved in this work are re-examining the old philosophical idea of trying to observe the human in a "state of nature" (ala Hobbes), a purpose for which primates have been used for quite some time now. The problem is that I often notice a great deal of social projection into those humanlike animal groups; when scientists thought of evolution being soley about dominance and agression, then that was what they saw in those primate groups. Now that it is slowly being understood that cooperation is possibly a superior survival strategy to competition they are now seeing that in animal groups as well, when in reality it was there to be seen all along.

I haven't read Leviathon yet, but I understand where you're coming from.

Believe me, many scientists are all too aware of this problem. One of the many common complaints about science-fiction that a lot of scientists, particularly astronomers and biologists, is in the portrayal of extra-terrestrial life, especially intelligent lift. Far too often it takes its inspiration from Earth life forms, particularly human life forms.

There getting better at resolving this issue, but it's always there.

There is sometimes a tendency to think that science is somehow either the only way of knowing (and I am not referring to mystical knowledge here either) or that science is somehow totally distinct from other questioning disciplines - which is not the case. Every scientific venture has its axiomatic assumptions which influence perception. This issue is not just pedantic, but underlies many battles.

Part of the beauty of science is that it's like the sands in a desert, it's always shifting. Scientists are always questioning whether current theories still explain new evidence. Physicists, especially, get really excited when they discover something they can't explain, but that doesn't happen too often any more.

I don't think any scientist would claim that science is the only path to knowledge. In fact, I think many of them would flatly disavow such an idea. However, science is a good way of defining previously amorphous knowledge. In the end, though, science is nothing more than a tool that, like any tool, can be used for good or evil.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to get at here is that ethics is a part of who we are, and must be constantly re-examined in light of constant change in this day and age, but those changes must have a basis in our core ethical foundations. Many people--particularly religious people--believe that ethics is given to us by something beyond us.

Originally posted by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal
Every thing is linked to every thing.

Philosophy comes from biology as does biology from philosophy.

All these recent news articles are becoming more and more miss leading and, excuse my language, stupid.

You're missing the point completely, and that is that morality isn't some human invention like most of philosophy, or given to us by some external superior being(s) as religion touts, but rather that it's a part of us like our hearts. It's something that's been around even before any human evolved.

Originally posted by jsobecky
I don't know. If it were part of the local ecosystem, it would seem to me that at least one other species would have evolved in the same way.

Surely Neanderthal are different enough and similar enough to display this? They themselves are not strictle the same as homo-sapiens. You can examine the brains and skulls of them to display this. However they also display a level of intelligence with the ability to make tools and the idea that they themselves might have had language. It is also shown that homo-sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis existed at the same time.

Here's an interesting site displaying different brain sizes: en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by supercheetah

You're missing the point completely, and that is that morality isn't some human invention like most of philosophy, or given to us by some external superior being(s) as religion touts, but rather that it's a part of us like our hearts. It's something that's been around even before any human evolved.

Our hearts meaning the actual human organ, or is that our hearts like people say has an actual mind to think with and to love with?

Yeah, every thing has been around for ever, agreed (including philosophy). I'm glad that we as a species are finally coming around to accepting this.

No point was missed, but thanks for the information It was a nice read

[edit on 29-3-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]