Morality?

Dear Munch,

I agree that Good and Evil are ideas, concepts if you like, that are man made. But they do exist don't they? But you make a good point I think about the religeons of the World taking the concept and using it as a Power Force to dominate the masses, and even justifying terrible things sometimes...

Whilst the people who don't quite like cricism of religeous institutional organisations will point out the positive ethos of their own favoured religeon, they rarely are happy to consider that these can be perverted along the way by people who can be characterised as Evil acting in the name of their deity.

Dear All,

I am coming at this totally open mindedly, and so would be rather grateful that no mention is made of any specific religeon, as this can only cause a breakdown in the debate into false minuitae. Looking at it from a distance, all religeons have had their moments!

Kindest regards from Fredrik

Morality is without doubt a human construct. However I am sure that we would all agree that some actions are clearly evil. Granted it may be that given the abscence of a moral code an objective morality would not exist. However an abscence of this kind would provide justification at a subjective level for all kinds of evil. Such as someone nicking your NAIM amps.

I suppose the perfect world would be one where there is no need for a moral construct because everyone is cool with everyone else.

I think that this is why when people moralise too much we instinctivley react against it because the world should not be as it is. If it was then morality as a concept would not exist and neither would moralisers.

Regards

T.C

Morality is about good and evil or right and wrong. Therefore legal or ilegal and therefore man made.
Good and Evil though are a religious constuct, a device to further lock the flock into whichever brand is being espoused/forced.

Howard

I am not sure that I agree with your proposition that "morality", or "good" and "evil" are human constructs.

I think you will find acts that could be classed as morally good or morally evil in the broad species of monkeys. Tenderness and agression.

I think you could consider the agressive "stealing" of meat by a dominant lion (for example), from a lesser memebr of the pride, to be an "immoral" or "evil" act, even though it is often perceived as part of "nature", "survival", the "food-chain" or whatever. Many species "share" their food amongst "family" members or "pack" members. This is "morally good" as well as a survival instinct.

Most human acts of "good" or "evil" are no more than acts of survival.

Our "territorial imperative" can be traced back thorough evolution to quite primitive life-forms. "good", "evil" and this "territorial imperative" sre inter-related.

In addition, mankind is not unique in having dominant members, who enjoy certain privilidges.

Our half-hearted attempts at "morality", ie defining "good" and "evil" and preaching "be good" are nothing more than attemts at survival.

Perhaps the main difference between us and them is that we do what we do "knowingly"

Cheers

Don

This talk of good & evil being man-made is the tail wagging the dog. What you are talking about is a sense, and I'm sure that animals have their own senses too. The discussion of "good" & "evil" is down to limitations of language, so if you strip away all language and go with your feelings only, you understand that it must be an instinct. I'm not sure that this sets us above other animals as humans seem to be losing touch with their instincts, unlike animals.
Interesting subject. I'll have to think some more about this.
I think ultimately this will boil down to love.

Rashers point about love is right I think and this is what stops people from 'evil'. Whilst I think morality is a human construct I think good and evil are apparent. Morality is the means by which we try to understand 'good' and 'evil' and thus provide a framework for dealing with these 'forces'.

I think evil cannot exist without good but good can exist without evil. Evil being the opposite of that which is 'normal'. I think evil is parasitic in this sense. If good did not exist then evil would have nothing to live on. Nothing to mess up. It is possible to imagine a world which is wholly good. A world which is wholly evil however has already destroyed itself.

Regards

T.C

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
I am not sure that I agree with your proposition that "morality", or "good" and "evil" are human constructs.

I think you will find acts that could be classed as morally good or morally evil in the broad species of monkeys. Tenderness and agression....



Perhaps the main difference between us and them is that we do what we do "knowingly"

Cheers

Don

The essential difference is that non-human animals, so far as we know, have no concept of anything beyond base instinct. You might attribute the behaviour of animals as "tender" or "aggressive" but that is anthropomorphism; I doubt they do anything more than react to stimuli.

I disagree. If animals only worked on base instinct they would have no individual characteristics within their species. But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all show personalities, so they must be weighing up their instincts against their wishes, or ....morals? I think to call it anthropomorphism is too dismissive. You can't just wipe away affection so easily.

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I disagree... But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all show personalities, .

You ascribe personalities to them. That is what anthropomorphism is.

Morality? The answer can be found in Matthew 22:

36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Basically a distillation of the 10 Commandments, or "the Law" (as opposed to law, with a little 'l', which is manmade and may carry hidden agendas).

Andrew

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I disagree... But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all show personalities, .

You ascribe personalities to them. That is what anthropomorphism is.

Okay.
I disagree... But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all have personalities, in my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I disagree... But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all show personalities, .

You ascribe personalities to them. That is what anthropomorphism is.

Okay.
I disagree... But horses, dogs, cats, pigs, hamsters all have personalities, in my opinion.

I agree with Rasher here. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to animals. What Rasher is saying is that animals display individual personalities (not neccesarily human) which is something quite different.

The concept of good and evil is borne of the need for a group to survive whether human or animal. Survival is usually better for the group and therefore there need to be 'rules' so that individuals can co-exist within the group. Any behaviour that is deviant from the 'rules' could be construed as evil or bad, though it may be merely 'selfish'.

Truly evil behaviour is gratuitous with intent only to harm another for self gratification. Consider the cat playing with the mouse, torturing it before finally killing it. Is it an evil act or merely instinctive behaviour?

Does this then mean that the difference is that, as humans, we are able to analyse our own behaviour and to curb our natural instinct if it amounts to 'evil' whereas animals are not? Perhaps this is where morality comes in to it.

Mark

quote:

Our half-hearted attempts at "morality", ie defining "good" and "evil" and preaching "be good" are nothing more than attemts at survival.

Perhaps the main difference between us and them is that we do what we do "knowingly"

"Does this then mean that the difference is that, as humans, we are able to analyse our own behaviour and to curb our natural instinct if it amounts to 'evil' whereas animals are not? Perhaps this is where morality comes in to it."

Seems like a lot of similarity here ?

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

quote:

Our half-hearted attempts at "morality", ie defining "good" and "evil" and preaching "be good" are nothing more than attemts at survival.

Perhaps the main difference between us and them is that we do what we do "knowingly"

"Does this then mean that the difference is that, as humans, we are able to analyse our own behaviour and to curb our natural instinct if it amounts to 'evil' whereas animals are not? Perhaps this is where morality comes in to it."

Seems like a lot of similarity here ?

Cheers

Don

Indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by munch:

good and evil was made up by man and used by mans made up religions to keep the masses down.Man will bring down this universe in the end ,no other life form on this planet kills and acts the way man does.So Fredrik yes you are so right.regards munch

Munch, I absolutely agree with you on the basic gist of this vis a vis good/evil/religions, etc.

However, ultimately the Earth and the universe will be fine; there's nothing humans can do that would truly destroy the entire Earth, although to be sure we are already doing great harm and could do far worse. But in the end, even after there are no humans or higher life forms, some micro-organisms will survive and it will start all over again.

As far as the universe, we are less than a mere speck ... there's nothing humans could do to destroy the universe. We could go to a couple of planets and try to fuck them up, but the entire universe, no.

But I've often wondered whether humans are a cancerous mutation of the Earth's ecological body. As you rightly note, the human animal is distinct from all others ... in many good ways for sure, but in many very bad ways, too. No other animal can cause as much destruction to the whole system; it seems like humans are a virus.

How can humans simultaneously be so incredibly intelligent and so incredibly stupid?

All best,
Fred

There's the matter of gradation , being more or much more intelligent , being more self aware and so on, and there is the matter of something being either present or absent.
I doubt if humans have something that is fundamentally absent in dogs.

But different degrees of intelligence, language , awareness, consciousness, personality on a detail level can lead on a higher level to 'phase changes',
drastic changes that at lead to completely different system behaviour.

Humans are pretty sharp at understanding the world and in using that understanding. We're good at creating and working with a mental model of things.
And we have language, to pass on our understanding such that the understanding can develop in a community.
I could substitute 'understanding' with 'myth'. We're the best mythmakers ever. And morality is a set of myths on how to behave.
Myths have a bad reputation, but a nice thing about this word is that it keeps you aware of the fact that the mental model is not the same thing as reality.
Actions are based on the mental model.

I remember a book that said that at some point in their evolution human intelligence reached a kind of ceiling,
because it led to increasing internal violence.
And the invention of a God(a scapegoat type of God) allowed humans to keep internal violence down to acceptable levels and keep developing.
I like the idea of myths becoming part of the environment in which natural selection happens.

Well boss, it does help that we have two free hands.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Is morality the only thing that divides Humankind from other life forms?

You could add the use of cutlery.

It only divides the rest of mamalian life from some humans, dear Adam! You have never seen me eat!

Will you be at Bristol? I am catching a plane from the airport in the afternoon [pace my comments about saving energy, but inconsistency is very human], and so will have a look at a Hifi show for the first time in my life! If we meet, perhaps we should just stick to sandwiches as that might be less embarassing! I also want to put myself into the CD5x lottery as I am sure that I shall never be able to afford to buy a decent CD player now.

This can be a catch all post, to save visiting different pages! I am listening to Bach's D Minor Piano Concert done by Edwin Fischer in Berlin in 1933. Still top music making more than 70 years on!

Only kidding about my use of cutlery! I share an inability to spell with your average ape mind you!

ATB from Fredrik. [In party mood, Smiley].

PS: Just watched, on my own of course, a lovely film: "Forty Year Old Virgin." It was a hoot! Not quite as embarassing as you might imagine, and I would buy an original if I found it! [Self ridiculing Smiley, as ever]!

quote:

Does this then mean that the difference is that, as humans, we are able to analyse our own behaviour and to curb our natural instinct if it amounts to 'evil' whereas animals are not? Perhaps this is where morality comes in to it.

Mark

That is the difference imo.

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Is morality the only thing that divides Humankind from other life forms?

You could add the use of cutlery.

Or,um, stickery...