jibber

I completely disagree with your analysis. You seem to be suggesting that human beings inherently have no capacity to desire to do good, unless it is imposed on them by society, or god. I completely disagree with that. As I have stated before, I don't believe in God. So even if the desire to do good is a result of the social norm, then to me, that suggests that people themselves made it unacceptable to willfully do harm to someone else, which in turn suggests that people are inherently good. Since I don't believe at all in some spiritual higher power whispering in our ears what the right or wrong thing to do is, I have to conclude that human beings have an innate sense of wrong and right, stemming from what I believe to be a simple survival instinct. From the beginning, humans were communal in nature, and had to work together and help eachother out to survive, and from that has evolved the set of morals and rules that we live by, regardless of religion or lack of. Cavemen didnt sit around reading the bible, and they managed to get along in small groups just fine with eachother.

__________________
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do -- especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

Your toughest competitor lives in your head. Some days his name is fear, or pain, or gravity. Stomp his ass.

HOOKED ON THE WHITE POWDER

cardboard adolescent

really? you knew a lot of cavemen, then? now on the one hand you're saying morality is innate, and on the other that it evolved out of a desire to survive. now let me point out that the desire to survive is none other than the fear of death, so if you're saying that morality probably evolved out of the fear of death i would say that's certainly possible, but you haven't sidestepped the fear issue. if, on the other hand, it didn't evolve and it's just completely innate then it seems absurd that it would be the subject of so much discussion, seeing as how we all already agree.

by some mysterious "thing inside them," some strange motivation. an internal desire to do good. is this merely an amplified fear of society's judgment, or perhaps an ego-desire to be seen as a good person? maybe it's just a chemical reaction that's gotten wired to certain neurons, so that when you think about starving children you start to feel miserable and worthless. looking at it in a skeptical, detached and scientific manner reduces such feelings to banality. now if you want to say this thing inside is "love" or "justice," which you're treating as a transcendent entity somehow more than just dopamine being triggered in the brain, you might as well be talking about the soul or god since most transcendent concepts are pretty much equivalent.

jibber

One, stop being deliberately argumentative about every little point, it's annoying as hell. It's a proven fact that homo erectus lived in small communities, end of discussion on that. I'm arguing with you because you insinuated that the desire to do good is ONLY a result of fear, or it is instilled by god. I'm saying that for modern human beings, this desire is an internal motivation, and not magically instilled by god.

__________________
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do -- especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

Your toughest competitor lives in your head. Some days his name is fear, or pain, or gravity. Stomp his ass.

HOOKED ON THE WHITE POWDER

Freebase Dali

No. He's saying that there is a basic sense of morality inherent in (most) humans that's separate from what environmental and societal evolution has instilled.
I don't agree that the need for survival has any relation to a natural moral compass. I believe that innate morality is emotional in nature, not intellectual.

__________________

cardboard adolescent

inherent in most humans? i'm no longer sure what you mean by the term inherent if it only applies to most humans.

Freebase Dali

I may have misused the term, but I'm sure you know what I meant.
If you don't have a useful response in this debate, I don't see a need for the unnecessary scrutiny.

Edit:
If you don't know what I mean, here ya go:

(I mean "most" in a way that allows for cases where someone is emotionally incapable or inept due to a disorder or disease)

__________________

sleepy jack

It doesn't only apply to humans, morality and the will to survive has more to do with genetics than any sort of "soul." CS Lewis also believed that the fact humanity had a sense of community pointed to a higher existence but I think that belief stretches it way farther then it will go.

I think there's a certain base morality that we all have - which is to keep the race alive, feed yourself, care for others of your own race, and so on but I think the more complex moral issues that face us today like abortion are issues that came from society as opposed to humanity. The two aren't contradictory.

__________________

cardboard adolescent

i'm not sure if you saw the second part of my post, which was more addressing this part. i don't believe that you can draw such an easy distinction between internal and external motivation, since what we think of as our "personality" is really just an internalization of external experience with other individuals. so just because we don't sense the fear driving morality but have instead internalized that drive, doesn't mean that it doesn't still lie at the root of society.

as far as god and the soul go, it could be that even as transcendent entities they are nothing more than self-perpetuating patterns. but really that's all life is, a self-perpetuating pattern. thus, if dna shares that quality i don't see why dna can't be a positive manifestation of the negatively present soul. here we wander again into idealism, and i apologize. as far as this base morality goes, i think you certainly have a point, especially as my psychologist friend has been telling me about a certain type of neuron that even monkeys have that allow you to identify with another being's suffering. but why do we, as 'enlightened, self-conscious' beings, place a concrete value on the presence of a certain type of neuron? are we physically incapable of doing otherwise, or do we somehow sense it points to a profound presence-in-absence? i don't necessarily think i can convince you of the latter, but I feel it always presents itself as an option, regardless of how you structure your approach. i'd also recommend turning away from organized religion and looking at the consistency of the religious/mystical experience, and what sorts of insights that entails. peace.

jibber

Many people who do charity work do so from a feeling of right and wrong. It is wrong that people suffer needlessly, and they want to help. Many of these people are not religious, and they seek no gratification for their work. They don't look for ways to publicize their charity to show the world "hey everyone, look what a good person I am!" They are satisfied with just the work itself. You can reduce it to whatever you want to, you can say it's guilt , a selfish desire to look good, a selfish desire to make themselves feel better, or whatever you want to explain the motivation. I don't agree with you, and since we're arguing on points that are impossible to prove or disprove, and since frankly, this debate is starting to get boring, that's all I have to say about it.

__________________
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do -- especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

Your toughest competitor lives in your head. Some days his name is fear, or pain, or gravity. Stomp his ass.

HOOKED ON THE WHITE POWDER

jibber

Ok, I'll just post one more point to clarify anything of my argument that might still be a little ambiguous. I agree with you that our "personality" is MOSTLY an internalization of external experience with others (part of it is also inherited). I don't agree however that human's inherent morality stems from fear.

__________________
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do -- especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways

Your toughest competitor lives in your head. Some days his name is fear, or pain, or gravity. Stomp his ass.

HOOKED ON THE WHITE POWDER