(June 19, 2013 at 6:58 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: You’re going to have to be a bit more specific because I am not aware of what is necessarily illogical about genocide. I mean if the goal is to get rid of a particular group of people, then how is killing that group of people illogical? I am not following that my friend. You also said that morals develop, what do they develop towards? This is very interesting, thanks for the patience.
I think that this is where practicality and our ability to empathize/sympathize come into play. I don't think that getting rid of a group of people, based on a trait that in itself is not harmful (ethnicity, skin color, etc) is a logical goal. Group A may have as its goal to claim an area of land, and this may entail forcing the residents (Group B) to leave, and that may entail war and killing. Genocide would imply that if, after a period of war Group B begged for peace and offered to accept any terms, Group A would reject the terms and continue to fight until every last member of Group B was dead. This strikes me as very impractical for Group A, if the goal was to claim land.
Regarding the development of morals, I think that any system of morals or ethics can be reduced to the desire for the group (tribe, nation, community, etc) to prosper. In situations or environments where survival is difficult, morals will be less refined. In situations or environments where the group is prospering and its survival seems assured, issues of morality and ethics are very different.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould