(June 23, 2014 at 11:43 pm)Rhythm Wrote: If we have to add the qualifier "on a whim" we're probably already sounding the retreat from the claim. What we have is a justification for accepting that murder on a whim might best be considered "morally wrong" intra/society. We also have to turn the lamplight inward to make that one work at all, because societies that -did- go around killing -other societies- are precisely the ones that -did- succeed and that we -do- observe. To borrow your turn of phrase.
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To put it more bluntly, if I roll with your claim about the morality of murder, and I roll with your justification for behavior based on societal success - and you are in my societies way...........
May I back up from the phrase 'on a whim' to 'with less yet sufficient justification in that society?'
Agreed, societies' evolution is not one of uniform progress (I hate the term as I believe it is totally subjective.) Evolution of societies yields lots of different solutions to ethical questions. All you can say is that the successful ones survive. This is a tautology just like 'survival of the fittest' because survival is the definition of success or fitness. As it is not always the best strategy to be big and strong with big teeth and claws it appears to be a better strategy in general for humans to tone down the violence. In societies you may have greater or lesser amounts of endemic violence. But in order to expand into all corners of the earth, humanity has learned to be less violent (Steven Pinker: Better Angels of Our Nature)
I'm happy with that as I'm not likely to win in an armed conflict. (Therefore the state of affairs is "GOOD.")
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?