(March 19, 2017 at 10:30 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't see how anyone can think morality is objective without believing in some sort of supreme creator.
Human beings are social creatures. Human beings also possess the capacity to infer, from past experience, observation, and results of action what other human beings are experiencing.
Hunter-gatherers had to learn to care for more than just themselves out of necessity. If Bob gets killed by a predator, that affects Bob and his family. If Bob is acting whack-a-doo, that affects the group. Morality is a social contract steeped in trust. My conjecture.
Agriculture allowed for specialization. Morality got complicated. Still, we social beings agreed on basic rules. Do no harm, be kind, think about what others are thinking and adjust your own behavior accordingly. Cooperation is easier than conflict.
More available information, perspectives, the notion that individuals are somehow special, loads of things confuse the basic morality that our species learns.
But then by that accounting morality can't be objective. If I teach my children to hate kittens, they will learn to hate kittens. Morality is cultural. Some cultures do it better than others.
That line above is tough for me to accept, though. I'm sure even the poor slobs in North Korea know, intrinsically, that what their culture says is moral is a bit cray-cray.
If I were smarter, I would explore an evolutionary, objective reason for morality. It just makes sense.