(April 21, 2017 at 12:41 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(April 21, 2017 at 11:25 am)Brian37 Wrote: Not sure it is wise to view it like that because 7 billion humans have different ideas of what "moral sensibilities" are and again, also why I don't think atheists should view that word as a form of morality.
Yes, of course morality is subjective. That doesn't mean the overwhelming majority of people don't share basic tenets of morality. The Golden Rule has been formulated by many different cultures worldwide, there's a common aversion to murder, and so on.
The alternative to using my own moral compass is to use another's, or none at all, and I'm not at all sure either of those options are terribly wise.
I agree, morality is subjective, and there are some basics that are universal absolutely, which is why labels don't mean shit to me.
Humans evolved to be social, unfortunately for the most part we a literally physically limited outside of media from seeing things from a wider perspective. We do have pictures from space looking down at earth, that should tell humans that we all live on the same home. But unfortunately most humans wont travel in space to see that perspective outside of media.
Taking into account that most of our evolution has been limited travel, that explosion of travel really didn't take off until the industrial revolution. Most of our species history has been most humans staying local so we evolved to pass on the social norms of our parents, and most still do that.
But it is true, that in theory, if you could pluck random 4 year olds say 20 from all over the planet, whom havent been been indoctrinated by local tribalism, and put them in a room together we'd see that those toddlers would form their own social order and would react to say theft of a toy, or protect each other from a bully, or even gang up on a weaker kid.
Humans have always exhibited the full range of both good and bad behaviors. Most of us are not violent, but fall prey to the political/economic/religious tribalism because we mostly think locally.
My personal compass I would describe as being, "I wont fear you until you give me something to fear as an individual".
Humans of all labels in all nations display empathy for others and at the same time all nations have prisons too.
I simply value more open west because I see our governments, although not perfect, as being leaning toward more compassion for non majorities. Really hating the right wing push in Europe and America though.
