RE: A Case for Inherent Morality
June 20, 2021 at 11:14 pm
(This post was last modified: June 20, 2021 at 11:21 pm by Belacqua.)
(June 20, 2021 at 11:10 pm)JohnJubinsky Wrote: I am saying that I believe that when the brain of the infant has developed enough for it to make moral judgements it in most cases does so at least in part according to an inborn sense of right and wrong that exists as the result of the genetic code of the infant.
Yes, I'm open to this. There may be tendencies or categories which are generally present.
This would require a lot of research, I guess, to get some idea of how much is nature and how much is nurture. Also how strongly these in-born tendencies can withstand societal influence against them.
Edited to add:
But we also have to avoid the naturalism fallacy, that says "because I have this instinct it must be good." or "My morality is natural, therefore it can't be argued against."
There may well be instinctive ways of thinking about things which we must reject as immoral. Maybe it's instinctive to kill the people in your competing tribe and take their resources. That sounds bad to us, but the US is doing it in Syria even as we speak.
Then we're faced with the good old problem of two conflicting instincts, and which one we ought to follow. That would be a rational, not an instinctive argument.