(June 13, 2012 at 4:10 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Biologists also often nod to the notion that this behavior could just as easily be a heuristic (and in some cases have decided that it absolutely is). A heuristic is not a guide of any sort, it may appear to be so if you are aware of the process and external to it, but that is not how a heuristic works for the creature that may be subject to it.
Are we talking about animal morality here or human morality.
(June 13, 2012 at 4:10 pm)Rhythm Wrote: In other words Genk, are we guided by our notions of morality, or could it be possible that what we communicate and codify as our notions of morality are in fact a heuristic that has kept us alive.
You do realize that once we communicate and codify those notions, they'd no longer be heuristic to those we have communicated them to. That is, while biologists may argue that morality may have started as a heuristic behavior, but with generations of codification and communication, that is no longer the case for humans.
(June 13, 2012 at 4:10 pm)Rhythm Wrote: If we are inclined towards particular behaviors, even complicated sets of them, by some part of our genetic makeup -with no actual awareness on the part of that genetic makeup of what problem is being solved or why those actions are taking place, and much less in the way of actual direction from our conscious thoughts as we once previously believed, then morality as we know it, not as you have defined it, is not a guide, even if it should be.
However, the fact being that we are mostly aware of our complex problems and the actions we undertake to solve them, we can safely say that for us, morality is a guide.
