(July 13, 2012 at 4:41 pm)Faith No More Wrote:MysticKnight Wrote:So animals I would say don't have objective morality, because they simply acting on instincts, even though some of these are love, compassion, empathy, etc...
I think you've run into a problem with this explanation, because now anytime a human acts on instinct, you have to say it was an amoral decision. If I see a child crossing the road while a car is barrelling down on him/her, I have no time to rationalize any decision I make, yet I leap into the road, grabbing the child just before the car hits him/her purely out of instinct. Would you see that as a good, bad, or neutral action?
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Quote: Because morality takes a higher conscious, it takes a belief in doing the right thing or more better/honourable thing...this can be done in a instance...or we can react instinctively with that belief that we should do something.
...animals on the other hand cannot relate to this objective morals, they don't have a belief in it, they simply act on instincts.!
1) WTF is a "higher conscious"? Are you trying to say "consciousness", or "conscience "? And what does either of those look like? Looks to me like a special pleading in an attempt to elevate and separate humans artificially from other animals.
2) In the case that FNM cites above, is his action to save the chils solely due to that "higher conscious", whatever that might be, and are you claiming that with other animals, being without that "higher conscious", and thus without objective morality, it would not occur to them to save the child?