(February 25, 2013 at 7:56 pm)whateverist Wrote: Nor would I want it to. Isn't it enough to spell out what the agreed upon consequences are for transgressions of the group agreements. Why would we want to have our actions prescribed by some moral code?
How else would you determine what actions you should take?
(February 25, 2013 at 7:56 pm)whateverist Wrote: But I'm not suggesting that any innate sense as we find it will do. Rather, I'm suggesting that it is by cultivating and refining that sense that we become considerate and well mannered. A good person, in the moral sense, is one who takes into account the well-being and sensibilities of others as a natural expression of empathy which has been developed and extended overtime as ones own self-knowledge grows. Only to the degree I know and understand myself can I possibly extend courtesy to others. One becomes good not for its own sake but as a by product of maturation and acculturation by way of empathy.
Only unselfconscious empathy saves a person concerned with moral sensibility from turning into a prig. Any obsession with what is right and wrong outside of any context results in vanity otherwise.
This position is the result of presupposition - in this case, that of empathy. You start by assuming that empathy is the basis for morality, pretty much the same way theists start by assuming that what god wants is the basis for morality. From there, you reach the natural conclusion that the more intrinsically empathetic a person is, the greater his quality of goodness. Conscious application of empathy would require you to ask yourself why you should be empathetic even if it is not in your interest and the only way one would be consistently and consciously empathetic is if they receive some form of emotional gratification from doing the right thing. If that form of self-interest is present in the motivation, that dilutes the requirement for empathy as a moral basis and you are aware of that. Which is why, the highest form of "goodness" with respect to your empathy-based moral code, would be achieved by someone who has internalized that trait - someone who does good not because he has consciously thought it through and concluded that it is the right thing to do, but he does it because that has become a part of his nature.
As you may suspect, I reject this notion by rejecting empathy as the basis of morality. Not only that premise is not justified, I would not want the consequences either. I cannot live my life always considering the wants and needs of others and if I start going so unconsciously, I would simply become the ultimate doormat whose every action is automatically determined by what others would want from him. I recognize that empathy is a character trait within me, but what role it plays in my moral decisions and how much is up to me.
