(June 13, 2013 at 3:41 am)crud Wrote: "Without empathy, at some level, society collapses"
I'd agree here, I do see how it would have it's place in evolution. But the are many examples of people using the wealth/time and risking their own life, just for the sake of others.. This doesn't really fit the mold.
"Still nothing nihilist that I can see."
Without some sort of objectivity that transcends our cultural/personal relative values... what grounds can we use to deem the actions of others as wrong? or right? - When they are only acting on their cultural/personal relative values?
It just seems like whoever's in power makes the rules.
There are something around 7 billion people on the planet. You have to expect some variation between individuals as to how much empathy, morality and love they are capable of. I assume we both accept that there are sociopaths who appear to have almost zero empathy. It stands to reason that there would be people at the other end of the spectrum.
Do we need transcendent objectivity to evaluate morality? We make judgements all the time with referencing any kind of absolute or transcendent value. In fact everything in your life is a relative decision - the house you live in, the car you drive, the person that you marry, the music you like and so on ad. infinitum.
If we judge another's morality we use guidelines and experience with a sprinkling of whatever knowledge we have gleaned.
Lets take judging the morality of Germany 1933-45. Do we really need a transcendent objectivity to judge it?
We might compare it to the morality of the present day.
We might compare it to the morality of that same country both before and after that period.
We might compare it to the morality of other countries during that time period that surrounded it (Belgium, France, Holland, Denmark etc. etc.)
Taking any of the above (and some other variants doubtless that I haven't thought of right now) we can safely conclude that their morality was sub-par.
Its not all that different really from choosing a new microwave oven. We make a relative comparison.
Does that undermine the value of our comparison? I don't see why except in a purely abstract sense.
Having said all that - yes - there is an element that whose in power makes the rules (just as accepting a God does). You could argue that the real reason we can judge the Nazi's is that they lost. Had they won with would be a very different discussion that I probably wouldn't be involved in as I would never have been borne. You'd probably be discussing the morality of the period when, horror of horrors, Jews walked amongst us like normal people.
Eventually, however, the dominance of that empire would come to a halt and at that point the morality would probably match ours.
