Scientific Morality! It's about time!

[genkaus]

Psychologists have been theorizing about morality and it's development for years and years. You can find one of the original sparks of this field in Kolhberg's theory of moral development. I might be interested to pick up this book, since we've learned so much about the brain through fMRI machines.

There is a common aspect to many theories of morality - whether done by philosophers, scientists or psychologists - that I find quite disturbing. Most frequently, they focus almost exclusively on the social aspect of morality. They seem to work on the unspoken premise that your actions have a moral dimension to them only if they affect other people. And then when asked about why certain personal aspects do seem to have a moral dimension - such as working hard is considered good, while excessive drinking is considered bad - the rationalization given is that it'd ultimately affect the society.

This leads to a permanent segregation between any sort of self-consideration and morality. Whether or not an action is in your benefit has - in and of itself - no bearing on whether it is moral or immoral. We assume that most people would automatically know what's in their self-interest and act accordingly by default and thus they don't need any moral guidelines for that. Thus, developing a moral theory on this basis leads to a very narrow view of morality which is often at odds with a person's self-interest and thus becomes harder to justify why anyone should adopt it.

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Sorry I didn't answer you before. What I mean is that western view and education is very subjective when looked at from the east (limited) but the same is true for the East (China). My personal experience is that what Sam Harris is trying to promote as a 'new idea' is a sort of normal way of thinking in China unless I completely misunderstand what they are trying to do. Many moral decisions in China are basically scientifically based whilst the west might deem those kind of decisions as being cruel or immoral (unethical). I'm thinking of the one child policy, displacement of communities, land grabs for further development etc. In China the people accept those things as being the moral thing to do.

Yes, you have completely misunderstood what Sam Harris and co. are trying to do. And no, those decisions of China are no more scientific or moral than Social Darwinism or Eugenics.