(November 13, 2013 at 9:56 am)Zazzy Wrote: Look at it this way: you have spent your life accepting a made-up, illogical moral code that somebody else decreed. That seems depressing. You are a primate, and primate species need to live with a group. To live with a group, you have to temper impulses to fuck with other members of the group. To that end, evolution has equipped you with a conscience and a sense of altruism, and the group nurtures and rewards behavior resulting from conscience and altruism. Different groups accept different standards of morality- in some cultures it is moral to stone your philandering wife, or to eat your dead. The group decides on general rules, and you decide whether or not to obey them, although for most neurologically normal people it is not difficult to overcome desires to commit really heinous acts like murder. If you want a biological basis- that's all she wrote. And these (biological reasons + cultural indoctrination) are good reasons to develop a moral code- better reasons than simply accepting a code of morals from an old book, many of which may do nothing to promote the welfare or happiness of the group. I'm pretty sure you DO want to be a productive member of a thriving society instead of a rapist/murderer. Why is that? Is it because of your religious teachings, or because of your neurological wiring and cultural upbringing?
1) I don't think the Religious moral code is particularly illogical. The premise is illogical. The idea of God is dumb, in hindsight. But if there was a God, and he said all humans have value, then mimicking much of Jesus' teachings, particularly in regards to treating each other nicely, acting selflessly, etc...follows very logically.
2) Are biological reasons and cultural indoctrination good reasons for stuff? Biological reasons and culturual indoctrinations are why I was religious to begin with. Scared of death. Looking for meaning. Mommy told me God was real. As a human, I have enough self-awareness to shake many of the controls that are being imposed upon me.
In a cozy middle class american existence, there's no way I could be or would want to be a rapist/murderer. In my situation, there's only so much I can stop believing. Decades of being taught one thing, with millenium of societal pressures backing it up are pretty oppressive. Even if I knew it was stupid, much of it will be a trumping influence whether I want it to or not. But that's a flaw I should work on.
Stealing? Sure. I'll stream the hell out of anything I can. Why? Because there are no threats of punishment. I've given up worrying about charity. I don't worry about people I don't know's welfare, particularly if it has no impact on me.
I think sometimes we're so in the middle of the Hobbes social contract that we mistake the contract for something more. But, as I've said before, what about people outside it? You go to 80's(?) Uganda, and they've got different rules. I think we'd be less inclined to tell them their cultural wiring and neurological impulses are a good guide for their behavior as they are raping and murdering everything in sight.
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What I'm working with right now, is operating on the absolutes I have. I know my own impulses. People who I care about, I care about. Things I enjoy, I enjoy. And that's about as far as I've gotten. Although, to be fair to myself, I stripped away a lot of garbage to arrive at the point I'm at now. But I'm still trying to form political and world views that are rational based on my new value system, which, for me, has been a pretty complicated process.
