(August 4, 2014 at 6:29 am)GodsRevolt Wrote: And I know that you are not equating air with morals, but this is an important point because humans do not require morals to lives they do air. This would make the occasional adherence to morals acceptable, as you say below, the "minimum of trust" and would excuse ignoring any given moral at any given time granted it did not obstruct the survival of the species. Doesn't this negate the idea of a standard? For example, rape is to be considered ok as long as it is your sex slave and not your wife. Or maybe only with the natives but not the proper ethnic majority.
When you look at the human population you find the great majority to have highly pro-social inclinations. These will adhere to the norms of the group. But we also find psychopaths who are not so inclined. Not all of them are monsters. They merely are not moved to by the same inclinations, even though most understand quite well what norms others observe and what is expected of them.
Evolutionarily it would probably be advantageous to have present in the gene pool some individuals who won't go down with the ship. Since psychopaths represent the workings of a recessive trait, they would still breed majority pro-social children. This assures the continuance of human societies and the species.
So while norms or moral standards exist, they're not written in stone. Though there is much commonality across cultures it may be that the societal consensus evolves over time too. I don't see why moral standards must be envisioned as a top/down authoritarian thing.
