(May 27, 2015 at 3:54 pm)wallym Wrote: This is fair. The key point I'm making is that Me > Not me for a vast majority of not me's.
You seem to be ignoring our evolutionary past in your calculation.
When our ancestors lived in small groups or 50-150 (most of our history), there was a bit more emphasis on altruism, reciprocity, kin selection. And every member knew everyone else.
A member of a group, while their own survival was paramount to them, they could not get away with treating the other members of the group as if they did not matter. If so, they risked being ejected from the group. Which would mean almost certain death. We are a social species after all.
Those evolutionary traits are part of our nature. They are driving force that causes us to be moral agents.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
