Meaning of Right and Wrong... Finally Answered!

[theVOID]

I would like to apologize about my punctuation and grammar before I start. The following is from my blog:

No problem, now that it looks a bit nicer i might chime in

Okay, what is the meaning of right or wrong? From what I saw of Sam Harris it looks like he is close to getting it right, but I wasn't able to know if he understands it completely just based on the interview, and also on the fact I haven't read his book. I believe he describes it as human flourishing, where as I describe it as survivability. But its okay, its basically the same thing. What I mean is, and I think he does too, is that morality, the meaning of right and wrong, is based on whats good for humans.
Now, since we were young we were told what was right or wrong, by parents and religion, but I have always wanted a better definition. What is right and what is wrong? The only answers seemed to me to come from just knowing based on what I was taught. But it occurred to me, after, I figured out the meaning of life, that what it is ,in reality based on is survivability.

So you define (moral?) right and wrong as 'maximizing survivability'? In other words what ever best aids in survival is what is morally right?

As, I will later articulate in future blogs, us humans evolved with randomness. This randomness pointed our perceived characters and morality towards the most logical conclusion.

Yeah, you're going to have to explain this one, because as it stands you appear to have made one of the biggest newbie mistakes regarding the theory of evolution...

That conclusion is to make more of our selfs, to stay alive, reproduce, and continue being more.

That's not true, many out there are generally lazy and don't give a shit about self improvement, not enough to take action anyway.

In randomness we evolved to want to reproduce and stay alive, because if we hadn't we would not exist.

*sigh*

That seems to be the same mistake as earlier rising again.

We would kill ourselves, jump off cliffs without thinking and fail to provide to our offspring to continue to survive. Randomness thus slowly removes the people with less traits to survive, and replaces them with the people who survive better and reproduce more often.

Err, we don't top ourselves under natural selection, we are under pressure from the environment (including predators) around us. Those with the random features that make them more effective at surviving the pressures of the environment go on to reproduce and spread the beneficial gene. This process goes on for hundreds of trillions of different generations of different lineages, and almost everything that ever existed becomes extinct.

It is then no wonder why our mind has evolved to include morality in the picture, morality increases our survivability. Think about it. What is considered right increases our survivability. What is considered wrong decreases our survivability.

Agreed, to an extent, though many many many many (i could add a few more 'man'y...) moral decision that we make have nothing at all to do with survival. I agree with you to the point that we evolved a capacity to make certain educated decisions about our environment, and were able to determine the actions that would help in surviving or hinder survival, but morality is much more than knowing what will and will not kill us.

For instance, in all likelihood the practice of keeping slaves is likely to increase the survivability of the community that keeps them. They build wealth more easily which makes them a fortune that can put many successive generations into a better position for surviving.

If survivability of ones lineage was the basis for morality it would be impossible call the act of keeping slaves morally wrong. Morality needs to be a far more comprehensive that stopping at survivability.

Let's say I steal from some one. Stealing decreases the victims value, their ability to survive because what I stole could be sold or used for food, or shelter or something else that could be essential to survivability. Stealing is considered wrong.

But what if you stole something that had no impact on their survivability? Since it doesn't relate to the criteria you set out it can't be deemed to be morally wrong.

But what if I give charity to a desperate homeless guy. I have increased his survivability and therefore have done something that is considered right. Same could be said if I kill someone, or save someones life.

Sure all these bits fit, but your moral theory doesn't work if something doesn't fit.

How about studying, going to school, making more money, as opposed to not studying, not going to school, and thus making less money.

That's what many many people have done. Does this make them morally wrong?

It seems right and wrong have evolved to be dependent on the perception of increasing or decreasing societies survivability.

I disagree that (moral) right and wrong arose from biological evolution. They are certainly memes that have their origin in some biologically derived sense of 'good' and 'bad' (in terms of survivability, pain, pleasure, reward etc) but they certainly go far beyond any notion of survival.

For example if you steal from some one it is considered wrong, but what if you steal bread to survive. I remember my mother always telling me that God said that, that is okay. This is where you can argue for or against it. It is the gray area.

Stealing bread if you are absolutely dependent upon it to live is not morally wrong, i would say not because it is intrinsically based on survival, but because the desire to live is a stronger desire than the desire not to be stolen from, and this applies to essentially everyone, therefore it is more moral to be stolen from than it is to thwart the desire of the homeless man to live, because we all have more and stronger desires to live than to not be stolen from.

A moral person would make the action that promotes more and stronger desires than it thwarts, in this case because there are only two desires, your desire not to be stolen from and my desire not to die, my desire is a stronger desire that thwarts less desires (all my desires for life) than your desire not to be stolen from. Therefore the moral person would be permitted to steal the bread, and thus it is not immoral to steal to survive if you absolutely need to.

That is of course unless your theft causes someone else to die, and then you have thwarted all their desires in life as well as their desire not to be stolen from, and thus your decision to steal becomes the immoral one.

You can argue weather it is wrong or right and weather it increases or decreases societies survivability. If the man lives and does not die because he choose to steals food, then his survivability increases and also that of society. But if he steals because of wants and not necessity then he decreases societies survivability, because even if he didn't steal he would still be able to survive.

I must point out that theft does not necessarily decrease survivability. If i steal all the pies from a fat man's kitchen and he has to run around searching for them for hours then i have increased his survivability

Your moral theory has serious problems.

In, reality there is no wrong or right answer

Then you haven't figured out what is right and wrong at all, you have become a moral subjectivist.

as I describe later about the meaning of life, but in the world of morality in our minds you can argue for or against it based on the decrease or increase of survivability. Since it is hard to prove as a fact that societies total survivability value increased or decreased without stats to prove it, morality question like this become gray for people.

I'm sorry but i think you're well and truly dead in the water here. no amount of paddling now can get you to shore.