A few thoughts I'd add:
1) I think people discount how much of human behavior is just doing what we're conditioned to do. We don't over analyze everything. "How can a religious person believe God is such and such!!?!?!?!" They just don't think about it very hard. They were taught something, it's not that big a deal, they just sort of go along with it.
I think this idea of just mindlessly (on some level) doing what you were told to do accounts for a great majority of human behavior.
The reality is you can keep digging and asking why and looking for more foundational reasoning for all sorts of things. But who's got time for that? Like playing cards. Some people know an Ace is a good card, so they raise with it. It's not a good poker strategy, but we don't expect everyone to master poker theory if they want to sit down and play. Same goes for life. This onus to analyze things to the absolute root doesn't really exist. You just dig to where you want, and go from there.
2) An interesting issue with selfishness vs. empathy, is that people are told empathy is good, and selfishness is bad. So it is natural, based on selfishness, that people would want to view themselves as empathetic rather than selfish. But again, and I wish I'd put more thought into it in previous discussions on morality, I think conditioning is probably the biggest factor.
1) I think people discount how much of human behavior is just doing what we're conditioned to do. We don't over analyze everything. "How can a religious person believe God is such and such!!?!?!?!" They just don't think about it very hard. They were taught something, it's not that big a deal, they just sort of go along with it.
I think this idea of just mindlessly (on some level) doing what you were told to do accounts for a great majority of human behavior.
The reality is you can keep digging and asking why and looking for more foundational reasoning for all sorts of things. But who's got time for that? Like playing cards. Some people know an Ace is a good card, so they raise with it. It's not a good poker strategy, but we don't expect everyone to master poker theory if they want to sit down and play. Same goes for life. This onus to analyze things to the absolute root doesn't really exist. You just dig to where you want, and go from there.
2) An interesting issue with selfishness vs. empathy, is that people are told empathy is good, and selfishness is bad. So it is natural, based on selfishness, that people would want to view themselves as empathetic rather than selfish. But again, and I wish I'd put more thought into it in previous discussions on morality, I think conditioning is probably the biggest factor.
