# Humans are not hard-wired for moral behavior
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 16, 2011, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802 "2011-01-16T05:45:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/61 "2011-01-22T01:28:06Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> The fact that protein activity determines the behavior of an axon does not prove that genese control the behavior of the human brain, just as the fact that the keys on my keyboard produces letters in this post does not mean that the content of this post originated from my keyboard.
The successful transmission of your post absolutely depends on the exact, unique sequence of keystrokes that you made. It matters nothing if you claim those keystrokes came from words in your head or something you copied and pasted from elsewhere on the internet. What matters is the sequence, and that determines entirely how your post is constructed. The sequence directly determines the final product.
> [@](#):
>
> Neurons are constantly changing through a human’s life. New axons are being formed, old axons are being removed, and existing axons are being strengthened or weakened. These changes in the brain’s wiring result from various stimuli from the outside and from the choices made by the individual. They do not result from any gene or genes, since the brain is capable of radically changing itself within an individual’s lifetime (within a very short time, in fact).
Every single one of these changes is both enabled by, dependent upon, and limited by protein activity. Cells don’t change without proteins changing them. Axons don’t transmit stimuli without the activity of ion pump proteins or neurotransmitter proteins. All the stimuli in the world are ineffective unless the proteins are doing their jobs.
> [@](#):
>
> Similarly I can write radically different posts using the same keyboard.
Do surprise us.
> [@](#):
>
> [They don’t.](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa065779) Not nearly as well as we’ve been lead to believe, at least.
Do you honestly conclude that the hundreds and thousands of psychoactive chemicals known to man don’t work because one study questions that one of them doesn’t cure a disease? Do you know what psychoactive means?
---
### Author:  [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/62 "2011-01-22T02:47:21Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> As I already said, I find no fundamental rule for human morality that’s obeyed by all humans, or by a majority in all societies.
True, because morality is a human/societal construct with, most likely, some general tendencies based on our biology.
Really, you could condense your OP to just “human morality is context specific”.
---
### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/63 "2011-01-22T21:23:09Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#):
>
> Who argues this?
The words “hard-wired” mean something that either can’t be changed or can only be changed with great difficulty. Hence when someone says that morality is “hard-wired”, the logical way to interpret that is that a person’s morals cannot be changed or can only be changed with great difficulty. Now it would seem that some in this thread interpret it differently. **Cosmodan** , for instance, said:
> [@](#):
>
> "I would start by saying that there isn’t much in the way of assertions regarding specific hardwired dictate. Rather it’s the capacity to construct and comprehend systems of morality. There is no hardwired “thou shalt not murder” but rather mental software which produces that result under the right conditions.
That’s a different understanding of the term than what’s in the dictionary and different from what most people understand when they use it. Indeed, if you’re going to argue that we are hard-wired for not having any specific morals, but merely for absorbing and changing readily throughout life, that would imply the exact opposite of the conventional understanding of the term hard-wiring. As demonstrated, for instance, by **Diogenese** , when he said that although there have been plenty of parents who murdered their children, they did it “counter to their wiring”. He’s expressing the conventional understanding of the term, and then using a case of special pleading to explain why parents would murder their own chlidren even when “wired” not to do so. (Also funny that he’d try to blame it on religion, when the Romans had no religious motivation to murder thier own children, but rather a selfish monetary motivation to do so, and when the practice was abolished as soon as the empire became Christian, but I digress.)
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Where are the populations that have _no_ morals that we could relate to?
In historical terms the Mongols and the Aztecs would both seem to fit the bill, among many others.
---
### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/64 "2011-01-22T22:57:25Z")
How many times do you have to be told that nobody is saying behavior is hard wired. What’s hard wired are emotional responses to external stimuli. Those emotional responses have a strong influence, but are not the only one. Cultural influences are very strong too. Sexual urges are hardwired, but are curbed by cultural mores. Hunger is hardwired, but cultural mores control how and what we eat.
And who told you the Mongols and the Aztecs didn’t have moral systems? That’s total bullshit. If they didn’t have moral systems, they couldn’t have existed as discrete populations.
---
### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/65 "2011-01-23T01:19:33Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> In historical terms the Mongols and the Aztecs would both seem to fit the bill, among many others.
The Mongols had the _Yassa_, which among other things had rules against stealing, adultery and slavery (you could only take slaves from conquered peoples. Conceding that something is wrong, but considering it acceptable against other tribes is a common theme in human societies, and also has an instinctive element…)
Aztec human sacrifices are often used as “proof” that morality is relative. However, most first-hand accounts have it that the aztecs considered the sacrifices to be an essential part of keeping their world safe, and that at least some of those who died considered themselves martyrs.
Furthermore the Aztecs had the _Huehuetlatolli_, which taught, for example, not to steal, commit adultery or drink to excess.
---
### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/66 "2011-01-23T01:24:06Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Indeed, if you’re going to argue that we are hard-wired for not having any specific morals, but merely for absorbing and changing readily throughout life, that would imply the exact opposite of the conventional understanding of the term hard-wiring.
Put it this way… humans are hard-wired for language, but nobody is born specifically with a word for the color ‘blue’. Every language that is subject-verb-object uses prepositions, every language that is subject-object-verb uses postpositions. It still leaves room for great variation, but only within certain parameters. Morality is the same way; you may not find that every culture possesses a specific value, but whatever value system they possess follows certain deterministic rules, however alien they may seem to foreign observers. To use an example that seems important in this thread, take infanticide (as defined by the murder of a born infant). Doesn’t it seem striking that it happens only in the poorest of cultures in the direst of circumstances, and that it always favors boys? It suggests the existence of a rule that says people should prefer male progeny when the prospects of reproduction are poor. In fact, it should be telling that this thread has mentioned infanticide but nothing about the murder of post-infancy children. Why? Because it virtually never happens, blood parents virutally **never** murder children post-infancy. Of course it does happen frequently and viciously by step-parents. The metronomic predictability of these phenomena should tell you something about the hard-wired rules that govern huan behavior.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/67 "2011-01-23T02:19:45Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#):
>
> ```
> To use an example that seems important in this thread, take infanticide (as defined by the murder of a born infant). Doesn't it seem striking that it happens only in the poorest of cultures in the direst of circumstances, and that it always favors boys?
>
> ```
The latter isn’t true. Historically, infanticide among the social elite has tended to be against girls (and for that matter, the elite tend to produce more male offspring in the first place); however infanticide among the lower classes has been aimed more at boys than girls. Most likely because lower class girls had a good chance of being able to marry/become the concubine of a wealthy or powerful man (and likely benefit the family in the process), while poor boys were pretty much doomed to stay poor. That does fit the expected pattern of instinctive behavior. Infanticide only became focused only on girls with the prevalence of flatter social hierarchies, social mobility, and monogamy; all of which made a woman marrying her way out of poverty less effective and important.
For another good example of instinct in infanticide, consider the methods chosen. Almost always, they are indirect; drowning or abandonment. A clear attempt to create an emotional distance between the act and the person doing it.
---
### Author:  [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/68 "2011-01-23T09:18:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> … people … believe that humans are hard-wired to exhibit certain moral tendencies. …
That’s false because morality is several levels of abstraction separated from the hard-wiring of neurons and their biological processes.
As you present later in your post, killing is very popular in human societies, and the only thing that changes most of the time is who people determine to be undeserving of life.
Morality is not a biological process. It’s not a supernatural or superstitious either, but as far as Nature is concerned, morality, even if beneficial for societies, is irrelevant to Nature, otherwise known as the Universe.
---
### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/69 "2011-01-23T12:52:15Z")
> [@Naxos](#):
>
> Morality is not a biological process. It’s not a supernatural or superstitious either, but as far as Nature is concerned, morality, even if beneficial for societies, is irrelevant to Nature, otherwise known as the Universe.
Not sure what you’re getting at, especially in light of **Cosmic Relief** ’s excellent summary of the difference between “hard-wiring” or instinct, versus behaviour.
> [@](#):
>
> As you present later in your post, killing is very popular in human societies, and the only thing that changes most of the time is who people determine to be undeserving of life.
Exactly. Pretty much every society considers killing humans to be wrong in the main, but justifiable in certain circumstances. So from a morality POV there isn’t as much variation as some would like to believe.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802.md?page=3)