This, exactly. The case is laid out quite convincingly in the book Moral Minds by Marc Hauser, which is how I became interested in this subject in the first place. But it’s been a very long time since I read that book. One interesting thing I remember from that book was the finding that even sociopaths have an instinctual sense of right and wrong, they just don’t care about following it.
Yes, thank you, that last post of the night before bed is always prone to typos and other forms of mistakes.
As for the argument, I agree with @ASL_v2.0 in that primates (including humans) seem to be instinctually social creatures, and therefore:
(please pardon my snip)
And similarly @Pleonast’s
So I fully grant we, as a species (leaving out the extreme outliers) have the innate capacity for empathy, and for assembling a moral sense from said empathy and social cues, including ones accepted by our cultural underpinnings, as well as ones contrary to said moral assumptions even if they come out of a greater sense of sympathy (see our slow growing and often sabotaged acceptance of the full expression of human sexuality and gender!).
I still disagree that the sense of right and wrong (as an innate sense, rather than a social, or a legal one) is truly intrinsic. I believe it’s a huge interconnected thing, and trying to fully separate what is integral to the individual from their society is nigh impossible.
Using @Spice_Weasel’s example, does a sociopath have an instinctual sense of right or wrong? Perhaps in the terms of “learned instinct” they do - after all, they’ve been brought up in a society that constantly reflects our moral assumptions, it would be hard NOT to. The fact that they chose to ignore it and operate contrary to it, is a choice or perhaps even secondary instinct of it’s own.
But if I were the evil overlord of the Polls Only thread, and raised a hundred humans in a totally feral environment with no social cues (NO, I’m not a monster, just an extremely amoral hypothetical that is nauseating) would any of them have anything we would consider as morality? Much less similar ones?
I doubt it. But, the argument on the roles of nature, nurture, and the interaction between the two will probably continue for as long as the species in it’s current iteration does. I don’t think we’ll solve it here.
Oh, and in case it’s not clear, I have the deepest respect to all who are participating, I just want you to know I’m not belittling your POV, and it’s one shared by the great humanists that have created many of our shared social contract, I just disagree.
My WAG: No, in the same way that people who are raised by wolves never develop language.
I agree with your sentiment.
I think we’re mostly disagreeing on exactly what “innate” means. To clarify it, do you think that language is innate to our species? From what you’ve posted, I’m guessing you do not, because
But if I were the evil overlord of the Polls Only thread, and raised a hundred humans in a totally feral environment with no social cues (NO, I’m not a monster, just an extremely amoral hypothetical that is nauseating) would any of them have anything we would consider as morality?
would not be conducive to language development either. But I think the subjects would converge on some social rules to mitigate confrontations. And those rules would guide their actions and their responses to others’ actions–that is, a moral code. And they would also converge on some shared verbal (and non-verbal) utterances to communicate basic thoughts–that is, a language.
I think that we can agree that non-pathological humans in their usual environments always develop some sort of sense of right vs wrong, just as they always develop some sort of language use.
Human beings are innately capable of empathy. If I’m a feral unsocialized human and see you making terrible noises and clutching a bleeding wound, I am able to understand that you’re in pain. Not in an abstract noncontextualized way, but I can imagine what you’re feeling because I’ve also made those noises and clutched myself when I’ve had a similar injury. And I might feel uncomfortable or even sympathetic.
What do I do with that information? Do I beat the shit out of you and take your stuff? Maybe. But what if we’re mates and my brain has for years been producing very lovely chemicals when we’re together? So maybe I don’t beat you up even if I might beat somebody else up.
Is that morality? I think so.
Sometimes I think one of the Pit’s greatest strengths is its tolerance for hijacks, because conversations like this happen.
What are y’all THINKING?
Yes, I think we’re arguing semantics again. It’s an endemic disease here. For me, innate would require the morality to be at the level of untrained reflex. It is, to say, hardwired into humanity. I would agree, as said earlier, a degree of empathy does appear to be hardwired into us, but the degree and expression of such varies dramatically based on individual and society.
That’s why I mentioned our fellow primates earlier - while they, by most studies, have more of a society than lots of earlier studies wanted to admit, they show many commonalities of behavior, which would show that such empathic growth to enable such societies probably evolved in our family a good way back.
But morality - we probably all agree it’s a very loaded word. And that’s the sticking point. Using my considered example of sexual and gender orientation earlier, I could (well, not me, I’m too young) have had a great deal of empathy 50 years ago for someone who didn’t conform to the “norms”, but that would have likely been considered immoral by many who were part of the same society.
To be clear (again) I think that most of the positive traits we have as a society come from expanding rather than contracting the degree of empathy we have for others, but morality as used by societies often acts to restrict empathy to those who conform to the definitions of that society.
Which, once again, brings us back to the “What were you THINKING” post that brought us here. What role does emotion play in making an argument? Is it out of empathy? Is it out of the reverse (disdain/hate/etc depending on definitions)? Because if you don’t value empathy, then it’s easier to dismiss the emotional quotient of an argument. And, devil’s advocate style, I’ll admit that extreme empathy can leave you in a situation where you feel unable to act because you see nothing but harm coming to all sides.
I’m not going to say we need Evil Kirk it order to make decisions, but extreme empathy can lead to the classic “Perfect is the enemy of good” issue. The earlier example of local jobs vs local open space could be a decent real world example. Both sides are possibly (assuming honest intentions) seeking a better world by their own understandings, but may not try to look for a compromise, or if so, want a compromise that favors their personal good.
Which brings us riiiiight back to comparative morality, rather than absolutes. Such things are an endless ouroboros.
Aside to @Spice_Weasel - Yes, that’s a fun peril of the PIT. But I dragged it back, I swear I did!
ETA - /jedi mode - @JohnT hey, when I started this thread, one of the examples of a reason someone could be pitted here was for “misplaced enthusiasm”. Which means, from a certain POV, by defining said enthusiasm in a general sense, and the comparative values of it, we’re very much on topic. /jedi mode
Can confirm. I’ve been in a lot of situations where I was so much in my head about what it would be like to be in that situation that I’ve failed to act, that it’s stressed me to the point of disabling me, that I often confuse my own self about what is right or true because I have empathy for the people I’m railing against - which might mean I’m wrong? It’s fucking confusing. I know people with just as much empathy who manage to act in the world just fine, but for some of us it can cause complete paralysis, and is not particularly useful. I consider myself more of a mediating type, and the world needs mediating types, so it’s not bad to see all perspectives per se, but sometimes there is a direct conflict between peace and justice, and that’s where I really struggle, because I value both. I hope my comments here don’t imply that I think arguing solely from emotion is a good thing. It’s fine and human to be driven by feelings, but if you are driven by empathy for other people, you should be interested in what’s proven to work, IMO, not what feels like it should work.
I think we actually are thinking. Isn’t it fun?
Very important to recognize this; and that, in general, there are often genuine conflicts between what are, or ought to be, genuine rights. And sometimes even between the same right from the point of view of different people.
Recognizing it doesn’t solve the conflicts, of course. But it may make compromise possible. And it may keep us from killing each other.
Which is both true, and tricky in itself: because sometimes different sides have different ideas of what “working” would look like; and sometimes there doesn’t appear to be anything that’s been proven to work.
Absolutely, and one issue that comes up in the social justice field repeatedly is well-meaning advocates offering solutions for problems people don’t feel they have. That’s been happening as long as there’s been social work. The one I’ve encountered frequently in my own work is the attempt to teach people about living a healthier lifestyle (exercise, nutrition) when their most pressing priorities are: don’t die, find housing, and get a job. Or the comparable, “Learn how to manage your credit rating” seminars for people who are effectively homeless. These are all well-meaning but they come from the priorities of privileged people.
And often under the apparent impression that the reason people aren’t exercising and eating better is because they don’t know that proper exercise and fruits-and-veg are good for them. I mean, I expect there are some people who don’t, although some of that info is damn near inescapable – but a lot of the people they’re lecturing know perfectly well, but can’t afford to do it that way. (And some of them are getting lots more exercise than the lecturers – they’re just not getting it in a gym.)
Kinda like RB-34, the telepathic robot in Isaac Asimov’s “Liar!”
Faced with an insoluble dilemma where it had to cause harm to some human around it, with programming that explicitly said it must not cause harm to any human, it retreats to catatonia.
It was only later when robots formulated the Zeroth law (“a robot may not harm humanity etc.”) to get themselves out of this dilemma, though one of the robots that first formulated it warned that the First law was still nearly as important.
Gotta run now so any further exposition is left as an exercise to the reader.
So, a long time ago, I interned for an organization that served predominantly Puerto Rican migrants in Philadelphia. We were working on developing a Federally Qualified Health Center, which is quite an undertaking, but there was this whole nutrition and exercise piece of the plan. But we’re pitching this alongside statistical evidence that the availability of fresh produce in this area was just crap. I mean, I went into some of those stores, and their produce was at a level I would consider unacceptable to eat. So where exactly are all these people getting food to eat nutritiously? And where are they exercising? The needle-filled vacant lot across from the other nonprofit where I worked? Nothing about that place was conducive to middle class notions of self-care. I’m not saying there was no hope, but whatever it was would have to come from the identified needs of the people impacted.
Something to think about.
Yeah.
I think there’s a great tendency for people giving advice to think ‘poor people are poor because they don’t know how to live! We know how to live properly, so we need to teach them!’
– but they’re not recognizing a) that this often isn’t why people are poor b) that because they’re poor they’re often prevented by poverty from following the advice and C) THAT THEY NEED TO LEARN FIRST BEFORE TEACHING AND THEY NEED TO LEARN FROM THE PEOPLE THEY’RE TRYING TO HELP.
The idea that the people needing assistance might know important things about their lives that the would-be assisters don’t can’t get into the head; because the head is stuck on ‘I’m doing better so I must know better.’
– Years ago, I had a couple apply for a farm internship because they were going to be part of a church group going to, supposedly, help the impoverished farmers in I-forget-which-Southern-hemisphere-country learn how to farm better; and it had occured to them that they knew nothing about farming and maybe ought to learn something first. So far, so good, right? But when I told them that I could teach them some basic stuff likely to be applicable nearly anywhere but as I was in an entirely different climate, soil type, and probably marketing situation I could only be of limited help and they really ought to find some farmers in whichever-it-was-country who could teach them how to farm there, you could see their eyes glaze over.
I’m sorry for whoever got that church group inflicted upon them.
I’m not sure what’s worse: that, or ‘poor people are poor because they like being poor.’ I’ve encountered that, too.
Poor people are poor 'cause they ain’t got money.
Can be, could be, should be, but probably won’t be fixed
Too hard, too long, too stupid, too poor to fix my situation of being poor. Cause I’m poor. Cause I don’t have money, cause I’m poor.
Circle circle circle.
One of our many recent home secretaries described homelessness as a
lifestyle choice !
Fuckwit.
Being a fuckwit is definitely a lifestyle choice.
My guess is he deserves his own pit thread, not this one. 