On May 4, 2:26 pm, Bridge <[email protected]> wrote: > On May 4, 10:56 am, Deidzoeb <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Um, what if I eat a baby? > > > > Is that bad? > > > Depends on the circumstances. Do you have any cilantro? > > Come on!
Okay, let me take this seriously, because morality is something I haven't settled on and I'm not sure where mine comes from other than my own feelings and emotions. (YIKES!) I see morality as subjective, which should mean morality doesn't matter, the kind of thing that absolutists usually accuse moral relativists of thinking. But I think some of the big moral questions are more or less hardwired into us, instinctive. Almost everybody feels that it's wrong to kill, even from wildly different cultures. Maybe there's a positive situation that has steered humans to evolve an instinct against killing. It wouldn't have to always benefit the individual. If it benefits the species, then that can be enough for a trait to be caught up in evolution. Unfortunately there's a huge number of exceptions, people who don't feel that way or are able to overcome their instincts against killing. That doesn't necessarily prove that it's not an instinct. Like homosexuality, you'd think that would be a trait that selects itself out of the population, but people keep doing it. Some traits don't have to pop up in every individual for them to serve some evolutionary function. I've heard of studies that hint at some parts of morality being instinctive, but I realize it's not fully proven or supported. I'm not even sure how we'd go about proving that. But it seems plausible. I guess even if morality was instinctive, that wouldn't mean it's objectively right. What if we had the instinct to rape? Would that make it less wrong? So I feel conflicted about morality. I want to tell other people, "Your morality is screwed, it's not objective, it's just your personal preferences and your culture telling you what to do." But when I feel some moral judgment within me, I know it's subjective but it still feels right. Don't eat the baby! I don't have any objective reason to prove that it's wrong, but just don't do it! And don't tell the theists. They'll have a field day calling me a hypocrite. ;) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A Civil Religious Debate" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/a-civil-religious-debate?hl=en.
