On 4 Sep 2008 at 1:19, William T Goodall wrote: > > On 3 Sep 2008, at 23:08, Andrew Crystall wrote: > > > On 2 Sep 2008 at 19:07, William T Goodall wrote: > > > >> I think that our capacity for ethics comes from our social animal > >> nature but that telling good from bad comes from thinking about > >> ethics > >> using our intelligence. > > > > Per Dawkins, animal group behavior works out essentially selfish in > > the genetic sense. This isn't of course a bar to forming ethics, but > > it does create issues extending them outside your "tribal grouping" - > > most animals don't form the larger sort of associations Humans do. > > As I said the capacity is innate but we can and do elaborate it using > our intelligence. The primitive ethics of tribes and religions is > extended by moral and political philosophy to include more abstract > concepts of justice and fairness.
Yes, but where does the ability to do so come from? I'd argue that only Humans and a few other animals have the ability to comprehend altruistic ideals - and here we touch on self-awareness: Understanding of the self as an individual is key to accepting others as individuals and enables true altruistic actions. (And yes, I am saying that very young children will only behave in a selfish way). > > > >> And if it's like mathematics it raises the question would aliens > >> develop the same ethics as us? > > > > At least part of our ethics comes from our perceptive organs and our > > social and biological interaction mechanics. I think it's fair to > > assume that aliens would differ in these at least slightly and the > > ethical systems may vary. > > I was thinking that despite the differences in the underlying > mechanisms our hypothetical aliens might begin to reach similar > conclusions once they applied more advanced thinking to the subject. Why? What is inherent in higher level ethics which doesn't depend on our perceptions of the world arround us? AndrewC _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
