»What compels human beings to be moral?«
|
|||
 i wasn't sure how to word the question... one could argue religon, some based on good doings or based on fear, but i think it is more cerebral than outside influences(environment etc) just curious what you guys thought...and i know what someones comment will be... "well morality is individually based, what's moral to one person may not be moral to another" skip that cop-out and think about the question... why does any human chose to do good instead of bad? where did that little voice in the back of our head telling us something is good or bad come from? posted by The ONEder Man |
|||
|
|||
| in-my-opinion.orgReligion and Mysteries, from worship to werewolvesReligious & Philosophical Topicswhat compels human beings to be moral? |
|
|||
 ...my parents, i could say something deep like religion or meditation or little green men but nope, my mum and dad taught me right from wrong and to have respect for my elders...seems it's a dying art these days. As for what compels me? fear, fear of being punished and just generaly thinking it's wrong to harm or commit injustice. It seems like a basic instinct to me not to do wrong to people. posted by Crossfade |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
 Considering the motivation and consequences of an action or its corresponding inaction, from the viewpoint of those it affects. In short how would I feel if it was done/not done to me, my family, my friends or people I know. I'm not suggesting this is a concious act, more something we kind of get a feel for. Guilt would therefore be us feeling a negative emotion empathic with that of the "victim". It's perhaps easier to consider how this works in a situation where rational thought (and consequently concious moral judgement) may be impared. Sometimes we are unable to fully reconsile a situation and our mind becomes deadlocked - this could be typified by the Freeze. The Freeze is when you suddenly find you're unable to act - the typical example being the cop that hesitates when he sees a kid with what might be a gun. I'm not talking about a pause to evaluate the situation, but a panic, where you can't think straight and you stop dead. In a danger situation such as this, the survival instinct would select fight or flight, training will have some effect, but that should get him to take cover - definately not just stand there. So our basic instinct tells the cop to shoot or run, but he freezes, so there must be another low level system holding him back - I propose it's the same unconcious system that controls our concious morality. A system able to evaluate a situation from this (kind of) emotional viewpoint which is able to override our logical concious thought. The best word I could come up with was Empathy. (this is all theory, I'm not a psychologist or anything) 
But it still leaves the question of why this "Empathic Morality" is strong in some and not in others. And that's got to go back to Crossfades answer with parenting. The conditioning early in life which teaches about consequences. Conditioning which builds a framework for this system to operate within. posted by Marl64 |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
 Maybe the nice feeling of doing some GOOD. And the bad feeling of havong done something "BAD". posted by knn |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote: It seems like a basic instinct to me not to do wrong to people i agree wholeheartedly but then the question would be what about the people that it isn't a basic instict? i do agree it takes a good home, good parenting etc. but you could also argue that some people that have horrible childhoods grow up to do the opposite of what they were taught and end up good also... knn good point but what about those sick people who get off on such cruel acts? plus doing "taboo" things sexually aften produces a good feeling, knowing that it might be wrong what you are doing can actually make the idea and act even more exciting... posted by The ONEder Man |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
 Quote: what about those sick people who get off on such cruel acts Something has been added to their thinking. Outside pressure, e.g. hypnosis, drugs, pain. This life or another. posted by knn |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
The ONEder Man: some people that have horrible childhoods grow up to do the opposite of what they were taught and end up good also... Having felt the suffering, possibly helps to appreciate it and strengthens the will to prevent others from feeling it too. If often think this is the kind of thing that defines a person - rather than simply following a set of "rules", they appreciate the value of those rules. Having suffered, the person can either 1) Seek to make others suffer in the same way - Vengeance etc. 2) Try to end the cycle of pain, learning from the experience. The first is the type of reaction could be linked to the "macho" thing. Not being seen as weak, getting even and all that. Our baser animal instinct, our Mr Hyde. The second is the kind of thing that Christianity is supposed to be all about. Forgiving others and trying to make things better. Our intellect overcoming the beast, our Dr. Jeckyl. Ego and ID - but I can never remeber which is which. 
posted by Marl64 |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote: Having suffered, the person can either
1) Seek to make others suffer in the same way - Vengeance etc. 2) Try to end the cycle of pain, learning from the experience. The first is the type of reaction could be linked to the "macho" thing. Not being seen as weak, getting even and all that. Our baser animal instinct, our Mr Hyde. i understand what your trying to say but i tend to see the first point being the un macho way of dealing with things, it takes stronger will power and more of a man to walk away from certain situations... not much to brag about but i am proud of the fact i've never been in a fight...outside of siblings i've verbally fought or been to the edge and been pushed or pushed people, but no punches have i ever thrown...some might see this as cowardly but i see it differently...
posted by The ONEder Man |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
 it's funny, but I saw this thread today, and yesterday, I was pondering this very question, but from a more scientific standpoint. Evolutionary psychology is a relatively new science, combining cognitive psychology with evolutionary biology, in an attempt to explain why we do some of the things we do, think some of the things we think, and behave some of the ways we behave. According to some theories in evolutionary psychology, early humans began to use language as a result of growing populations. To wit: apes living in small groups tend to help each other out, and specifically, those who are close to each other genetically, and those who are close to each other socially (e.g., grooming partners) are most likely to defend each other against threats, help each other find resources, etc. There are some apes (and humans, too) however who try to cheat, called 'free-riders.' Evolutionary psychologists believe that our brains adapted/developed a sort of 'cheater detection module' to detect those who try to get resources from other apes/humans without offering anything in return. (There's a great experiment that supports this theory, but I won't bother with it here.) Now, as the groups began to grow, the cheater-detection was less useful, because it requires personal contact, and you can't have personal contact with everyone in groups of 150 or more, so the only way to learn about free-riders is language. So, evolutionary psychologists believe, language may have been invented mainly for the purpose of gossip (which would explain much)! Now, to the point of morality. (And here begins my speculations; I don't know if any of this is valid evolutionary psychological theory!) Once we developed language as our primary form of communication, we had ways to convey abstract ideas, which, naturally, gave rise to more ideas, and more abstract. Eventually, some may have developed the idea of immortality, perhaps from seeing some other animals with greater longevity than humans, and descriptions of these animals passed down generations, so that when later generations saw animals matching these descriptions, they may have thought that they were the same animals, giving rise to the belief that they did not die. Once the possibility of immortality is planted in our heads, humans want it. Our ancestors probably knew that it was physically impossible for us to live forever, but perhaps there was something else that could. A spirit? A soul? Who knows? The idea of immortality, combined with the close ties of genetic and social relation, combined with the abstract ideas conveyed by language may have given rise to the idea that in order to achieve immortality, we should act well toward our fellows. Or maybe not!  It's not easy to prove anything in evolutionary psychology; for that matter, evolutionary biology doesn't allow much in the way of scientific proof, either, yet it is widely accepted in the scientific community! What it does is offer simple explanations for the unproven. I'm no expert, but I think this explanation could work. Any thoughts?
posted by annaerullo |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
the lure of immortality is a great motivator to be moral. I would like to add though, since it is another form “I want to ____”, it has potential of causing mischief. Sometimes, those who are out there to be heroes and noblemen, commit the worst kind of crimes. Morality, I feel, is that which benefits many instead of few. Anyone who keeps that compass naturally is in better order that anyone who acts out “I want to ____ “ To answer the question of the post, I would say… A true understanding and respect for the benefit and well being of many (sometimes at the cost of few selfish greedy ones) compels one to be moral. posted by blueSky |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
blueSky: A true understanding and respect for the benefit and well being of many (sometimes at the cost of few selfish greedy ones) compels one to be moral. I think this is a kind of social morality, but this fails in one respect. Suppose the Many are wrong. To defend an individual, alone against a large mob would be taken as a Moral act by most people, yet goes against the social Morality of the Mob - Their belief that this individual requires punishment in order to satisfy their pain. The "human shield" planned for Iraq was devised on Moral grounds yet conflicts with the Morality of those seeking to bring Justice to the people of Iraq. How can they both be right? - or more correctly, how can both be Moral? (note I don't take sides there, please let's not get into a who was right / who was wrong thing in Iaq here - keep this thread clean and philisophical eh? )
There has to be something else which drives one to oppose the majority in defence of a minority on Moral grounds. oh and B.T.W. I agree on the "I want..." thing, and sadly the modern missuse of "I need..." in it's place - such as "I really need the latest mobile phone". 
You can't "need" a luxury item, surely.
posted by Marl64 |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
>> Suppose the Many are wrong. Morality is not a popularity contest. I am referring to something that is for benefits and well being of many and not necessarily that, which is popular among those many (who could be wrong). E.g. over consuming fuel, damages the whole environment, yet majority would like to consume as much fuel as they could their get hands on. Some would even want more than their fair share of pie. Wars happen due to that. It is not very difficult to figure out who is aggressor and who is defender, no matter what the pretext is. Morality should involve understanding of diversity and ability to include all (nations, races, creatures) as a part one macrocosm. An action out of such understanding is the right thing to do and requires great deal of compassion and alertness. posted by blueSky |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote: Morality is not a popularity contest It is. Ethics is not. Morality is. If you were a caesar then you would organize gladiator fights just to entertain your people. It was totally fine in those time's "scheme of OK and not OK". Laws and standards could be said to be moral. Doing something against laws is immoral, but it can be ethical. Thus if you consume cocain nowadays that might be "morally not OK". Just wait until it becomes societie's standard and it stops to be "morally not OK". Although it might still be unethical. It was immoral once to kiss his own wife outdoors. Moral standards change. Ethical not. Thus the topic thread is wrongly asked: "what compels human beings to be ethical?" is the correct question. posted by knn |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
Dictionaries (and MS-word thesaurus) list morality and ethics as synonyms. Anyway, good to know the linguistic technical distinctions, if any. posted by blueSky |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
 It seems that there is a deep understanding in each of us of what is good and what is not. Some listen to it, some don’t. I have no idea where that feeling comes from – maybe indeed it evolved in the course of human kind developement, when basically good actions turned out to be most helpful for survival. I think that everybody will agree that doing bad things is devastating – for one’s soul, for one’s inner self, for whatever it is "not-body" in us. Whatever pretexts and explanations one has for doing bad things, they ruin one. I am sure that a man is basically good. And being moral then is simply being oneself, which is always easy and nice. It is so good when you can feel proud of yourself, can say that yes you have done everything right and there is nothing you can be ashamed of. By being moral one can afford to be honest with others, and that’s a great thing I think, when you don’t have to hide anything from anyone. OK there are religious weirdos that are 110% sure they have done everything right and therefore they have the right to teach you how to live. I don't mean them. Hope it's still possible to get from my post what I actually mean posted by mymla |
|||
|
|||
1, 2 Next
Goto page
1, 2 Next
 Register Log in |
The time now is 24 May 2012, 18:16 php B.B. |