Morality is a code of values that help you determine a right course of action. Why would that HAVE to be social?
Wanted to back you up on this. You make a valid point. Taken to it's logical conclusion, you can argue that the Golden Rule accepted without question can actually lead to some horrible things. Consider this: How would a masochist practice the golden rule?? Answer: By being a sadist. Now you have a sadomasochist on your hands. Wonderful isn't it?
As I noted upthread, that's not the definition the OP is based on. Here it is again: the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. None of this tells me why empathy is a decent indicator of morality. Not by the definition I cited above, it isn't. I think robini may have swerved into a little bit of truth with the underlined. Christ said if your eye is single your body will be full of light; but mostly that isn't the case, because we have a dark side that pretends to have our own best interests at heart, when in fact it desires nothing more than our enslavement. IOW, a masochist cannot, by an act of sadism, obey the golden rule, because both the persons he'd be serving by such an act are impostors.
I doubt if morality would have arisen without the ability of some people to feel this thing called empathy. So it probably has a strong connection to morality, in that it was part of what motivated it in the first place. Surely being able to identify with another person's feelings played a big role in constructing moral behavior. I doubt if we didn't feel empathy, morality would have ever arisen at all.
` Too many mistake sympathy for empathy. As I see it, a person truly possessing any measurable degree of empathy is rare...very rare find, indeed. `
Not all who possess empathy have empathy for the same thing. For example I have empathy for gays who are not able to marry but not all Americans have empathy for gays thus empathy is subjective. The Americans who have no empathy for gays will still have empathy... perhaps for shop owners who deny gays service... again a demonstration of the subjectivity of empathy.
I'm not a conservative nor am I rationalizing away anything. The Golden rule is simply useless. It doesn't actually tell you what you should do.
I think everybody has it except maybe for some sociopaths. Others (such as conservatives) have learned how to overcome empathy through years of de-programming.
Of course the Golden Rule tells you what you should do. Empathy comes from knowing yourself and applying that knowledge to the way you treat others. You know you don't like getting kicked in the nuts so you don't kick others in the nuts. You learned that in your first couple years on this planet. I don't know that you are conservative, but you ARE rationalizing in grand conservative tradition.
Let me use a real life example of the Golden Rule and its fallibility. I am a man with long hair. My old man is a Christian conservative. My old man has on a number of occasions argued that I should cut my hair to better fit in with society. Now I argue that my old man was doing unto me as he would want done unto himself if the roles were reversed. The problem is that the Golden Rule is a measure of morality but morality is relative to the individual thus the morality of my father in this case conflicts with my own morality. My father has no empathy for any negative judgment towards me as he sees the judgment as justified. I have much empathy for those who are judged as a negative because of harmless action. I think the negative of the Golden Rule is a much better foundation for morality, that being; if I would find a thing harmful to me, then I should not do that thing to another. My daughter has a different basis of morality that being; treat others how they want to be treated.
The Golden Rule: Do unto others (what? What should I do?) as you would have others do unto you (what's that?) Taken literally, this tells me the only criteria for being moral is literally what I want done to me no matter what it is. So If I am a masochist, being a sadist satisfies the requirement. What, you don't think sadism is good? Morality as a code of values requires a proper standard by which to judge what is actually beneficial to a human life. The Golden Rule's standard leaves one free to do whatever they happen to personally desire. I don't think that's a good starting point.
Your nut kicking example is not the Golden Rule... it's the negative of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is an action "treat others how you would want to be treated" whereas the negative of the Golden Rule is the avoidance of an action "if I would find an action harmful then I should not do that action to another". Both the Golden Rule and the negative of the Golden Rule are subjective as morality is relative to the individual rather than universal to all humanity. To me empathy is a byproduct of morality but will again be subjective as it is relative to the individual.
You've illustrated who you would have empathy for, which is subjective, but empathy in of it self remains the same. And that is the ability to put yourself in another person's place. That is what is constant and universal.
I don't think there is any need for positive and negative golden rules. If you like being kicked in the nuts, you haven't learned anything about yourself in the first few years and need a course correction. If you like receiving toys at Christmas, you should know that others might like receiving them, too. I don't know what morality is if it doesn't originate with the individual. I also think morality is the byproduct of empathy, not the other way around. Enough people empathizing with each other is the basis for morality and a moral code. There's nothing objective about either morality or empathy.
Nope it doesn't. But it suggests, if you want to be treated nice or fair you should also treat others nice or fair. If you don't care and want to get beat up and beat others up, you can do that also. The majority chose not to get beaten up. I liked the getting kicked in the nuts better than mine.
You know rules are meant to be broken. A rule isn't a law, it is a general guideline that usually a majority will follow.
The problem with this is that we have no way of knowing - and you may not even be conscious of it yourself - whether your dad was, unconsciously or otherwise, trying to force his will on you; and if he was, he sure as hell wasn't following the GR, because nobody wants that done to him or her.
I think the two definitions are effectively the same, at least for our purposes. My definition is from wikipedia and should be reasonably valid. It certainly conforms to empathy in the sense it may have been used to discuss morality. I think we agree on some things here. As I've said several times, empathy isn't the be-all end-all of morality. However, sometimes failures to behave morally can sometimes be attributed to a failure in empathy. Not because the fundaments of morality lies in empathy, but because the recognition of morality can lie in empathy.
You're quite mistaken. In fact, if one reads the last sentence in the OP, one could almost believe I anticipated somebody confusing this very issue exactly as you have. That's no concern of mine. The OP is based on my cited definition, and I'm not open to discussion on that.
there is a fairly large practical component to morality, though, so I'm inclined to think empathy is the byproduct. consider that this practical component is tied to survival, and you can see that empathy plays no part. as soon as we started living in groups of two or more, we quickly realised that certain behaviours increased survival odds, and others did the opposite. wolf packs are the go-to for observation of what we would call primitive morality, and they demonstrate this survival morality very well. quite complex codes of behaviour.
I thought the discussion was based on arguments made by atheists about morality and that already specifies a definition. If you switch definition after that, you can't really expect the argument to retain it's point. I'd be like someone saying "This wall is orange", "No, orange is a fruit, this wall is not a fruit", "That's not what I meant by orange", "I was very clear that that was the definition of orange I was using". Atheists aren't dumber than that they would be able to spot the inconsistency you mention.
That there in RED....You could blast one of his limbs and that would stop him...especially if you blasted the hammer-arm. A truly empathetic person would avoid shooting Joe in the gut because that is a serious, if not fatal, injury. An Atheist might not have been taught to love their fellow human beings no matter how they act and would just summarily dispatch Joe. That being said, police are taught to shoot at the body mass and double-tap. The law doesn't adhere to religious beliefs.
Yeah it's the golden rule you find in most religions as well as secular norms. While it's infinitely better than ignoring the fact that others feel, it's not the best moral approach either because it is naive to assume attempting to imagine ourselves as somebody else is actually like being in their place. A sociology professor I had suggested a platinum rule, where you ask people how they want to be treated. Maybe they were applying the golden rule where if they were delusional, they would want somebody else to help them see the truth.
I only mentioned atheists because I haven't encountered any theists who make that argument, and the OP is pretty obviously quite a bit more focused than "arguments about morality". Dunno where the hell you get that idea, but it's hardly my responsibility to compensate for misuse of the term by the proponents. Since I've clearly done no such thing, I won't bother with the rest. Color tags are ineffectual on my end. My scenario says you couldn't. If you don't like that scenario, start your own thread.
