Humanity has no moral nature

Humanity has no moral nature.
We do have a social nature which tends to confuse the two, we learn everything from others and if we learn the rules or expectations of others and obey we are deemed ethical, if we develop self determination we may develop a moral code.

 

I have my own moral code, honed by a 20 year career in the military. I really don't give a rats a$$ what people think of me by appearance. I collect antique firearms and restore classic cars...as well as work for a firearm manufacturer.

I teach my kids the same way, believe and have faith in yourself. Don't let others try to tell you who you are. My son is slightly overweight, he's a junior in high school, but he's one of the best linemen on his school football team and he sings in choir. Some other kids have ribbed him about choir, he just punishes them in practice.

 

Confuse humanity with human nature?

If humanity has no moral nature, then the latter doesn't exist at all; so what is there to confuse?

So if you'd never been told murder is wrong, you'd never know. Right?

 

Excellent, the military can be quite the teacher.

 

I think the fact that I've been in almost 40 foreign countries has helped as well.

 

I don't think that's true. I think our definitions of what is moral are certainly fluid from one individual to the next and depend largely on the perceived or learned morality of those around them, but I also believe that (extreme situation to illustrate the point here) were an unsocialized, lone human to happen upon another human in a state of severe suffering or peril, and that lone unsocialized human had the means to help the other with no real risk of material loss, they would do so, the vast majority of the time.

Of course, this is pure speculation as theres no real way to test it... but I believe it nonetheless.

Do you really believe that your 'humanity' or feelings of sympathy for others suffering (assuming you have them) are entirely the result of external programming by your local society?

 

Do you really believe that your 'humanity' or feelings of sympathy for others suffering (assuming you have them) are entirely the result of external programming by your local society?[/QUOTE]

Yes and what I have proactively chosen to pursue. I was raised in an extremely religious home in childhood and growing up (christian) no tv, home schooled, church every time the doors where opened, ect. I learned that humans are not made better or worse by religion, I saw many good people helping others and many others using the moral superiority of position to bully and to exercise power. In wider society I find that people either do what they think is right or righteous, in other words what they are motivated to do personally or what will be praised. Self righteousness is a learned behavior but so is empathy which is I think a sort of bridge to understanding one another.

 

I am more or less in agreement with your basic premise; but I also think that it doesn't rally matter. The last time that I looked into this, science had pretty much determined that the younger the child the more that he or she simulates the basics of being a sociopath. As the child ages different brain connections come more on line as well as the end result of long term exposure to various forms of social conditioning; thus someone capable of more generalized or dependable forms of empathy is BUILT. But then again, even if true, what does it matter? As long as a decent human being is crafted along the line then the end result is positive in nature for both the individual and for the greater society.

The entire argument returns to the much older one called Nature versus Nurture. The answer is that it's a little bit of both elements for most human beings.

 

Perhaps you can give us a reason to trust that determination.

That is hardly sufficient to ensure decency in a person. In fact, it can very easily become an instrument of evil, if one empathizes with the dark side of a person unawares.

Seeing a great many people are not decent, as evidenced by our national election results over the last few decades, maybe it does matter.

Neither of those, alone or together, are sufficient to produce decent human beings.

 

Morality doesn't exist by itself, its defined by society the only exception would be a religious belief.

 

You're talking about peer pressure here.

Peer pressure is a social phenomenon.

I am not sure you can call this ethics or related to ethics.

It is political not philosophical.

Ethics is philosophical and like all philosophy occurs inside your mind independently of the environment around you.

 

The military is/are about changing you from a common civilian into a trained killer.

Like all training and brainwashing it is driven by forces external to you for purposes other than your own.

My own early memories of it are these:

"My name is gunnery sergeant Wm. T. Cabrerra, your senior drill instructor.

From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your mouths will be sir. Do you worms understand that? Sound off like you've got a pair. Bullsh!t I can't hear you! …"

 

Yes and what I have proactively chosen to pursue. I was raised in an extremely religious home in childhood and growing up (christian) no tv, home schooled, church every time the doors where opened, ect. I learned that humans are not made better or worse by religion, I saw many good people helping others and many others using the moral superiority of position to bully and to exercise power. In wider society I find that people either do what they think is right or righteous, in other words what they are motivated to do personally or what will be praised. Self righteousness is a learned behavior but so is empathy which is I think a sort of bridge to understanding one another.[/QUOTE]
Feelings come from within.

Art is about feelings.

Philosophy is ultimately also about feelings -- the feelings of right-ness and correctness.

Feelings come from within.

 

I wonder if we have any moral nature at all? We have never to my knowledge ever raised two humans up with no moral teachings, and some teachings are learned from observing the behavior of the society that you live in. So I don't think we know if a human being in some sense is innately moral in some direction. Since we have to teach it, one would think it isn't innate at all.

 

Let's start by defining our terms. What is a "moral nature?" I don't want us to be talking around each other.

 

Morality is a human concept, there is no right or wrong.

Its simply a group of people determining that.

So a cult marrying 12 year olds is just as moral as passing a law that makes them wait until they are 18.

Outside of religious guidance there is nothing written in the stars or some hidden book that defines what is moral, its what we decide.

 

By the way humanity as a moral nature, every sociable animals tend to have taboos, forbidden things, and so morality. Furthermore, a lot of things were considered morale in a lot of human societies : don't hurt people of the same group, don't steal them, don't cheat, don't lie, be brave.
However, universalism, considering you should be good too to foreigners is more recent and tend to come from christanity.

 

Wrong.

Penguins have been observed participating in group rape, necrophilia, and killing babies for sport.

They have no taboos.

 

It is not 100% clear what your point is but If you are claiming a moral code has to come from some supernatural sky man you are wrong. For example the Bible (believe by Christians to be the word of God) find slavery to be morally acceptable whereas humanity has determined slavery to be immoral. Humanity has a moral nature that is evolving over time.

 

Humanity has its own gestalt. There are human behaviors that have been selected for over our entire evolution. We are just a small part, albeit the leading edge, of the continuum that is our species.

 

You forgot prostitution (for rocks to make the nest). I don't know a lot for penguins. Taboos can be on other things, like wolves and chicken have a strict hierarchy who influence who can mate with who. It's a form of "morality".

 

related thread to rebut your supposition:
a lot of the misunderstandings about Christianity come from a lack of wisdom about human nature

 

People have tendencies that allowed their ancestors to reproduce better than others. This includes an obsession with sex, and a willingness to band together with similar people to take what you want from different people by force. At the end of the day, we all tend to seek pleasure, it just varies how we get there. But this is all how things are if you don't think, but just act out of instinct or desperation.

But modern society can be a less desperate place than that of tribal ancestors. Morality is basically logic applied to the human condition. People shouldn't hurt each other because it leads to the destruction of both sides, or at least a loss of security if you're clearly more powerful than the foe. Morality is a natural consequence of intelligence taken to the extreme, and humans are the most intelligent thing we know of, though it varies quite a bit.

 

If so.... then why does about twenty percent of near death experience accounts involve a Life Review?

It seems to me that this shows that something inside of us wants to be ethical and empathetic toward others.

https://www.near-death.com/science/research/life-review.html

 

You have to have morality if you're going to have a society otherwise society would be impossible.