Does Morality Do Us Any Good?

Cypress said:
Why don't you ever summarize these papers that you link to in your own words?

It makes me think you haven't read them.
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Well, the last one I posted basically just gave you the DETAILS about what I've been talking about all along in my own words. I provided it to you since you seem to not know how evolution provides a survival benefit to social animals.

I realize that you don't like to read a lot. But basically they are merely explaining the various reasons why evolution provides an advantage to social development for social animals and how those various things like reciprocity and all the other words you like can be factored in.

I've already explaine a LOT of this in my own words but you simply refuse to believe me. So I post references in hopes you will be interested enough in learning this interesting topic.
 
Cypress said:
You haven't been talking about morality.

You've been hollering about cooperation.

Cooperation is based on self-interest and mutual benefit.

There are no objectively admirable moral actions if the intent is ultimately based on self-interest and reciprocity. At that point it's just about self-preservation - which actually is consistent with Darwinian evolution
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they are the same.

we act morally to one another so that we can cooperate.

why do you hate the truth so much?
 
Daylight63 said:
Well, the last one I posted basically just gave you the DETAILS about what I've been talking about all along in my own words. I provided it to you since you seem to not know how evolution provides a survival benefit to social animals.

I realize that you don't like to read a lot. But basically they are merely explaining the various reasons why evolution provides an advantage to social development for social animals and how those various things like reciprocity and all the other words you like can be factored in.

I've already explaine a LOT of this in my own words but you simply refuse to believe me. So I post references in hopes you will be interested enough in learning this interesting topic.
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Basing your actions on expectations of reciprocity or cooperative mutual advantage is not the basis of ethics in any religious text or ancient moral philosophy that I have read.

It's based ultimately on self-interest.

Even lemurs and monkeys have relationships based on reciprocity and mutual advantage. But those aren't moral societies. You would be horrified to have to change places with a chimpanzee and live in chimp society
 
Cypress said:
Basing your actions on expectations of reciprocity or cooperative mutual advantage is not the basis of ethics in any religious text or ancient moral philosophy that I have read.

It's based ultimately on self-interest.

Even lemurs and monkeys have relationships based on reciprocity and mutual advantage. But those aren't moral societies. You would be horrified to have to change places with a chimpanzee and live in chimp society
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Why do you parse "morality" that way? I'm genuinely curious because you seem to be working overtime in special pleading for moral laws. In fact the very things you describe all have analogues in the animal kingdom. Your apparently dislike of the science on it doesn't really make the science go away.

You seem to think morality has to have some "good" to it. As if "self-interest" is insufficient for you. I understand that, for people of faith it is often quite distasteful to think that we are all just animals whose only goal is to survive. For those of us lucky enough to gain a survival advantage from SOCIAL NETWORKS we are hardwired to be able to function in those networks.

Why do you think it has been nearly impossible to truly domesticate the cat, but the dog basically jumped in our laps. One is a social creature who understands (at a basic instinctual level) the rules of a social animal and the other is a lone predator that has limited to no real social network built into the system.

I sense you will complain about this post as well since I am trying to leverage actual science and biology which you seem to think play no or very limited role in morality.

So maybe the question is: Where do YOU think morality comes from? Clearly you dislike it being a natural effect. So who was it that FIRST figured out that murder was wrong? Was it Jesus? Or did Abraham figure out murder was wrong? Was it Moses? Who was it? And how did they arrive at the decree that murder is wrong?
 
Litmus said:
You people have grown up in a highly moral world so you think peace, and stability, and schools, and roads. and banks and churches and strip malls just exist automatically.

they require that enough individuals in a population live in a cooperative fashion.

morality is cooperation.

and cooperation is humanity's advantage.

we couldn't even dominate animals until we learned to hunt cooperatively, and that requires not treating each other as enemies and prey.

the neocon banker fascists are trying to demoralize humanity so we cannot work together to repel their tyrannical bullshit.
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Oh, I was on the edge of my seat, thinking, "Wow, finally, a leftist with an ounce of gray matter!" But nope, just another train-wreck of an argument derailing faster than a drunk conductor on New Year's Eve.

So, I did a little digging into your glorious history of comments, and what do I find? Just another basement-dwelling, left-wing drone, sporting a self inflicted bald dome that reflects more light than your empty head, surrounded by a sea of discarded lotion bottles and fast food cartons – all courtesy of mommy's DoorDash account, no doubt. Instead of crafting a single coherent thought, you're hurling insults like a toddler with a rattle.

What a colossal waste of space. I got more intellectual stimulation from watching paint dry. Bravo, you've managed to disappoint on every conceivable level.
 
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