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Do Humans Have an Inbuilt Sense of Right and Wrong?
Posted by filosofia • 10/18/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: ethics, morality, philosophy, right, wrong
Do humans have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong? Or is it something we learn?
Is morality "programmed" into us, like our DNA? Or is it the sum total of the experience of our ancestors?
Is it possible to say there is an absolute morality? Or is it just relative, according to the culture we are brought up in?
Yes I know this is six questions, not one, but they are kind of connected. x
User Comments
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yes i believe so, but following it and maintaining it is a completely different story -
German Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that we can use human reason to access the Categorical Imperative in which will tell us individuals to evaluate whether a given action is right and wrong.
This is a huge claim, and many might just dismiss it quickly, but Kant lays out his argument quite nicely.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative -
There are two aspects to look at in here. 1) People (those who are sane of course) do have an inherent ability to distinguish right from wrong. 2) Society does create certain laws or restrictions based on experience to further the survival of the group.
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Yes there does seem to be an inherent ability to distinguish right from wrong. If I steal my brother's phone, I know I've done wrong, even if I say I don't care. But how do I know it's not something I learned when I was 2?
Another question is about how there are some things that seem to be clearly wrong, such as stealing, but others where it's not so clear. For instance, society in general nowadays accepts gays and says there's nothing wrong with being gay. But in Victorian times, a society not greatly different from ours in many ways, it was considered very wrong, and punishable by a prison sentence.
So if right/wrong is a hardwire program, why isn't it clear in all cases?
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[Is morality "programmed" into us, like our DNA? Or is it the sum total of the experience of our ancestors?]
Not programmed in the traditional sense. Morality is the result of natural selection from an environment where cooperation increases one's chance of survival and getting laid. -
Ever heard the expression "might makes right"?
Human society operated by that means for millennia. If you were strong enough to take what someone else had, it was yours...and if you could take it, you were right to do so because people who were too weak to defend themselves didn't deserve to keep their stuff...or even their lives. From people we admire, like Alexander the Great, to people we revile like Attila the Hun, they all operated on the conquest theory. Right and wrong were defined by the strong, so invading another country, murdering, pillaging, enslaving its occupants and seizing its assets were right because...well, losers don't define what is right and wrong, winners do.
The idea that "underdogs" in a conflict have rights and deserve sympathy...and maybe even restitution...is a new one. Even as recently at WWI, the losing side was required to pay ruinous reparation to the winning side of the conflict. There was no inherent sense of right and wrong...or even simple logic...applied that would have compassion for the devastated German economy. The savage notion that the winner takes all precipitated the rise of Hitler and WWII.
Is there an inherent sense of right and wrong? No. Watch small children playing: the strongest, the most assertive, will take what he wants and if another child cries or struggles to keep his toy, the assertive one may also physically assault his victim. That is human nature and the reason we evolved civilizations that defined right and wrong...to keep that kind of chaotic (and, strictly defined, anarchic) behaviour in check for the greater good.
If we were inherently programmed with a sense of right and wrong, we would not have to teach it to our children, we could just let them run loose and trust, that like walking and talking, they would learn it on their own. They don't. Read "Lord of the Flies." You may find it enlightening. -
All normal humans have a conscience, a natural inbuilt sense of right and wrong.-
Their "inbuilt sense of right and wrong," however, favours their own actions as right and those opposing them as wrong.
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an inbuilt sense of right and wrong is only based on their perspective of the world.
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Yes..human can sense if a food is right or wrong (taste as one of the 5 senses)).
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If that is the case, how did my grandmother get mushroom poisoning? How do so many people get food poisoning every year? You cannot always taste or smell if a food has gone wrong, and sometimes things that taste as if they have gone bad are perfectly ok...sauerkraut, for example.
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Think in terms of potential. All humans have an inbuilt potential to do good. That potential remains whatever habits of thinking and behavior we develop in childhood. Each of us has to decide for ourselves to what extent we realize that potential. The challenge is to know yourself and become what you are (as wise people have said before!).-
I love this answer!
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All of these are locked in a door. And to open any door, there's an appropriate key.
Those keys can be any of the following: a teacher, a person, experience over time, reading, observation, parental education..etc (you just name them)
- Wakish -
(wakish.com) -
What I think: I believe we do have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong. It's true there are some things that are a question of culture and custom. For instance, some societies hold that it is wrong to have more than one spouse, while others allow it.
But on a number of very important issues, it is clear what is the right or wrong thing to do. We know that it is wrong to steal someone else's property, or to kill another person. We may try to justify our actions but deep inside we know it's wrong.
So if there is within us all an inbuilt sense of right and wrong, or a conscience, if you prefer, then the next question is, how did it get there? -
If we were born with a sense of right and wrong, parenting would be much easier.-
That is where a parent's expectation comes in to play.
I know many examples of parents who don't give a flip what their kids do, and their kids turn out to be perfect angels, where as children of parents who run a boot camp at home, their kids are living terrors. -
There is also, "Leading by example".
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I believe what we are born with is a survival instinct. This animal instinct is built into us to help us survive and through social experiment we have learned to control our most radical emotions to fit into the society we have created for ourselves.-
Would it then be safe to say that society is of a higher functioning than that of the animal kingdom and that we must learn to suppress our animal instincts and conform to society for the greater good?
That's a hard one.
There are many things that humans do to themselves, others, and the world around them, that animals would never do (regardless of whether they are capable of doing it or not).
I think it would be safe to say that there are many people in the world that are equally aggressive to that of any lion or tiger, but lack any parenting skills that a lion or tiger may possess. Thus, it is possible for humans to be even more animalistic an even animals are capable of being.
So...again, it has a lot to do with our perspective on things.
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no.
i think we're animals and so what we think and what we do are often hard to reconcile.
there are too many examples throughout history where masses of people engage in fairly abhorrent behavior.
are the rationalizations that people employ to justify wrongs done to others a mechanism to avoid accepting responsibility for actions we know are wrong?
whichever way you choose to look at it, simplistic or manichean considerations of the issue don't work.
it's not whether we're programmed one way or another. the issue is why do we create entirely sensible moral constructs and then spend so much time trying to figure out ways to do things that don't square with them and justify these inherently wrong actions to ourselves. -
Absolutely not since the concept of right and wrong is utterly ridiculous. What is right and what is wrong is only a matter of how you perceive the world.
Morality and ethics are completely subjective.-
Agreed
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I think that people know from the start right from wrong. But people tend to act in their own self interest...avoiding moral judgements and justifying their actions with this now famous quip, "That is your truth not mine." As if there is more than one truth. Or more than one right, or more than one wrong.
Truth is truth...there is only one
Right is right...if it isn't right than it is wrong
Wrong is wrong...if it is wrong then it isn't right
All the bs that people use to justify their insane thinking and actions doensn't change reality.-
It is impossible to have one truth, when everyone's truth is different and subjective. How can there be one truth when everyone is looking at the same thing with a different perspective. In theory - Yes! There is one truth, but is never observed the "same". Everyone's perspective is different, however slight.
There is a parable of six blind men who, try to define an elephant simply by touching it. One man is feeling the elephant’s leg and says that this animal is like a tree. Another man is feeling his trunk and says the elephant is like a snake. Another man is feeling his tail and says it is much like a rope. And so on…
Even "Right" & "Wrong" are "Right" or "Wrong" to certain degrees depending on the individuals perception of it.
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Hi there everyone! I thought I's dig this discussion back out of the archives, blow some of the dust off it, and put it back into circulation. The reason? Because a couple of my blog posts recently have been about a topic that's very similar. (Purely by chance.)
The question is: We have a sense of right or wrong, so how does it get there? Is it a product of our feelings? Or of our rational thinking?
Do we do the right thing because it makes us FEEL good about ourselves? Or because it's what we think we OUGHT to do?
Note: I won't drop any links to my posts, because I always think that looks like a person's a bit too obviously saying "I'm desperate for traffic at any cost" which would not be true in my case, I'm not here to get traffic, only to have a nice time. If you're interested to read my posts, you'll find them easily enough. If you're not, then you won't click on any links. -
Inherent and built in sense of right and wrong ... Most definitely. It takes parents or guardians to assist us to understand why we need to be smart in making the right moral choices. -
Without wishing in any way to turn this into a religious discussion or anything like one, I have to say that your use of the phrase "built-in" implies the existence of an intelligent creator to do the building-in, if you see what I mean? Is that actually your viewpoint? Or are you using the phrase in a loose sort of everyday sense? (Sorry to seem like an interrogator.)
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Gee ... Like DNA programing.
But now that you mention it. Sure I believe that creation didn't simply happen one day. There is Creative Intelligence every place you can and cannot see. Almost breathtakingly magical.
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I think right and wrong, the concept of right and wrong is itself very subjective, it depends upon the percepton of society around you.
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I think it's interesting when people feel they've been wronged by someone, and they appeal to other people to support them without feeling they need to explain WHY those others should support them. Because they expect them to agree. Example: if someone steals from me, I will expect to get sympathy and maybe help from my friend, because we both automatically agree that it was wrong to steal from me.
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I think empathy is in built and a large basis of morale judgments. How would that feel if it happened to me? So yeah it's very subjective when you don't invoke dogma. -
Or, you could become a "super-cynic" and fall victim to recognizing Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. -
Complex question
There is something built into us that discriminates, yes no doubt. But what happens is the programming we get as we develop from babies into young adults and hen old fudgy ones, somehow take over, and the line between our inbuilt discrimination and programming gets blurred. We can end up with some very mixed up right and wrongs if we are not educated intelligently and hanging out with control freaks and religious extremists.
We need to come home to ourselves. -
Do you think the inbuilt sense of right and wrong is something that has evolved?
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no, i think it has been there since beyond time, I could accidentally turn this into a fluffy new age moment but it's not about that. I'm not prepared to call it right or wrong, it's something outside of that, much more sublime and intuitive.
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my sense this is right or possibly wrong.
so i guess i agree. -
Read "Lord of the Flies" or any article about feral children.
Right and wrong are not inbuilt. At heart we are all savages with our own survival as our #1 priority. Civilization...which is taught...mitigates that savagery in favour of cooperativeness. But each civilization is unique and the definitions of right and wrong often differ from one society to another.
Empathy may be inherent, but the concepts of right and wrong are subjective and must be taught.-
oh crap (I don't mean crap to you), i hate that story. we were subjected to that as 8 year olds, it's the most sickening thing i ever encountered and is a great foundation for bullies to model themselves on
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The book "Lord of the Flies" seems to suggest that the concept of right and wrong is not inbuilt, but social, or in other words, learned.
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@acousticguitarist and filosofia:
Exactly my point. Absent the civilising influence of society, "might makes right."
Besides, what is right in one society can be wrong in another, which makes it totally subjective and therefore not inborn. If it was inborn, we would all have the same concept of right and wrong, which means I would not shudder with revulsion when I hear of a man killing his daughter or sister for having been raped. -
So if I understand you correctly, SweetViolet, I can go to my friend's house and steal from her, because I have the power to do so, and "might makes right".
I know I will feel guilty about it, but that's only my social conditioning, which I should ignore, because it's only someone's subjective opinion.
Are you really saying that, or have I misunderstood? -
filo: just reading what you both have said, I'm thinking Eric Burdon and the Animals - oh lord please don't let me be misuinderstood ... not it
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@SweetViolet
I don't think it was so much the absence of society, but more so, the lack of necessities and the fear of the unknown, the fear of seclusion and separation from the whole (the society from where they came).
Eventually - If those children were able to create a society of their own, it would eventually grow in to a society much like our own.
Societies evolve when all necessities are accessible and Art & Creativity are allowed to bloom.
If there is always a fighting and a struggling for the necessities of life, there will always be an animalistic undertow.
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We are from God. That is why we know what is right and wrong and animals do not.-
Bull.
Little children do not know right from wrong until we teach them. A child will take another child's toy, eat food they find on the sidewalk, hit a younger sibling...until we teach them not to.
I have taught my dog right from wrong and when she does something she knows is wrong, she actually hangs her head with guilt. -
we are God
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@acoustic
Agreed
Animals are also God.
Everyone must learn to release the selfish, animalistic presets of themselves and hone a higher beingness.
So...Goodness is inherent, but selfish, animalistic behaviors are also inherent, but it's these lower, less desirable qualities that we must learn to over come.
Essentially - I believe we all want to be “Good”.
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Past the baby stage, a kid should know right from wrong. The bully knows he is doing wrong. He just don't give a damn. Kids and adults know right from wrong. Many don't care though if they do the wrong things. We have a lot of mean people in this world.
An animal will never know, know matter how old they are unless you teach them.-
So, in a way then, we ARE saying that the moral sense has been evolved. If it is not present in animals, but is present in humans (or anyway, in human societies), then it must have evolved by the principle of survival of the fittest. That is, those who act in a moral way tend to live longer and to procreate.
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When St Paul was questioned about what would happen to people who had not heard the Gospel, and consequently had not accepted Jesus in their lives, he replied that some would be saved, because they had followed and obeyed the "law that was written on their hearts." This category of people would then become a "law unto themselves."
Such a view is in agreement with the idea that there is an inbuilt sense of right and wrong, pre-programmed, hard-wired so to speak, into each human. St Paul's implication is that, although not all would follow it, the law was written on the hearts of all.
Not all writers of religion would agree with Paul, however. There are many varied and graphic descriptions of the punishments awaiting those who have failed to be in the right place at the right time to hear the call. -
Probably written in our souls what you spoke of with St. Paul. That is why only humans know, because only we have a soul.
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"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness..."
(Romans 2 14-15)
Not being a scholar of Greek, I don't know, but it's possible the word translated here as "hearts" might also contain the idea of "souls" as well. -
there is a passage in Jeremiah that is very similar. i can't remember it off by heart but it implied that the Jewish people would no longer require the law in the days to come because it would be written in the hearts
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Only humans have a soul. Dribble!
Only humans have descrimination -
@acoustic
"...it implied that the Jewish people would no longer require the law in the days to come because it would be written in the hearts"
Self-governance.
This would be the highest ideal of any society.
But only until we are able to trust our neighbors will we reach this pinnacle.
Mistrust & Fear are the original sins.
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All humans have a moral code hardwired in them. this is one of the things that distinguishes humans from other creatures.
the question that ought to be asked is how does morality evolve since you would think the most amoral would be the most successful at mating.
let's not take that to the absurd please.-
Hi vfosdal, yes I agree, you would think that. But if you think a little bit further you realize that the people who behaved morally and consistently would be more able to build up relationships of trust with their neighbours, and thus form into social groups. This would give mutual protection, causing them to live longer and have more opportunities to mate. And their children would live longer because they would be in less danger.
So the idea of the evolution of a moral sense is maybe not quite so absurd as it seems at first glance. -
i disagree politely on this
morality is man made -
Yes, this is the point where the evolution argument would begin to break down. Because mankind has the ability to reflect on the possible consequences, the situation is not purely one of natural selection like it is for wild animals.
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I think it is safe to say that society (as we know it) is not the highest form of it's self and that we are indeed in the "Dark Ages" as far as societal progression and idealism. We are soooo far from the ideal society it is scary.
We must learn to govern ourselves to the highest possible & most ideal form of ourselves.
What is that?
Love not fear. Trust not mistrust. Life not death. Selflessness not selfishness.
Until we can begin to be the highest form of ourselves, the “Evils” of the world will continue to perpetuate themselves over and over and over again.
This is the only moral code we must live by. Self-governance.
If we could only stop worrying about what others do and start focusing on ourselves.
*In reference to Gays & Lesbians. WHO CARES!!!
Live and let live.
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I have read some interesting points here, and even though as humans we have some basic tools to work with when we are born, our environment molds us to what is right and wrong.
Right or wrong is simply a moral issue, and depending on the person’s viewpoint will dictate their action.
Humans will emulate the people who surround them over time, for good or bad. If you have children you have seen this happen. -
Some people say that right or wrong depends on your point of view or the society or culture you were raised in. But is it really all that different? Stealing, killing, giving false testimony are considered wrong in all cultures, aren't they?
And take the monogamy/polygamy debate. Yes they appear to be very different, but are they really so different? In both of them, the partners are expected to be faithful to the contract. All the major societies and cultures of the world have agreed that mere promiscuity is not advisable.
So the different cultures probably have a lot more in common than you think at first glance. -
Current studies suggest that we are born with a moral grammar, rather like the language grammar that allows infants to learn their first language with astonishing speed. These grammars aid in the learning of, on the one hand language and on the other moral principles based on parental and cultural influences. Both grammars reside in the sub-conscious and are not accessible to the conscious mind making what appear to be simple moral judgements, difficult to justify or explain. Some evidence suggests that animals develop in a similar manner.
What we call morality has little to do with right and wrong and more to do with survival of the species.-
If these current studies are correct, then it appears we do indeed have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong. And if it is also correct that morality is to do with the survival of the species, morality is, in a sense, a kind of instinct, like the fight or flight instinct...
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@filosofia
Cannot disagree, however I tend to find “right and wrong” misleading as it implies morality is some kind of supernatural law of “goodness”. Are we not talking about “Beneficial and non-beneficial” behaviours with respect to the survival of the species.
Then again, maybe I’am just splitting hairs!
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The use of the words right and wrong in the initial thread question was intended to convey the meaning in which those words are used in common speech - as when a person says it is wrong to steal from others, and right to refrain from stealing.
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right and wrong are all matters of perspective, that said what we think of as right and wrong is completely defined by our personality which can't be changed. Even when a person chooses to follow the law rather be only restrained by their own sense of right and wrong, they still believe in their own sense of right and wrong.
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It's called "conscience." Something mere animals do not have... hmmm.-
Gotta disagree.
I have a conscience, and I am a mere animal! -
Of course animals can have conscience!
But, like people, it needs to be developed by teaching the creature the difference between right and wrong. And, just like people, not all animals will develop a conscience as a result of that teaching.
One of my dogs is an SPCA rescue...she is a small dog that had to survive by her wits on the street before she was picked up. When we got her she was wary and would nip or bite at the slightest thing that she interpreted as being potentially dangerous to her. And she would steal things from my desk and hide them in the garden (hence her nickname KleptoDoggie).
We have now had her almost four years. She doesn't get up on my desk, she doesn't steal things, she doesn't bite, she doesn't have that wariness about her any more. And she knows when she has done wrong...and WE know she has done something wrong by the guilty look on her face when she has been bad. In fact, her contrite expression actually alerts us to some misdeed before we have found it!
Animals, like children, must be taught right from wrong before a conscience can develop. It is not inborn in ANY of us. -
@SweetViolet
In the case of your dog I think you are confusing behaviour training with conscience. As a pet lover it is difficult not to impose human traits on a pet, traits that are simply not there. I do the same thing, it’s a wonderful feeling to bond with an animal.
One basis of conscience or morality is empathy with how another feels, to imagine how another thinks, to be sensitive to another’s feelings (sometimes call mind reading, but not in the psychic sense). Evidence of this behaviour in lower animals is sketchy; it is difficult to design experiments to test for empathy in animals that cannot communicate directly.
One experiment that I have read of involved training a small monkey to get food by pressing a lever. When trained, a second monkey was brought into view and set up to be mildly electrocuted when the food lever was pressed. After a first attempt to obtain food and observing the distress to the second monkey, one individual refused to press the lever again and receive food, up to the point of near starvation. This experiment seems to indicate empathy between he first and second monkey. The first monkey understood in some way how the second monkey felt (mind reading).
This area of evolved moral grammar is a new field in science and not without its detractors -
No, I am not confusing behaviour training with conscience. I am not fatuous nor am I given to anthropomorphizing. I have not taught her contrition, I have taught her, in a very limited way, right from wrong.
She is a dog and she is not capable of much extrapolation. She knows, however, when she has done something wrong within the limited context of her training, and she shows remorse for her transgressions. Since she sometimes does this when we have not yet discovered a breach, her very remorseful look and behaviour alert us to a misdeed. She knows...but like a child, she is very impulsive and sometimes does something wrong...and then she is contrite about it even when she is not in fear of consequences because her transgression has not been discovered.
I have two other dogs. They also know right from wrong (within the context of their teaching). They do not, however, show evidence of conscience when they have done wrong. -
@SweetViolet
“her very remorseful look and behaviour” is anthropomorphizing. -
Animals have built-in morals. It's their instinct.
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Simply put- yes. -
Conscience is inbuilt. But there is more than one way for conscience to develop.
First, there is potential for it to exist in our genes. Humans have the capacity to observe and reflect upon their own behavior.
Second, there is potential for conscience to develop during childhood. We absorb the culture in which we are raised.
Third, we can develop our consciences using our powers of moral reasoning and through cultivating particular habits of thought. Thus, it is even possible that a person raised to believe that might is right, for example, could later develop a strong convinction that it is best to live according to the golden rule.-
It is not inbuilt, although empathy may be. Read up on feral children and you will realize that, absent teaching about right and wrong, these children have no conscience.
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Nor any personality. Feral children are like Tom Cruize that can't understand English.
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I don't know much about feral kids, but I find it hard to imagine that they have no capacity to reflect upon their own behaviour. If they can feel empathy toward a person, then I would have thought that they would feel remorse if they harm that person.
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That's like saying maths is built-in because we can reflect on it and we can get the correct results of we follow the right procedure.
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Do humans have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong? Or is it something we learn?
A sense of right or wrong is something we learn. It's not built in.
Is morality "programmed" into us, like our DNA? Or is it the sum total of the experience of our ancestors?
Morality itself is not programmed into us, but the propensity for morality is. On the other hand, some behaviour patterns are hardwired into us. This conflict between what is hardwired into you and what morality you have learnt is a source of guilt and anguish.
Is it possible to say there is an absolute morality? Or is it just relative, according to the culture we are brought up in?
I'm in two minds over this one. It seems to me that certain things like incest and other forms of dysgenics are wrong no matter what. That much is absolute to me, for very obvious rational reasons. Someone else might rationally (or irrationally) differ from me, indicating that it's not absolute.
Then again, for obviously rational reasons something like killing can't always be wrong. There is no absolute moral code that applies to everyone, but I don't think it's all relative with regards to culture. -
Yeah, but nowadays people just ignore it. -
Wrong spot
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Here's an idea...
What if all along, the so called Ten Commandments were intended to be descriptive rather than prescriptive?-
It is hard to imagine how statements which take the form, "thou shalt not ... " could be descriptive. Perhaps God was just making observations to Moses about rules of social cooperation that were relatively successful and Moses wasn't very good at taking notes. If that was the case, then I guess you could say that Moses made and "is" into an "ought".
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"It is hard to imagine how statements which take the form, "thou shalt not ... " could be descriptive."
Yes, but "Thou Shalt Not..." is an English translation, reflecting the mindset of England in the time of King James. I'm no Hebrew scholar, but it's possible the original text may have carried different connotations.
What about this interpretation?
Thus says the Lord: When you are in complete communion with me,
You won't worship any other gods
You won't steal
You won't murder
You won't bow down to graven images
You won't commit adultery
and so on...
This is very close grammatically to the King James version, but there's more the emphasis that this is what the Israelites would choose to do, rather than what they'd be forced to do, once they got to know God really well. The sense, maybe, that once they were totally in tune with God, they would no longer desire to do these things.
Just a thought...
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Nope. Sometimes very young children/toddlers/whatever will very deliberately hurt each other. They must be taught NOT to hit/bite/etc. -
Love the question!
"Good" & "Bad" (as defined by our cultures) are learned.
These are both extremely relative in our experiences.
I think for the most part, humans are inherently "Good", in the sense that we want to love, we want to care, we want to help others. But “Good” (or ”Right”) as learned by culture has (surprisingly enough), little or nothing to do with loving, caring, and the helping of others.
For example - In the Arab world, "an eye for an eye" was commonly practiced. If for some reason, you did someone wrong, it was expected that you would receive an equal punishment. If you happened to break someone's arm, it was only fair that your arm should be broken as well.
This practice would be culturally accepted as "Good", "Fair", “Right”, "Acceptable".
*I don’t think this is practiced any more, but I could be wrong.
Religious persecutions, cleansings, crusades, inquisitions throughout history were seen as "Good". Maybe not by the whole, but it was seen as a necessary event in order to be in "Good" standing with God and his words.
In many European countries, public nudity is not seen as "Bad", “Wrong“, “Offensive“. Where as in America, you can go to jail for it.
"Good" & "Bad" are extremely relative.
“Right” & “Wrong” are cultural ideas.
“Good” (desirable) & “Bad” (undesirable) are inherent. -
yes right and wrong is subjective if the person isn't "trained"
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"It is hard to imagine how statements which take the form, "thou shalt not ... " could be descriptive."
Yes, but "Thou Shalt Not..." is an English translation, reflecting the mindset of England in the time of King James. I'm no Hebrew scholar, but it's possible the original text may have carried different connotations.
What about this interpretation?
Thus says the Lord: When you are in complete communion with me,
You won't worship any other gods
You won't steal
You won't murder
You won't bow down to graven images
You won't commit adultery
and so on...
This is very close grammatically to the King James version, but there's more the emphasis that this is what the Israelites would choose to do, rather than what they'd be forced to do, once they got to know God really well. The sense, maybe, that once they were totally in tune with God, they would no longer desire to do these things.
Just a thought...-
Sorry, this last comment got posted twice by mistake
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If that interpretation is correct it would bring the old testament philosophy close to that in the new testament. But it would also create a puzzle (for me anyhow) in understanding what Jesus was on about when (if my memory of what I learned over 40 years ago at sunday school is correct) he suggested that the commandments could be reduced to two: namely love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. If the 10 commandments had that meaning all along, then why would he bother to make the point.
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As I was saying, I'm not a scholar of ancient Hebrew, nor yet ancient Greek, so I would never presume to have any opinion that was worth anything much on the question of the interpretation of sacred scriptures.
It was just an idea that occurred to me... -
I thought it was an interesting idea.
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Is this related to the thread found here?
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/are-humans-innately-good-or-evil
If so then it will also be related to all these ones too
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/are-humans-innately-good-or-evil-
Crossposted
lol ... In some respects the "religious/philosophical" threads appear to be a means of conducting classes now ... we have the believers "sharing" and atheists identifying fallacies. It's the same old same old over and over and over again.
The persistence in pursuing these concepts over and over again in this blogging forum context makes me wonder:
(1) Have these threads which most frequently originate as thinly veiled attempts at "sharing the faith" become a correction in direction idol to both believers and atheists alike?
(2) Are both theists and theists be so attached to their own words posted into these many threads, as opposed to in their blogs, that they would truly grieve the loss of the threads?
Nah ... that couldn't be, could it? Because atheists don't have idols. ... lol
Carry on carrying on. This is just something to ponder that I have posted in a spirit of goodwill.
Happy Solstice to all and have a Very Merry New Year too. -
To Timethief:
1. This thread is definitely not a "thinly veiled attempt at "sharing the faith"" It's a discussion of philosophy, in which all views are welcome.
2. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason why there are so many threads on spirituality and moral values etc etc might be because people just enjoy talking about those things?
3. No-one is being compelled to join this discussion, or to read it.
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Right or wrong? Who told you what is right or wrong?
Based on schools/churches/some adults - they taught us we shouldn't do this and we shouldn't do that.
Ex. stealing food is not right. According to philosophy perspective maybe its not right to the person whom you steal but for you it is right if it is for survival because you need to eat and want to continue living.
Right or wrong question is very subjective. Answers are depends on the perspective or point of view. -
Here I go again..... everyone has both qualities available to them but chose to use one maybe more than the other. Today before my lunch I came upon a story about a dog that was mutilated and left on the side of the road. Only humans can be evil.........-
I guess when tiger bites man it's not evil.
article.wn.com/view/2008/11/20/Bengal_tiger_bites_young_worker_at_Virginia_...
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Considering the amount of people maimed, killed, tortured, gassed or abused in various countries of the world, humanity shouldn't be called 'humane'. I do consider that the average individual can differentiate between not right or wrong but 'cruel' and 'not so cruel' until the mob mentality takes over. -
I think we do have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong. That's why people spend so much energy and time thinking up reasons why there are special circumstances for them doing something they would criticise others for doing...
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tdkyo wrote
"German Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that we can use human reason to access the Categorical Imperative in which will tell us individuals to evaluate whether a given action is right and wrong.
This is a huge claim, and many might just dismiss it quickly, but Kant lays out his argument quite nicely."
The more I look at it, the more I see that Kant´s categorical moral imperative (i.e. "duty") has done considerable harm to Western civilisation. Yet it still holds sway, the entire Western political spectrum rests on it, maybe even the entire world political spectrum, from the far left to the far right. Further, one must realize that without Kant, Freud would have never existed.
Look, if you consider that in a same day one sleeps and one is awake, this begets the question of whether sleep is an imperfect state relative to the state of being awake. For Kant, to be awake is to do ones' duty. It was thus left to Freud to explain that sleep is that state in which our instinct rips off the camisole which duty is, which each of us don all others. In other words, for Freud, our instinct is our primitive state, savage and amoral, the virgin state which escapes from what culture, education and the collective circus imposes unduly on each individual. To summarize, Kant reduces the state of being awake to morality, and in response to this farce, Freud, through a quite infantile dialectic, has inversed the perfect (ruined by Kant) and the imperfect, i.e. has inversed the state of being awake and sleep, by withdrawing to instinct under the pretext that he escapes from the moralizing ruin of human reality.
There is nothing more destructive than to diminish reality, all the more so when it is sublime. The Western world is presently almost entirely subordinated to humanitarian moral atheism and Kantian anthropology. I would hardly be surprised if more and more irreproachable men, well educated, perfect examples of morality and duty, should suddenly commit abominable acts, muting at night in a sort of sub-animal species, for neither morality nor duty come first, and, in fact, it is so absurd to think such a thing that the most monstruous human instincts would not cease to seek revenge since morality assumes nothing of the grim underpinnings of human nature, nothing at all. Morality and duty are consequences, and one must beware the back draft if they are put to the fore.
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No. I don't believe they do -
Yes. God calls it "conscience."
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Do you think the fact that we have a conscience is a strong argument in favour of the existence of God?
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We created the sense of right and wrong. Actually there isnt any, it only exists because we created it..in truth there is just life. Morality is a purely human construction, and with it right and wrong. And even that varies from tribe to tribe. -
Do humans have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong? Or is it something we learn? Is morality "programmed" into us, like our DNA? Or is it the sum total of the experience of our ancestors?
If morality is not programmed in apes, technically it should not be present in human DNA as well. It is a product of millions of years of civilizations. Our ansestors figured out that living life on certain fundamentals( call them morals) makes it easier for the tribe as a whole.
Is it possible to say there is an absolute morality? Or is it just relative, according to the culture we are brought up in?
I guess after so many years of civilzations there are certain things that are absolutely immoral. For example, killing any other person for no reason is immoral. Different cultures may consider different things as reason enough to kill though.
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