On 3 Apr., 14:53, Lonlaz <[email protected]> wrote:
> I understand your fears, I have expirienced them myself when leaving
> religion behind. I think the correct answer is, humans are for the
> most part, inherantly moral.
Much as I would like to think this, lon, I have a major methodological
problem with this premise, taken as an axiom. Personally, I was raised
in a liberal Christian tradition (even if, like you, I have
consciously grown beyond the Christian part of it) and experience a
strong subjective distaste for the idea of amoral humanity. Still, I
find myself wondering how much my desire for a moral aspect to my
fundamental anthropology is rooted within my socialisation, something
which, despite my present postion of professed agnostic atheism, is
still very much part of me. Frankly, I don't want to be rid of it -
it's an aspect of who I am. But it does raise an attitude of
existential suspicion of my own judgement. For a grounding of
morality, I think we must go deeper.
I see three basic philosophical vectors here. The first is
evolutionary. Without going too far into an area better covered by
people like Dawkins, I do think there can be a certain weight
apportioned to the development of humanity and human societies - some
kind of altruistic genetic direction, which has shown itself to be
generally advantageous throughout the development of our species.
The second has to do with order. Whether we go into the the
microscopic; from biology (complex organisms, cytology, genetics), to
chemistry, to atomic and subatomic physics; or the macroscopic; solar
and planetary systems, galaxies and galactic clusters, we see
everywhere wonderful complex examples of structure and organisation. I
do not make the jump here to a theological argument from design - the
order we see may just as well be incidental fractal islands of
structure, order and differentiation in an entropic sea of chaos - but
the order we experience gives us a pattern, or an example of
patterning which we may legitimately take over for humanity and the
way we organise our living together - an organising which cannot take
place without morality. To freely choose order rather than chaos (and
such a choice implies basic moral systems) seems to be a rational and
sensible step.
The third is the old philosophical argument, to wit, that it is the
nature of human beings to seek happiness; and happiness is not
achievable without a basic moral position.
These are very simple statements of arguments which have much depth
and complexity. They make, in this simplified stage, no statements
about any specific moral content. Still, they serve me as a starting
point for the development of a position which argues that morality is
an integral part of what it means to be human.
Francis
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