People's true moral nature

[Treedbear]

... questions like: 'is it moral to do [x]' and 'is it moral to do [y]'. I'd argue that these types of questions are nonsense, and that there is one objective moral framework that actually guides human behaviour. Beyond man-made moral systems, it defines how people actually behave in the ethical realm.

Basically human morality boils down to this:

I'm free to do anything I want, but I'm not free from the consequences of doing what I want

That's vague enough to apply to any action, not just encounters with other moral agents. It doesn't even mention other people nor their interests. ...

Its vagueness comes from the fact that morality is all about how one measures the consequences. If Donald Trump screws people out of the money he owes them for the services they provided but is able to get away with it because he has powerful lawyers he might think he is free from the consequences. He's said as much. But that's because he places higher value on his own survival than on the well-being of people he employs, as well as the general trust people have in the justice system. I hope that this regressive thinking isn't becoming contagious.

 

[PyramidHead]

I meant that it was vague because it could just as easily apply to choosing which route I take to get to work, which is not a moral issue.

 

[Treedbear]

I meant that it was vague because it could just as easily apply to choosing which route I take to get to work, which is not a moral issue.

It might be a moral issue depending on the consequences and the value you place on them.

 

[Valjean]

I don't think the 'imagined communities' that are modern states have much in common with tribal societies, actually.

Exactly.
We're not wired to live in civilizations. To live harmoniously in modern society we need to be both aware of our predilections and tribal psychology and educated to counter them.

Till social psychology is included in the three 'Rs' or a police state imposed, we're going to have war, strife and crime.

 

[rousseau]

Johnathan Haidt:
"The mind is designed (by evolution), to unite us into teams, to divide us against other teams, and to blind us to the truth."

Human morality was forged in the Pleistocene, as a tribal survival mechanism, and has become hard-wired into our psychology.

Human moral behavior revolves around tribalism: intense in-tribe loyalty and altruism, coupled with animosity toward and competition with other tribes. Our moral sense and desire for understanding does not naturally extend beyond out own tribe. Even when seers appear, teaching peace, love, tolerance and unity few are able to extend these ideals beyond their own in-group.

The pleasure of tribalism is so intense that, absent actual, competing tribes, humans will create artificial tribes, to which they can focus their loyalty and out-group animosity -- even when these opposing entities are, for all intents and purposes, identical.

Cf: the current, World Series competition between the Cub and Indian tribes.

I sometimes wonder about the internal experiences of other people, and what it'd be like if you were to average them out.

At this stage of my life I'm sitting on an IQ in the top 2% of the population, and eight years of post-secondary. For a while I thought my experience of the world was typical, but I'm beginning to notice that it might be quite atypical. I do remember pretty vividly my experience as an adolescent, though, and how my behaviour was more 'automata'-like. Back then, I didn't do a lot of conscious thinking, and didn't have the mental concepts with which to manipulate my understanding of the world anyway. To a certain extent, I didn't really have conscious control of myself.

And yet somehow I survived the first twenty years of my life, got great grades in high-school, and on and on. That said, I'm starting to wonder if many people are closer to this 'automata' state, and if it's really instinctual behaviours that contain the most important logic.

Maybe focusing on our own tribe is the smartest thing to do, maybe nationalism isn't such a bad idea, when it means more for me and less for people that don't matter to the survival of my children or partner. Insert any form of this logic here.

When you see outside of this box behaviours become more complex, efficient, and mutually beneficial, but the basic logic is still there, even if you can't see it.

 

[rousseau]

I've been thinking about morality here and there over the past few years, and what seems so obvious to me doesn't always seem so clear to many. After doing a quick search on philosophy stack exchange I hear a lot of questions like: 'is it moral to do [x]' and 'is it moral to do [y]'. I'd argue that these types of questions are nonsense, and that there is one objective moral framework that actually guides human behaviour. Beyond man-made moral systems, it defines how people actually behave in the ethical realm.

Basically human morality boils down to this:

I'm free to do anything I want, but I'm not free from the consequences of doing what I want

That's vague enough to apply to any action, not just encounters with other moral agents. It doesn't even mention other people nor their interests. Also, it's not strictly true, as there are lots of ways people avoid the consequences of doing what they want, and there are lots of things people are not free to do, even if they want to. So I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. If you're saying that people will choose the moral system that produces the best consequences (for them? for others?) then that's probably true, but it's not reflected in your underlined principle, which only says that consequences are inescapable. More importantly, you're moving into the realm of science when you say this actually describes how humans behave. It would take a huge, worldwide psychological study with rigorous controls to demonstrate that most people really think this way. It's not the type of thing that can be realized from one's computer chair, if you get what I mean.

The principle is that people determine their behaviour based on what they consider the likely results of their behaviour will be given the context of the situation.

And I agree that this doesn't always need to have moral implications, good point. Maybe to this point behaviour can be generalised beyond a moralistic level.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Johnathan Haidt:
"The mind is designed (by evolution), to unite us into teams, to divide us against other teams, and to blind us to the truth."

Human morality was forged in the Pleistocene, as a tribal survival mechanism, and has become hard-wired into our psychology.

Human moral behavior revolves around tribalism: intense in-tribe loyalty and altruism, coupled with animosity toward and competition with other tribes. Our moral sense and desire for understanding does not naturally extend beyond out own tribe. Even when seers appear, teaching peace, love, tolerance and unity few are able to extend these ideals beyond their own in-group.

The pleasure of tribalism is so intense that, absent actual, competing tribes, humans will create artificial tribes, to which they can focus their loyalty and out-group animosity -- even when these opposing entities are, for all intents and purposes, identical.

Cf: the current, World Series competition between the Cub and Indian tribes.

I sometimes wonder about the internal experiences of other people, and what it'd be like if you were to average them out.

At this stage of my life I'm sitting on an IQ in the top 2% of the population, and eight years of post-secondary. For a while I thought my experience of the world was typical, but I'm beginning to notice that it might be quite atypical. I do remember pretty vividly my experience as an adolescent, though, and how my behaviour was more 'automata'-like. Back then, I didn't do a lot of conscious thinking, and didn't have the mental concepts with which to manipulate my understanding of the world anyway. To a certain extent, I didn't really have conscious control of myself.

And yet somehow I survived the first twenty years of my life, got great grades in high-school, and on and on. That said, I'm starting to wonder if many people are closer to this 'automata' state, and if it's really instinctual behaviours that contain the most important logic.

Maybe focusing on our own tribe is the smartest thing to do, maybe nationalism isn't such a bad idea, when it means more for me and less for people that don't matter to the survival of my children or partner. Insert any form of this logic here.

When you see outside of this box behaviours become more complex, efficient, and mutually beneficial, but the basic logic is still there, even if you can't see it.

Very much my observation.

I amateurishly theorize that this "adolescent" behavior is what the human species experienced before lifespans increased. To me it is nothing less than bipolar behavior, which tells me we humans were largely bipolar for millennia, and that this modern "disorder" is a legacy of those times. For people who have lived through a bipolar experience in themselves or others it is quite a revealing and illuminating experience.

 

[Valjean]

Humans do not 'naturally' concern themselves with the welfare of those outside their tribe. Moral consideration is very much an in-group thing. However, in today's civilized, interconnected world, extending moral consideration to those beyond one's Dunbar Group is imperative.
It won't come naturally. It must be learned through education and socialization. How well this is achieved is how well we avoid war and social conflict.

 

[fromderinside]

There is an out-of-tribe morality that's just the same as that of in-tribe, its called same-different. If the other tribe is considered same you F*** them and enslave them. Else you just kill them. Since it appears no hominid is beyond F***ing, I've concluded all tribes are considered same.

With that starting point we get a whole new hierarchy of tribal do's and don'ts. Now it comes down to belief systems same and different for the most part.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't think the 'imagined communities' that are modern states have much in common with tribal societies, actually.

Exactly.
We're not wired to live in civilizations. To live harmoniously in modern society we need to be both aware of our predilections and tribal psychology and educated to counter them.

Till social psychology is included in the three 'Rs' or a police state imposed, we're going to have war, strife and crime.

I would think smaller bands of humans had the same problems we have in our states, only to a lesser degree. No doubt there were thefts, murders, etc. I don't think these communities were idyllic or any less violent upon themselves.

 

[fromderinside]

I would think smaller bands of humans had the same problems we have in our states, only to a lesser degree. No doubt there were thefts, murders, etc. I don't think these communities were idyllic or any less violent upon themselves.

We can guess whether your statement is true by looking at human capacities. Humans, for instance, can keep visual identities of about 300 individuals. One might expect that groups larger than this might need more social mechanisms to sustain orderly behavior within the group. Below that number people probably don't need social mechanisms to keep track of individuals independently of the individual for reference to behavioral abnormalities. We handle 4 to 10 items in memory with little error. So tasks requiring more than that among the group needs separate behaviors and mechanisms to handle larger number.

In other words it is easy to recognize where group size dictates many elements of social need for orderly behavior, commerce, and function.

You can go on from there.