Maximizing Freedom is the Goal of Morality

I'm coming at your question sideways, stile, so bear with me for a moment.From Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, p. 168: Evolution has endowed us with an innate moral sense, which we have expanded over the centuries through reason, knowledge and sympathy. Freedom isn't implicit in this innate morality, sympathy and empathy are. Tho, I think you're getting at the same point I am: Btw, rape and proscription of rape are, as near as ethnographers can tell, universal features of human nature too. (From Donald Brown's Human Universals)

Why thank you, Arch.I've just begun pokin' my nose in EP. But I tell you what. This sounds irresistable: Human Evolution, Reproduction, and Morality
Lewis F. Petrinovich, 1998.I'm gonna hit the library tomorrow and dig right in.

Ik, I strongly suggest you take a long, hard look at The Blank Slate. The evidence that supports The First Law of behavioral genetics is mind boggling.It's no longer a question of nature v. nurture.Nature won. Hands down. Question is by how much.

Ik, FYI, Firefox has a great spellchecker built in.Your contention that ... ... is incorrect.Let's start over. Your original post sounds like the Blank Slate version of nature v. nurture.Let's hear what Steve has to say about the Blank Slate: Your statement that ... ... presupposes that history, culture and politics are piled on a Blank Slate. You're a nurture boy.I, in a rather facile manner, I will admit, simply declared that the battle has been won, that nature determines, to a large extent, universal, heritable behavioral traits. With me so far?And while I would agree that some heritable behavioral traits do not "contain the content", e.g. "right-handedness as population norm", many most certainly do, e.g. "prestige inequalities", "sexual modesty", "copulation normally conducted in privacy", "redress of wrongs", "resistance to abuse of power, to dominance", etc.http://www.robotwisdom.com/ai/universals.htmlMorality is "the various ways those faculties could have evolved".

Houston, we have a problem. directly contradicts However. I am not going to address the Blank Slate any further in this thread. I merely brought it up in reference to morality. Should you have any further questions about the Blank Slate, I would be more than happy to propose a new topic.As for your "fear of nihilism" (as Steven so eloquently put it) ... ... morality is genetic. It is a part of us. Like two arms or language. Btw, humans aren't the only ones with a moral sense. There are many examples in our great ape brethren, as well as other species.Edited by molbiogirl, : typo

I am going to try this one more time.
It's really very simple. With that, I turn to your poorly drawn analogy. Genetics determined that you were born with two arms. Genetics explains heredity, not accidents you might have during your lifetime.And, believe it or not, people can live without morals as a result of a genetic defect. They're called psychopaths. Genetic and Environmental Influences on Psychopathy Trait Dimensions in a Community Sample of Male Twins. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology Neurobiological basis of psychopathy. The British Journal of Psychiatry A. Brazma, H. Parkinson, T. Schlitt, M. Shojatalab, European Bioinformatics Institue. ArrayExpress < EMBL-EBI October 2001There has even been work done on gene therapy for psychopathy.And these are but a few of over 4,000 articles documenting the link between psychopathy and its genetic origins.As a final note, I'd like to add that I am not denying free will. I am not a genetic determinist. But to deny that morality is a genetic behavior is to deny overwhelming genetic evidence.Any further discussion of this issue will come dangerously close to dragging stiles' thread off topic.

I don't mean to pick nits, but the "goal" of any gene is the survival and reproduction of its host so that the gene "survives". That's just basic Dawkins. Therefore, the goal of any genetic behavior (such as morality) is the "survival" of the gene or genes that determine that genetic behavior.And I don't think freedom is an aspect of morality. Or an extension of it.In addition, you seem to be arguing free will, not freedom.Would that be a fair assessment?

Freedom: exemption from external control, interference, regulation
Free Will: the ability or discretion to choose
Morality: conformity to the rules of right conductBeing free from interference is not the same as being able to choose. And neither is the same as conforming to rules of right conduct.

Harry Truman was responsible for the deaths of ten of thousands of civilians (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). Had you been in his position during WWII, I'm assuming you wouldn't have pushed the red button. Would you have entered the war (if you were in FDR's position)? After all, you would have been sending thousands of young men to their deaths.

Rather than explain US history (which is WAY off topic), allow me to summarize.You, given the power to do so, would use a nuclear weapon?
That is, in order to save "the-society-I-live-in's freedoms", you would slaughter 10s of thousands?But. Given the opportunity between saving humankind OR raping a girl, you would choose to wipe the whole of humanity from the face of the earth?Murder by nuclear holocaust, not so bad. Rape, oooo icky.Is that about right?

I've gone over the Pinker thing upthread. To go into any further detail would be taking this thread off topic.If you would like to start a new thread, I'll join you there.(PS -- Since 1991.)Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

So you would rape a child in order to save humanity "in the right situation"?