Why do right?

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Even my dog knows right from wrong. When I go back home and I don't see him running toward me, that because he couldnt hold it in anymore, and must of pissed somewhere in the house. He comes then slowly towards me with the tail between his legs, he knows he did wrong.

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No, not really.He knows that when there is pee in the house when you come home, you will get angry with him, but he's long ago forgotten that he was the source of the pee.I remember reading something a few years back about people with a dog who always got into the trash and made a big mess in the kitchen when they weren't there.They were sure he "felt guilty" because he would hang his head and "look like he's done something wrong" when they came home and he's gotten into the trash.To demonstrate that the owners were anthropomorphising their dog, a dog behavioral specialist they were working with on this problem stayed with the dog when they went away. The trainer then went into the kitchen with the dog and had the dog watch him as he (the trainer) proceeded to scatter trash from the can all over the kitchen floor.When the owners came back a while later, the dog acted in exactly the same "guilty" way as he did when he (the dog) dumped the trash.Dogs are pretty much perfect Buddhists; they live almost entirely in the moment.Anyway, that's why it is well-known among dog (and other animal) trainers that if you want to reprimand or praise a dog, you have to do it at the very moment the dog is demonstrating the behavior you want to influence.Even four or five seconds later is far too late.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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I invite you to tell your future husband or wife that meeting them was just dumb luck. It is not that romantic.

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No, it is very romantic.“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

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Why? WHY does it make you feel bad? You are not answering the question. Why does 'right' feel 'right', why does 'wrong' feel 'wrong'? Switch 'em as you like, but answer the question. If you are not afraid of God, why oh why be afraid of yourself?

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Empathy.And empathy is a function of our brains.Studies of sociopaths have shown abnormalities in the parts of the brain associated with emotions and social and ethical judgement.So, we are wired, so to speak, to respond to social influence and to have an innate moral sense. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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That is what I am afraid of

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You decide what is 'right'.
You have no idea if it is 'right' or not, and
no idea what is 'right' about it.
Just some little tinglies in your brain that 'feel good'?

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So, should all of us feel "afraid" when you do the above, because you, and each and every other person on the planet, does exactly the same thing?

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So, doing 'wrong' is some form of birth defect?

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Stop moving the goalposts, ana.You asked "Why we feel bad when we do wrong", and Larni told you why.

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Actually the more 'right' you are, usually the less selfish you are.

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No, they could be considered the most selfish, since they are constantly looking to make themselves feel good by doing good things for other people.

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That is soooooo not the point. You have so far said that 'good' is a reaction to empathic signals in the brain, and that 'evil' selfish actions are the result of a different brain function. You seriously make it sound as if we had no CHOICE!!!!! Maybe I am going too fast for you, but do you sort of understand where this goes? If we have no choice, we did no wrong. We did no right. It is all 'good' since it is natural. THAT in a nutshell is why God-fearing people get nervous about this type of reasoning. I am sure you will never follow these thoughts to an extreme level, because your 'compass' is already installed no matter where you think it came from. It does not make the thought any more valid in itself, just more harmless.

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So what's the practical difference between a moral compass put there by God or put there by evolution?If it was put there by God, then you don't have any choice, either.

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If we have no choice, we did no wrong. We did no right. It is all 'good' since it is natural.

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If we ALL have a moral compass, put there either by God or by evolution, then it makes no sense to say "it is all 'good' since it is natural".Our moral compass tells us that it isn't, no matter where the compass comes from.

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Feeling selfish is natural.

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Yes.It is also natural to feel empathy, and to feel altruistic.

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What makes no sense is to have purely natural explanations for why we can tell that being selfish is bad.

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Sure it makes sense, for all the evolutionary reasons everybody's been talking about and you've been handwaving away.

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For survival, selfish can be very good.

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Yes.

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But we hate it.

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We do? No, humans love being selfish. Just hang around any child under the age of 8 or so.But, as we get to be older, we start to extend the "self" to include other people like our families, groups of friends, classmates, coworkers, parishes and communities.We are social animals. We care about what happens to "our" people.

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So, folks keep talking about the survival of the 'species' versus the survival of the individual. That means nothing. We act contrary to this idea every day.

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We also act consistent with this idea every day.We all do things (and refrain form doing other things) that help our species to survive every day.

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We choose the survival of an individual over the birth of a child who will carry on the species.

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Uh, one could also say that we end a pregnancy so that the Earth's already overtaxed resources are not depleted further.(there is currently no shortage of people, and in fact there are WAY too many people on the planet)

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We act at all times sporadic and without the instinctual behavior that such evolved survival skills bring to other species. We have choice. We feel one way, we can over-ride it. We need a compass to tell us not to. Where did we get it?

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We are social animals.We evolved to be very receptive to social programming.

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Then there was that little episode in the garden where the devil spoke

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"The devil", as in Satan, wasn't in Eden.It was the serpent.

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Interesting, but you can't prove that mice, chimps. and oher animals which we inhumanely use for these studies, have ever felt guilt when they did not do these things, and have ever had a choice to do otherwise.

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You Catholics really do love your guilt, don't you?The point is, ana, that our closest relatives, the great apes, have emotional lives and codes of conduct that are very similar to our own.

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But you don't know that they have codes, only conduct. Why can't you just belive that God gave the right conduct to all animals, even those without choice? We have a code because we have choice. They do right naturally.

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Why can't I "just believe Godidit"?Because that's the poorest, least useful explanation anyone could possibly come up with.It leads to no new understanding at all, and is, in all ways, a bucket of cold water thrown on the fire of rational inquiry and curiosity.It is the most anti-intellectual thing one could manage to think regarding this problem.That's why.Have I stated this strongly enough yet?