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Morality is Genetic?

Cephus said:
Humans are a social species, that much is encoded in our genes. We form societies and within those societies, we make rules and we call them laws. We form rules for how to treat each other and we call them morals. The morals aren't specifically coded in our genes, just the social interaction which leads us to invent morals.
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I think this is spot on.
 
wolfman24 said:
Insanity is a legal term not a medical one. Very stupid people can have morals. DD and MI people can also have morals. They aren't limited to "smart" people. My son is autistic and I can assure you he has morals and do most Aspies I have ever met. SOmetimes more than NT's
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I was not referring to relatively minor things like "Aspies", but truly mentally devestating handicap. I'm guessing that you did not comprehend "higher order reasoning", and you are unaware of its place in morality.
 
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ecofarm said:
I was not referring to relatively minor things like "Aspies", but truly mentally devestating handicap. I'm guessing that you did not comprehend "higher order reasoning", and you are unaware of its place in morality.
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How is Aspie Minor? Its a pervasive disability that effects every part of a persons life all through thier lives. I question that you did not understand my post at all. Or is being insulting the only thing you can do?
 
wolfman24 said:
How is Aspie Minor? Its a pervasive disability that effects every part of a persons life all through thier lives. I question that you did not understand my post at all. Or is being insulting the only thing you can do?
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"Relatively minor" (you did see that word before "minor", right?), as I was discussing mental incapacitation resulting in a lack of higher reasoning capacity. Do try to keep context.
 
wolfman24 said:
This is not true. Almost all if not all sociopaths are products of genetics. You cannot become developmentally disabled or mentally ill you are born that way. However, environmental mental conditions can affect thet way the malady is manifested and to what degree.

The only exception to this that I am aware of is MPS. Multiple Personality syndrome (sybil)
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but do all of those sociopaths show some signs and symptoms of mental disorders as a child *
 
Medusa said:
but do all of those sociopaths show some signs and symptoms of mental disorders as a child *
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NO. Not all. As I said their environment does play a role but the extent of that role is unclear. If they are going to show it usually come about when they enter the social network (school, playgroups, etc)
 
megaprogman said:
Not quite, but I am willing to bet the Nazis were concerned about fairness to the aryan race. Something you and I may dislike, but still a cultural phenomenon.
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You just keep redefining your terms. Ah, if a culture isn't fair to everyone, you can find some way to wrangle that they're fair to someone and thus, you don't have to revise your ideas.

Its not a problem, its you applying your personal morals to understanding a society and thus misunderstanding it and my point.
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No, I'm applying the English language to your claims and finding that you're just wrong.
 
Cephus said:
You just keep redefining your terms. Ah, if a culture isn't fair to everyone, you can find some way to wrangle that they're fair to someone and thus, you don't have to revise your ideas.
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I am not redefining my terms, you are unable to step outside your personal notions of fairness :shrug:

Cephus said:
No, I'm applying the English language to your claims and finding that you're just wrong.
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Then you should apply the english language in an intelligent and rational manner and examine my claim objectively.
 
megaprogman said:
I am not redefining my terms, you are unable to step outside your personal notions of fairness :shrug:
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I'm just pointing out that you're asserting a culture is fair if they are fair to anyone within it, no matter how many people within it they are blatantly unfair to and it's a silly concept.
 
Cephus said:
I'm just pointing out that you're asserting a culture is fair if they are fair to anyone within it, no matter how many people within it they are blatantly unfair to and it's a silly concept.
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I never asserted that. I asserted that fairness is a concept that all cultures are concerned about. Go back and reread my quote. You could have saved yourself a lot of posting.
 
megaprogman said:
I never asserted that. I asserted that fairness is a concept that all cultures are concerned about. Go back and reread my quote. You could have saved yourself a lot of posting.
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Concerned about but apparently don't practice? Seriously, how many times do we have to go round and round on this?
 
Cephus said:
Concerned about but apparently don't practice? Seriously, how many times do we have to go round and round on this?
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Until you actually understand my argument. So far you have failed to look at the culture from their own point of view. In 100 years from now, someone may be saying that our culture isn't concerned with fairness because of one aspect of that culture that they dislike, lets pretend its our popular stance on polygamy. This is what you are doing.
 
Wake said:
Do you think "morality" is embedded in our genes? Christopher Hitchens, a public intellectual, seems to think so.

I disagree with him because I view morality and other things like justice and equality... are man-made.

What do you think?
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Well, that depends...
People say that mental diseases run genetically in some cases, and some of those diseases can lead to poor moral standings. So if you take it from that perspective, then if the person's mother or father was mentally ill, then the child could possibly inherit a poor morality.
Other than that, I think that it's absolute bull****. What I said is a way of beating around the bush to make the thread arguable in favor of it, but it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense still.
 
If anything I stand on a further side - since I see genetic and social morality to be both cut from the same cloth. For me existence/nature is a good and has a goodness prior to and beyod all morality. Morality is important because the goodness of natural existence is often negated and compromised and the emergence of morality is often a powerful recognition of and force against wrong. While, the sources of morality are likely diverse - family, community, tradition, culture, religion, genetics and so on, this card is often overplayed. However vauted our moral soap box, there must be serious doubt about how well it can capture this universe. Not to forget that our our own struggle for existence colours our morality. So objectively or subjectively, our morality is at best a faint image of that which is truly good. There is no direct connection to goodness. We can only participate in it indirectly through our existence. So back to Plato then and the depths of the cave. Overall, not a bad image for the human condition.
 
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