Sunday-School Morality

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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Sunday-School Morality

Where, in American culture, is the domain of knowledge that we would identify as morality studied and taught?

I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality that will make it possible for us to live together on this planet in a more harmonious manner our technology will help us to destroy the species and perhaps the planet soon.

It seems to me that we have given the subject matter of morality primarily over to religion. It also seems to me that if we ask the question ‘why do humans treat one another so terribly?’ we will find the answer in this moral aspect of human culture.

The ‘man of maxims’ “is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.” George Eliot The Mill on the Floss

We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school. Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.

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A science of morality and human behavior in general exists, lots of them. Learning about them can help you understand emotional/moral feelings, maybe even give you a better place in which to control what moral/emotional feelings you may have.

But besides highlighting why we have morals, why they can lead to so and so, I don’t think science really has much to offer, thats outside in different beliefs like secular humanism.

oh, and morality is a huge area of scientific study, theres a lot of good research, good books even. I agree that it shouldn’t be left to religious people to determine whats ‘moral’

but this science/research into morality, what parts of it is cross cultural, what adaptations in the mind produce them, how universal they are and in what situations, yeah, theres a few fields of science studying exactly that.

for example, researchers asked thousands of people from all different countries a little ‘moral’ problem, about if its okay to push a switch to divert a train saving 5 killing 1, or whether its okay in the same situation to push a fat man onto the tracks.

When you look at the neuroactivity in these two groups of people (and you find out that almost everyone says its okay to flip a switch but not push a fat guy) you see massively different responses to the different questions. Flipping the switch; the rational part of the brain lights up.

pushing the fat man? Areas of our brain related to emotional struggle and rational processing massively light up, almost as if they are struggling with one another.

thats evidence of a *MORAL adaptation, to avoid manhandling in-group members, based on your own ideas of ‘right/wrong’. but we didn’t evolve a stop-point for flipping a switch in the same manner, because its not a direct action.

you’ll find that in placing blame on people, people usually don’t blame others (juries included) who are indirectly responsible for an action. For example, if a chef throws somthing at you and you dive to duck and need subsequent back surgies over the next like 20months, and you die from infection. The chef doesn’t deal with any legal fallout.

most juries wouldn’t convict anything, regardless of it actually being the chef’s actions that resulted in the death.

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I think alot of resurch has gone into morality, but as with all science it does not pass judgement, It does not tell you what to think. Religion provides that for people i guess

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I think that science was very cautious in approaching certain domains of knowledge because of the power of the Catholic Church. I think that in the nineteenth century efforts were begun, after the decline in the power of religion, on a science of morality. This effort was aborted because of the successes of the natural sciences and no serious efforts have taken place since then.

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^“no serious efforts have taken place since then”

none that you’ve read or come-across maybe. Its a huge area of research in the last few decades and modern researchers (from many diverse fields) have done research/and expanded our understanding of it.

For example human universals in morality have been studied (which do we see across cultures) what environmental factors can produce X moral feeling/outrage in people and under what circumstances, how morality comes about in a developing infant and in what situations, specific moral inclinations (like incest avoidance) have been researched/studied.

Theres a lot of great research on the ‘science of morality’ for example, that babies try to act altruistically before they even learn language.

Theres a lot of examples.

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In-fact research showing that some rhesus monkeys will starve themselves rather than shock another monkey is also more enlightening than most moral ‘science’ in the past.

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A science of morality will help us to think about morality and how to avoid those who would tell us what God says about such matters.

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I dont think science would tell anyoone to avoid anything, science deals with facts not oppinions, and science has no position on God