What is morality?

[Brain Candy]

"Morality may be a hard concept to grasp, but we acquire it fast. A preschooler will learn that it's not all right to eat in the classroom, because the teacher says it's not. If the rule is lifted and eating is approved, the child will happily comply. But if the same teacher says it's also O.K. to push another student off a chair, the child hesitates. "He'll respond, 'No, the teacher shouldn't say that,'" says psychologist Michael Schulman, co-author of Bringing Up a Moral Child. In both cases, somebody taught the child a rule, but the rule against pushing has a stickiness about it, one that resists coming unstuck even if someone in authority countenances it. That's the difference between a matter of morality and one of mere social convention, and Schulman and others believe kids feel it innately. "

"The notion of the "other" is a tough one for Homo sapiens. Sociobiology has been criticized as one of the most reductive of sciences, ascribing the behavior of all living things—humans included—as nothing more than an effort to get as many genes as possible into the next generation. The idea makes sense, and all creatures can be forgiven for favoring their troop over others. But such bias turns dark fast. "

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/art...1686619,00.html

I think when we ignore the cosmopolitan rhetoric and look and the scientific research in this article, we see that morality may have been developed as instinct to help keep communities together and this does not apply to outsiders because they have nothing to do with the survival of ones own tribe. Thoughts?

[M.Dancer]

I think you answered your own question.

[Posit]

"Morality may be a hard concept to grasp, but we acquire it fast. A preschooler will learn that it's not all right to eat in the classroom, because the teacher says it's not. If the rule is lifted and eating is approved, the child will happily comply. But if the same teacher says it's also O.K. to push another student off a chair, the child hesitates. "He'll respond, 'No, the teacher shouldn't say that,'" says psychologist Michael Schulman, co-author of Bringing Up a Moral Child. In both cases, somebody taught the child a rule, but the rule against pushing has a stickiness about it, one that resists coming unstuck even if someone in authority countenances it. That's the difference between a matter of morality and one of mere social convention, and Schulman and others believe kids feel it innately. "

"The notion of the "other" is a tough one for Homo sapiens. Sociobiology has been criticized as one of the most reductive of sciences, ascribing the behavior of all living things—humans included—as nothing more than an effort to get as many genes as possible into the next generation. The idea makes sense, and all creatures can be forgiven for favoring their troop over others. But such bias turns dark fast. "

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/art...1686619,00.html

I think when we ignore the cosmopolitan rhetoric and look and the scientific research in this article, we see that morality may have been developed as instinct to help keep communities together and this does not apply to outsiders because they have nothing to do with the survival of ones own tribe. Thoughts?

What we call morality is nothing but mass conditioning. From the time children are born we remove their ability to be themselves and replace with obligations and responsibilities to please us - first as caregivers and then as bosses - under the threat of God, guilt or some other punishment. There really is no morality in society. It is just compliance with the community norms.

If however, morality could be born into a society it would have to come from one policing themselves, and not policing others.