Biological Basis of Morality
By Zachary Moore
A letter to Nature published yesterday by researchers from the University of Iowa and Harvard University (including Dr. Antonio Damasio, author of "The Feeling of What Happens" and "Decartes' Error") have shown that a particular region of the brain, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, is responsible for mediating our moral judgments.
Specifically, for transforming what would be a simple utilitarian ethical calculus into something more akin to the Moral Razor. In the study, people with injuries to this part of their brain were more willing to sacrifice the lives of their fellows in order to save a larger number, even if it meant flat-out murder.
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a region which is thought to allow for social emotions, like compassion. These emotions seem to be essential for correct moral decisions in high-stakes situations; they seem to provide the moral foundation for higher-level ethical analysis which preserve moral symmetry through subconscious feelings.
According to Dr. Damasio:
Specifically, for transforming what would be a simple utilitarian ethical calculus into something more akin to the Moral Razor. In the study, people with injuries to this part of their brain were more willing to sacrifice the lives of their fellows in order to save a larger number, even if it meant flat-out murder.
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a region which is thought to allow for social emotions, like compassion. These emotions seem to be essential for correct moral decisions in high-stakes situations; they seem to provide the moral foundation for higher-level ethical analysis which preserve moral symmetry through subconscious feelings.
According to Dr. Damasio:
This area, when it’s working, will give rise to social emotions that we can feel, like embarrassment, guilt and compassion, that are critical to guiding our social behavior. A nice way to think about it is that we have this emotional system built in, and over the years culture has worked on it to make it even better.
Comments
SO, your ploy to bring biological basis for morality only shows that morality in atheism is a fool's errand who tries to find a water source which is independent of rain.
Well, it's not quite that simple, as society also plays a role, but let's move on...
Paul continues "But, suppose, evolution has developed 'kill your neighbor' network in the prefrontal cortex of our brain we would be legitimate to kill our neighbors."
What do you mean my "legitimate". We would perhaps think that it was alright, yes.
Paul continues "...There is no objective basis for morality in biology."
If by "objective" you mean residing outside of biology, that is correct. Relative to our biology, it is objective, however.
Paul continues "Why should we [not?] eat our infants like our grandparents, gorillas do in Tanzania? After all we came from them."
Gorillas are not our grandparents; not even our millionth grandparents. We did not "come from them". We share an ancestor with them. But, to answer your question, you might just as well ask why we are not covered with fur and live in trees; the answer is the same. We followed a different evolutionary path than they did.
Paul concludes "SO, your ploy to bring biological basis for morality only shows that morality in atheism is a fool's errand who tries to find a water source which is independent of rain."
Come again? You just lapsed into complete incoherence. It is you who is insisting (assuming?) that morality is something that exists outside of biology, and the societal rules that we have codified with biology as a basis. If you make absurd assumptions, well... you get absurd results. Here's how to fix that. Stop injecting your own preconceived notions and just look at what is being said. You'll find that there is no contradiction.
Paul, as I pointed out to you before, all of your arguments exhibit the same pattern; they are extremely shallow, indicating that you have not examined them to any meaningful degree. Have you availed yourself of a single book written by a legitimate evolutionary biologist? Have you actually read Dawkins, or are you repeating a quote that your read in some creationist literature? If you decide to actually do some work, and educate yourself, you may just be able to formulate an interesting argument from time to time. As it is, that seems quite unlikely. Sorry to be so blunt, but you really need to do some homework if you want anybody to take you seriously.
I don't know. Perhaps the first humans were smarter than us all! That these people, or apes, created their own set of rules that defined good and evil, and now we live by it today. Wait.. that doesn't make sense!
Being an atheist sucks.
Preston, study the culture of South American native culture as documented by the Europeans who first arrived on the continent as well as later anthropologists. You'll find a complex, but completely foreign society, with a moral codes quite different from ours today.
Zach and Jim are right-on. Our codes are part of our biology and have developed in response to societal complexity. For instance, is it wrong to exceed the speed limit while driving? Is it wrong to run a stop sign?
Why?
Or, why not?
Who makes the determination of whether it is right or wrong to do those things?
Think about it.
Is it right or wrong to experiment on human DNA, or human cells?
Why or why not?
Again, think about it.
"Where did the very first people get their morality? I'm pretty sure it didn't just show up in the brain. Most morality is based on religion and the culture you grow up in, that's the bottom line. How could some of the first people ever "evolved" know what religion is?"
Dan says:>>>The first people ever evolved were not people. They were hairy little creatures living on the savanna of Africa, after the dinosaurs got wiped out by the climactic changes brought about by a huge asteroid collision, but their ancestors were one celled animals that lived a couple of billion years before that, and their ancestors were molecules that had learned to replicate themselves over a period of a billion years or so.
Those self replicating molecules started to learn morality when they naturally selected traits for the survival of themselves, to the exclusion of other molecules.
I know you don't understand this Preston, but it is simply evolution 101, and can be mastered in one sitting with a Good book on the subject.
You are at a point in "this process" testing whether, having a dogmatic, impervious attitude about the existence of magical concepts, is superior to one of skepticism, reality, and a demand for empiricism.
A bunch of you believers in magic have control of a lot of things in our world today, and a bunch of us realists have control of other things.
When Mohammed Whatshisname, gets control of a country with atomic weapons, and says 'If Allah wills it, so be it", and then pushes the button sending a nuclear weapon towards us, or some other country with an overwhelming retaliatory capacity, then Mohammed Whatshisname, and all of the people in his country like him will cease to exist.
In this scenario a whole lot of people will not be able to reproduce anymore, or for that matter even breath, in the aftermath.
Any people who may survive will certainly have a different attitude about shooting off nuclear missiles, and they will be the ones, reproducing the next generation of man.
....to be continued.
Dan
Your comment shows you don't use much of your brain.
Think about it again, if this would happen, that a tribe would evolve into a tribe of 10 people, where these 10 people would kill each other, how many people do you have left to breed new people? (It's a very tricky math question, you probably need about 2nd or 3rd grade math to really figure this one out).
Answer: No one.
So what does it teaches us? So what kind of species does survive evolution?
Evolving species must evolve into non-self-killing species or there won't be anyone left to procreate. It's called survival. He who can survive is the one that can survive, while the one that can not survive will not survive.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1693445
So, Preston and Paul, before you show up here to prove how ignorant you are of the biological connection to "morality", you might want to actually read some of the scientific evidence (although, I doubt you'll bother, considering how ignorant you are about biology in general and evolution in particular).
Still want to hold onto the notion that we must get our morality from God? Then why did he allow it to be taken away from this guy through an accident? (A classic neurobiology example)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
To add to the Dave's comment, the morality of Native American "savages" that the europeans encountered in the US was often more "rigorous" than the europeans in respect to truthfulness, trust, respect for others, the status of women, theft, and treatment of children (I might add that Native Americans thought europeans treated their children "worse than dogs").
Now, preston, you have shown your true colors, as all xristians will given enough time. You are morally no better than the rest of us.
And now preston, you suck. And I mean that in the original sense of the word.
preston, I want you to get down on your knees, which is a good position for sucking, and ask the jewzoo to forgive you for what you said. The jewzoo can overlook theft and murder, but you had better not be talking about cocks. That REALLY pisses him off.
I will be unable to hear your response, or any other insults you have, because my wife and I are off to Indianapolis for the weekend, there to visit my sister, her husband, and their three intelligent and charming children. All five are atheists. And they do not suck, in any sense of the word.
So what about evolution? How did all the worlds come to be? Space has always been there? I understand the big bang theory, but apparently i don't because it makes no sense. When that one planet crashed into our planet it just suddenly made a tiny, tiny organism? If that's possible, then it's very, very possible that there is life on other planets.
As an atheist, Are you saying you believe in aliens? Like even a bunch of other worlds with people or animals in the galaxy? OR, was it just a one in an octillion chance?
It's a science in development. It is a fact -- That is, evolution is taking place right at this moment as some organisms out-perform and out-reproduce others
It is also a theory, an attempt to explain why and how organisms are changing from one generation to the next.
How did all the worlds come to be?
Don't know. But I do know that cosmology and evolution are different sciences.
Space has always been there?
Don't know... Yet.
...it's very, very possible that there is life on other planets.
Yes, it is very, very possible. Personally, I think there is life out there on other planets. However, due to the vast distances between solar systems it is not yet possible to go out there and see for ourselves.
Are you saying you believe in aliens?
Belief has very little to do with it in my case; more like "it happened here, why not out there? If there are ten billion stars in the average galaxy, and ten billion galaxies within our observation range, what are the odds of there being another world capable of supporting life? Pretty darned good, I would think.
Evolution also has nothing whatsoever to do with how life began, that's pretty much a branch of CHEMISTRY.
Evolution only concerns itself with how life EVOLVED once it did begin.
Bunching the three together and questioning EVOLUTION makes you look more ignorant than you really have to.
And it really irritates the hell out of me!
As far as I'm considered, you can believe and "talk about" whatever the hell you wish, but if you expect us to give credence to said beliefs, you'll need some objective evidence for said beliefs....otherwise, they're just that--- a BELIEF. A belief is a belief is a belief is a belief.
If you want, though, you can start by telling us what a "spirit" is, and where said "thing" resides. And it would help your case greatly if you could provide any peer-reviewed science journal that delineates how we now "know" that there is life after death.
Preston: Seeing how when either of the two happen, it completely defies logic, and atheists love logic apparently.[bold added]
I would argue that you, too, "love logic".... because I presume you use it to dismiss the existance of the toothfairy, elves, Allah, Gumby, and Poseidon....no?
"Preston, your comments are so infantile you're no longer even on my radar screen. Tootles."
posted: March 23, 2007
Dan concurs: Yea Jim it looks like he scrolls down the thread, and any word or phrase that catches his eye, he incorporates it into another asinine question.
As you are aware, we have seen this behavior before. He makes no effort at critical thought. His only interest is in getting people to respond with thoughtful replies, and then completely ignoring them.
All he is interested in, is spotlighting, and restating, his infantile beliefs.
Dan
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