Sam Harris

[quote author=“vryc”]3n7r0py wote:

It’s very Buddhist, “help others, do not harm others”. Everyone knows what morality is - we’re ingrained with good and bad at birth.

I am not aware of any evidence that shows this. A baby is just as apt to hit as to gently caress, to bite as to kiss. Morality, like Theism is taught, is learned. If this were NOT the case then everyone would have the exact/identical same set of good and bad habits from birth. We have similar responses to stimuli as other infants when we are born simply as a rule of genetic instinct but this is not close to being the same thing.

we do however develop empathy neurons, that allow us to “feel” the pain of others…there is most likely more to be discovered, but it is quite possible some of the things we define as moral have a biological basis and are not “taught”.

[quote author=“Iisbliss”][quote author=“vryc”]3n7r0py wote:

It’s very Buddhist, “help others, do not harm others”. Everyone knows what morality is - we’re ingrained with good and bad at birth.

I am not aware of any evidence that shows this. A baby is just as apt to hit as to gently caress, to bite as to kiss. Morality, like Theism is taught, is learned. If this were NOT the case then everyone would have the exact/identical same set of good and bad habits from birth. We have similar responses to stimuli as other infants when we are born simply as a rule of genetic instinct but this is not close to being the same thing.

we do however develop empathy neurons, that allow us to “feel” the pain of others…there is most likely more to be discovered, but it is quite possible some of the things we define as moral have a biological basis and are not “taught”.

The basis of morality is that we have the ability to recognize the same consciousness in others as in ourself.  At the highest level, this is pure consciousness recognizing itself.  When language and concepts come in, we fall into making distinctions based on opinion and belief.

IN the year just passed several scientific articles have been published about “mirror neurons” and like Iisbliss has indicated, these are neuron patterns or pathways found in chimps and humans that fire in the brains of the observer when an affective action is witnessed in another subject.  These mirror firings actually reflect the same patterns that fire when the observer has on a previous occasion personally experienced the same affective event.

So, although these biological actions appear to form some kind of basis upon which empathy and sympathy can ultimately grow, the “mirror neuron” theory of a somatic moral foundation does not claim to be “the whole moral story” - but at least it shows us that we are naturally predisposed genetically to be moral creatures.

Bob