Original Sin?

Quote: Face

OK, I'm back. Teliot sparked something in my head when he said morality is a by product of evolution.

...

Fast forward to today, and we have a whole book of morality. Things which are good, things which are bad. All of which, through our power of communication and the results of our experiences, has been created out of the experience of our past, all the way back to the first men.

I don't think that feeling of being good is godly. I think it is taught. I have morality because of my mother and father. Everything I think as good or bad started with the things they taught me, and continued to evolve based on my own experiences. I see it in my own son as he grows. And said morality is not just what we actively experience. It, like all the knowledge we have, is the culmination of experiences of every man who came before us, passed down by the art of communication.

Just a thought. We'll see where it goes =p

Talk about giving us a lot to think about thanks, Face. I think morality as a byproduct of evolution has some very serious problems. I kind of hear you saying in certain parts of your post that morality is looking at us as animals conditioned and trained by our environment and experiences, heightened by our amazing ability to pass down what we learn through communication, for the benefit and survival of the species.

My first thought is that this fails to really address morality because morality is always forward looking. An "ought", which is what morality is all about, is a future looking concept. For our basis of morality we don't look to the past, in fact we spend most of our time trying to escape from mistakes we made in the past and never want to repeat. There is something in us that regardless of our experiences looks for a better future not just a repeat of the past or a modicum of peace without fighting (boy I wish we actually tried to avoid fighting more).

My second objection is the changeability of morality based on evolution. Can you imagine a future where it is considered good to kill unwanted children or old and sick people? Or where lying and cheating are considered virtuous? I don't think any of us can realistic imagine such a scenario. Yet a morality based solely on our experiences, or even more dangerously what we are taught, could lead us down this road. Morality needs to rest on much more firm ground, if it is to be objective and of value to all people.

This leads thirdly to a question: Why should I follow the knowledge of moral living that is a great culmination of experiences of every man who came before us, and passed down to me?

Quote: FrGamble

Why should I follow the knowledge of moral living that is a great culmination of experiences of every man who came before us, and passed down to me?

It's free choice, the universe obviously isn't a moral
construct, far from it. Morality in nature doesn't
exist, and it only exists in man when he's not threatened.

Morality is the outcome of civilized society. In the 1200's
in rural England, cannibalism was common. Country
folk often killed wandering strangers and ate them
without a second thought. Us or them, padre, that's
the real universe. Morality is the luxury of those that
aren't fighting for their next meal every day.

So are you saying that cannibalism in this instance was a "good" thing to do? Or is there really no "good" or "bad" we just have to do what we can to survive?

I believe that there are objective evils that circumstances or history cannot change. Cannibalism and murder is always bad even if everyone else is doing it. Morality is not something that we determine in times of peace and luxury. It is hardwired in all of us by God.

Quote: FrGamble

So are you saying that cannibalism in this instance was a "good" thing to do? Or is there really no "good" or "bad" we just have to do what we can to survive?

I think that's exactly what he's saying. And I'll say, I see his point. But first, let me start from the beginning.

Thanks for your counter post. As always, it's a challenge. You make points that make me question my beliefs, what I just wrote. "Is there an 'ought'". I can think of several examples of morality that fit my perspective, but what about the outliers? For example I "ought" to hold open a door for an old lady struggling with her groceries. And I do so. And I feel good as a result. That is morality. How do I reconcile something as simple as that with my evolutionary argument?

I could sit here and refuse to concede. I could make an argument like this - That feeling of "good" is a biological chemical reaction in the mind. Helping her, while giving me no perceivable value now, will pass down thru the generations. And as such, when I am a frail old man in need of help, there will be a young buck holding the door open for me. It may take 50 years, but there's my value. All of this is the result of biological evolution. Those that "felt" this in the way back were better off than those who didn't. They were more successful, they did better, they were stronger. And strong equals survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest is evolution, so I win, neener, neener, neener =p

There is a part of me that feels just that. But I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that doesn't quite jive. I suppose I put it in my "plausible pile", but it hasn't yet reached a "truth" for me. Something to continue pondering, I'm sure.

That, I suppose, is my struggle. Items like the above are some of the things I continue to question as I find my way. But while that causes me to question, much of the rest of your post is much more solid in my head.

I think, and by "think" I mean I feel pretty damn sure, that your horrifying idea of a changing and evolving code of morality is exactly the truth. Does not morality change based on circumstance? Is there no occasion where lying, cheating, or even killing is the right thing to do?

I know you'll say there is. If someone threatens my life or safety, for instance, I think you will say I'm morally free, maybe even morally obligated, to protect the life of me and/or my family, even if that means killing someone. Certainly, if an armed man pointed a gun at my son, you'd not say the proper moral reaction would be to stand by. That in itself shows that morality is malleable, is conditional.

Now, that's sort of one of those one-off, grey area, unfair arguments. We can always find an exception to a rule, in fact it is often the exceptions that prove the rule. But what of when the exceptions become the majority?

Let's look at medieval times, for instance. A sickly or malformed child was too much for a family to support. It was killed to allow the family to manage and survive. In the case of the warrior cultures of the past, the killing of the weak kept them strong. The loss of that life protected the lives of the rest of the culture. That line of thinking was shared by the culture, it was the majority opinion. Therefore, it was considered "right". Perhaps the parents disagreed, but they were one voice against a thousand. The majority cried "good", and so that killing of the child was the moral action.

Now, we have it easy. Our lives, for all the struggles and pains we cry about online, aren't a piss in the river. A struggle for us is having to get up off the couch to fetch a cold glass of potables. We know nothing of having to trudge through weather to a suspect source, a source which very well could contain pathogens that are going to make your child's insides fall out of every orifice of their little bodies, and the only way they can survive is to keep them hydrated, which you'll have to do using the same poisonous water that started it. We bitch about our winter because we really want to get out on the boat or get started on our garden, a garden we maintain out of pleasure. We know nothing of winter that would kill an entire civilization, because the crops they planted aren't for fun, it's they very thing, the only thing, that will allow them to survive.

It's easy to be "good" when our modern life, for all of our (laughable) struggles, is relatively carefree compared to the entirety of human history. It's easy to be good when you have it all, it's easy to be good when you're happy.

But imagine, if you will, that things change. It is an absurdly small chance, but our Earth has seen world ending disasters. The meteor that killed the dinosaurs, for instance. Look at what one lonely volcano did just a few years ago, that one up in Finland or Norway or wherever it was, there up north where they like to ski and play hockey. That little hole of flame, which wasn't even the width of a soccer pitch, shut down much of Europe and caused weather disturbances across the entire northern hemisphere. That one little Earth pimple did all that. Our modern life is frail indeed.

Now imagine a world ender. Imagine another dinosaur-extinction-level disaster. Imagine an Earth where weather changes drastically, millions die overnight, and the sun is gone for years at a time. I'm sure humanity, with all its knowledge and technology, would survive. But what about our cultures, our way of life, our morality? When all of our resources are gone or unattainable, would it be so easy to be "good"? Could we afford to maintain the same level of morality?

Could I afford to help my neighbor chop his wood for the winter, when I need that energy to tend to my own needs? Could I resist stealing a neighbors cow for my own use, when my child is starving in my house? If someone stole my cloak, do I offer him my shirt as well? Or do I realize I will die in the winter without protection, my 5yr old will be left alone, and I must go kill that man to retrieve my gear?

In this case, I cannot fathom a way that morality can possibly be unchangeable. Now, a cloak is but a $50 item, something one can earn in a day's worth of work. In my disaster scenario, it would be a precious commodity that means life or death. On one hand, theft is an insignificant action not worth the price of investigation. On the other, it's an infraction worth killing for. Circumstances change, so, too, must morality.

In closing, I do agree with you that the very thought is horrifying. I agree that the very thought is dangerous. But unlike you, I think that very thought is 100% the truth. It's hard to imagine a world with "malleable morality", but it's also hard to imagine a world that isn't as easy as ours is. If we ever find ourselves in REAL struggle again, I see no way the prevailing thought of morality could possibly exist.

Quote: FrGamble

I believe that there are objective evils that circumstances or history cannot change. Cannibalism and murder is always bad even if everyone else is doing it. Morality is not something that we determine in times of peace and luxury. It is hardwired in all of us by God.

Alas, cannibalism was endemic in early human and pre-human societies. The evidence of butchered and gnawed human bones is quite conclusive. Of course, we've moved on up since then.

Still, there are such thigns as emergencies. Temporary situations of extreme peril and/or risk when the usual laws and consideratiosn of ethics simply do not apply. The only case I can think of is the infamous crash landing in the Andes of a plane carrying a sports team. Some people died, but some survived. They were stranded in the mountains without food, water or much in the way of fuel, and totally unable to comunicate or call for help.

We all know what happened next. I cannot bring myself to condemn the survivors for the extreme measures they wound up resorting to.

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar, who provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary. In Auschwitz he volunteered to die in place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, who was a stranger to him when Franciszek was randomly selected to be starved to death in reprisal for someone else's escape attempt.


Certainly, no one can be blamed for doing things for our own survival. But I think you will get nowhere arguing about particulars of moral conduct in stress situations. The doctrine of "original sin", as I understand it is that all of humanity (even Kolbe) was born out of the state of grace, and requires salvation.

Quote: FrGamble

Morality is not something that we determine in times of peace and luxury. It is hardwired in all of us by God.

Of course it's something we determine. The people
in England and Scotland during that time were clannish
in the extreme. They had their own morality for those
in their clan, and if you were a stranger you were dinner.

Morality isn't hardwired at all and it's obvious. Look how
primitive people lived when left to their own devices.
Killing and eating babies, torture, child abuse, a thousand
crimes against women, the list is endless. Morality is
what you get when humans get to a point where they
have leisure time. When the pointy headed intellectuals
don't have to hunt for dinner and can instead contemplate
lofty ideals and invent religions.

An animal only see's itself, only cares if it survives. Humans
evolved to the point where we can see the benefit of charity.
Ethics and morals are something we invented. Look around,
they don't exist in nature at all. If you want to see a fine
example of this, watch a movie called 'The Grey'. It's about
plane crash victims that have to deal with hungry wolves.
That's the whole movie. Moral humans against no morals
nature. Guess which one wins.

I think maybe I will use Evenbob's post to jump off in response. The problem might begin with thinking of ourselves as nothing but mammals. Face, you paint a powerful picture with words of what our ancestors had to deal with. What you describe is indeed what animals have to deal with on a daily basis; worrying about feeding themselves and their young, fighting, bad water, etc. I stagger to think how any of us as human beings survived. But I am 100% certain we did not get to where we are today by doing what the animals still do today. Morality for us as human beings is a rejection of the survival of the fittest mentality, it is the rejection of selfishness. If we are ever plunged again into some type of apocalyptic chaos you better believe that we will never get out of it if we abandon what we know is right and good. Just like we would never become truly human if we rejected the ingrained desire in ourselves to good, for example not kill the innocent.

First of all I admit that morality in us as human beings has the appearance of evolving, from Neanderthal warrior cultures through the middle ages to today. This is really the flowering of a truth about what is good and right in us, not a change in what is moral. If we determine what is moral and good based on the culture, circumstances, or time this flattens morality and keeps us, if not in a downward spiral, in a maintenance type of morality. How have we broken out of this system of selfish morality? Well we got a huge push from Jesus, but besides that we as human beings are always upwardly mobile. We are moving up to the east side, we don't just continue to be mediocre - again the mysterious echo of our perfection we hear in original sin won't let us.

I do want to point out that you made a very good clarification in that killing itself is not always wrong. In defense of life, in just wars, by states without the means to protect themselves from criminals, etc. It is the killing of innocent life that is always wrong. It is beyond horrifying and dangerous to accept the malleable type of morality you perceive in the past. The majority can never determine what is good or bad or we have to accept a neutral or worse stance in such instances as the Holocaust.

I'm sorry this is such a long post and it is not even as close to interesting to read as what Face writes but basically: Human beings are different than the animals and our salvation and survival is found in rejecting the natural morality observed in the animal world of selfishness and survival at all costs. This unfolding of a mysterious call in us throughout our history is the key to our survival and this true morality came before leisure and luxury, in fact without it we would still be acting like animals. If we lost this objective morality of what is right and wrong we cease to be fully human. The horrifying and dangerous idea of a majority rules type of changing morality can never be a justification for what is right or wrong or we find ourselves in an untenable situation that is blatantly false. Therefore in my mind we need to ground morality in something that is itself unchanging, universal, eternal, and calling us all to a higher standard.

If we are all sinners, then how can there ever be an "innocent life"…?

Quote: FrGamble

Therefore in my mind we need to ground morality in something that is itself unchanging, universal, eternal, and calling us all to a higher standard.

Why. What's wrong with it coming from you, which
it obviously does. I feel a lot better having morals
that come from my own experience, that's dogmatically
following rules that were set down by somebody else.

First man invents sin, then says things like 'the wages
of sin is death'. He created a problem where none
existed and now invents an organization to keep him
on the right path. The fact that this organization has
wealth and power is rather the point of the whole
thing, isn't it.