So if you could get away with it, would you kill your granny?!
Or is there something inside of you which make you feel uncomfortable about just the idea, even though in purelly logical terms the old lady is probably just a useless consumer of resources well past her breeding age?
If there is that something inside of you (i.e. you’re neither a psychopath nor a sociopath) that too is Moral.
I agree with your point about externally defined and imposed “Moral” (which is really Morality or Moralizing), it’s just that most people also have their own internal Right-Wrong Compass (I suspect derived from one’s empathy) and that too is Moral and it’s not under external control.
What you suppose is your “internal” morality compass is an “internalised” one.
I wouldn’t kill my grandma because I love her, not because it’s “wrong”. I won’t kill anyone, I guess, because I don’t like seeing living beings suffer. Not because it’s “wrong”.
Morality is always an internalised “system”. It can’t be “natural”, it’s always ideological.
But that doesn’t mean that being materialistic in analysis of our existence as humans would make you do “evil” things. If you try to analyse us as a species scientifically, we realise that we literally evolved to cooperate and be nice to each other. Our chemistry makes that necessary. We hate being alone and seeing those around us suffer, because those things produce “feel bad” chemicals. We love helping each other because that produces “feel good” chemicals. On average of course (as you mention psychopaths do exist).
In fact, a purely material analysis of us would show that greed, individualism, destroying the planet, killing all animals on it, making large portions of our species to suffer in poverty etc. are counterproductive. Those things all make us individually feel worse and have worse lives. We would have the best lives if everyone around us had access to all amazing developments of the past centuries freely, if the animals and ecosystems of the world were protected, if the people around us cared about us and lived with us, not despite us. And none of that is moral, or based on morality. Just science and materialism.
Then go ahead and figure out how “I don’t like seeing living beings suffer” is consistent with the idea that a moral compass is wholly “internalised”. Are you saying that your dislike of seeing suffering is “internalized”?
I’m exactly pointing out that how you feel about about harming and hurting others will be part of defining your moral compass (quite literally by leading you away from harming and hurting others because doing otherwise makes you feel bad).
Yeah, absolutelly, a lot of “Moral” is internalized, but a lot of it is just outsiders trying to claim as their invention that which is already human nature and the natural compass we have due to things like love and empathy.
Consider the possibility that societal Morality is really just a way to capture and subvert natural human “morality” (which is not at all a formal “Moral”) so as to get people to act outside that natural moral (for example, would Capitalism exist if people just followed a natural tendency to stop hurt when they see it and take from those who have much to give to those they see starving?).
novibe@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
Yup! Doing things because some moral authority decided it was “right” is dumb as fuck and I’ll die on that hill.
What a lack of material analysis does to a mfer and all etc. etc.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So if you could get away with it, would you kill your granny?!
Or is there something inside of you which make you feel uncomfortable about just the idea, even though in purelly logical terms the old lady is probably just a useless consumer of resources well past her breeding age?
If there is that something inside of you (i.e. you’re neither a psychopath nor a sociopath) that too is Moral.
I agree with your point about externally defined and imposed “Moral” (which is really Morality or Moralizing), it’s just that most people also have their own internal Right-Wrong Compass (I suspect derived from one’s empathy) and that too is Moral and it’s not under external control.
novibe@lemmy.ml 11 months ago
What you suppose is your “internal” morality compass is an “internalised” one.
I wouldn’t kill my grandma because I love her, not because it’s “wrong”. I won’t kill anyone, I guess, because I don’t like seeing living beings suffer. Not because it’s “wrong”.
Morality is always an internalised “system”. It can’t be “natural”, it’s always ideological.
But that doesn’t mean that being materialistic in analysis of our existence as humans would make you do “evil” things. If you try to analyse us as a species scientifically, we realise that we literally evolved to cooperate and be nice to each other. Our chemistry makes that necessary. We hate being alone and seeing those around us suffer, because those things produce “feel bad” chemicals. We love helping each other because that produces “feel good” chemicals. On average of course (as you mention psychopaths do exist).
In fact, a purely material analysis of us would show that greed, individualism, destroying the planet, killing all animals on it, making large portions of our species to suffer in poverty etc. are counterproductive. Those things all make us individually feel worse and have worse lives. We would have the best lives if everyone around us had access to all amazing developments of the past centuries freely, if the animals and ecosystems of the world were protected, if the people around us cared about us and lived with us, not despite us. And none of that is moral, or based on morality. Just science and materialism.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Re-read your own first 2 paragraphs.
Then go ahead and figure out how “I don’t like seeing living beings suffer” is consistent with the idea that a moral compass is wholly “internalised”. Are you saying that your dislike of seeing suffering is “internalized”?
I’m exactly pointing out that how you feel about about harming and hurting others will be part of defining your moral compass (quite literally by leading you away from harming and hurting others because doing otherwise makes you feel bad).
Yeah, absolutelly, a lot of “Moral” is internalized, but a lot of it is just outsiders trying to claim as their invention that which is already human nature and the natural compass we have due to things like love and empathy.
Consider the possibility that societal Morality is really just a way to capture and subvert natural human “morality” (which is not at all a formal “Moral”) so as to get people to act outside that natural moral (for example, would Capitalism exist if people just followed a natural tendency to stop hurt when they see it and take from those who have much to give to those they see starving?).