The better angels of our nurture

[boztopia]

From author Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nurture:

"To base any moral position on natural fact, whether that fact is derived from nature or from nurture, is asking for trouble. In my morality, and I hope in yours, some things are bad but natural, like dishonesty and violence; others are good but less natural, like generosity and fidelity."I've been

Comments

[overfreak]

The definition of evil changes from person to person. It’s a question of who's morality are you going to base such distinctions on. If we are going to go with movie analogy I mean, the Empire brought order to the galaxy man, and order is a good thing. Some shortsighted rebels thought it was evil to be sure, but a lot of good was done in that time

[barzelay]

Remember, too, that empathy, and even guilt are also innate. Evolution seeks the survival of a species, not of an individual.

In any case, I like your view about God. I am an atheist, and friends have occasionally asked me whether I'm worried that God might exist and I've been denying him this whole time.

I tell them that I am not worried. And I can conceive that God does exist. I do not believe that's the case, but I can imagine it being true. But I cannot, however much thought I have put into it, conceive of a God who desires worship. Omnipotence is mutually exclusive of jealousy. Why would an all-knowing, all-powerful being care about other people acknowledging It? And so I'm not at all worried. If I die and discover God exists, I'm confident that He is my homeboy. He laughs along with my blasphemy, and shakes His head just as condescendingly at most Christians.

[bitterbert]

I urge you, again and most strongly, to read Eric Hoffer.

"Evil, in its base form, is the relaxing of responsibility. "He made me do it." "It wasn't my fault." "It wasn't my responsibility." When you shut down your capacity to make reasoned decisions and just blindly follow orders, you are opening the door to the potential for evil. Mr. Hoffer: "There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power- God, history, fate, nation or humanity