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Originally Posted by Bane of your existence
But it is still real and still exists. I realize that taking a peak behind the curtain can kind of take away the magic, sing-songy bit of it.
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Yes it does.
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But you can still appreciate that we are often much nicer and caring than we have to be and should be.
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People are as nice and caring as evolution says they should be. There's a bell curve of course, but that's not something we should get any credit for.
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I mean, I literally have met a man that jumped on a grenade to save his buddies.
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I made a post in the thread about whether or not you would kill someone for $50,000,000. I think it applies.
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Originally Posted by The Batlord
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Originally Posted by FETCHER.
So you think we're all sociopaths?
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No, but morality is a creation of evolution meant to serve a pragmatic purpose (i.e. allowing us to live in a group to better chances for survival.) It doesn't exist objectively. Just think of slavery. People thought that it was wrong even when the Spanish were considering enslaving the natives in America. They had public debates on the subject. But I'm sure it occurred to them that if they didn't exploit the New World and all that it had to offer, slaves included, that the English or the Dutch would and would come to dominate them. And so morality was altered to suit pragmatism. It wasn't until the industrial revolution and slavery became obsolete that morality was allowed to win out. Obviously for an individual morality is less fluid, since if a single human being isn't willing to die to protect their child or someone isn't willing to put themselves in danger to fight an oppressive government then morality wouldn't have enough power to protect the species as a whole, but the point remains that morality is not an absolute. |
Just add "if a soldier wasn't willing to throw himself on a grenade" in there and it applies.