Quote:
Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword
What I am saying is that the notion that we should live with evolution creating our morality in such a way that we live to produce is offspring is not a human idea. Humans are selfish. We choose to exist longer. We choose to pursue our own happiness, the goal of every man in the universe whether he will admit it or not. Humans aren't a slave to their species like animals. Condoms exist because we feel that reproducing is not always the best thing for us. This is because we don't put our species above ourselves, we put our own happiness above our species. It just so happens that it is our motivation for happiness is really what has allowed us to overpower this planet to the point where we may destroy it.
I just realized I may have possibly missed the point though, and if this is true just ignore everything I typed above.
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You've got some points and you are missing some. Most people don't
really know the theory behind selfishness. Basically, every organism is driven by selfishness - you, me, the birds in the trees and the earthworms digging through your garden. The only exception are perhaps altruistic mutants and animals bred by humans to act altruistic, but those "altruistic genes" are selected against in nature because they get exploited by the selfish ones. Evolution will remove them. From this, you would think that we are all horribly selfish, but the redeeming factor and what makes us basically nice and work together with those we include in our mental idea of "us" and not "them" is because it ultimately raises our own fitness. Fitness is not the same as survivability, but it has a lot to do with it.
People don't care about their own species .. Neither do wolves or cats. Noone does. We care about ourselves, those we share genes with and those our fitnesses are dependent upon.
When talking about human nature, you should be careful to mention fun-facts from modern life. In our billions of years life history, condoms and fast-food joints haven't even been around for 0,1‰ of that time. Using modern life as an argument on the nature of people is an annoying habit by those who can't seem to grasp or at least remember that our natures are cavemen natures. Try to keep the caveman in mind. Things we are adapted to do (like having sex or hunting animals) can be expressed in new ways now that we did not actually evolve to. We are cavemen - driving cars and living in big cities, enjoying modern lives.
As for the pursuit of happiness, think about what the pursuit of happiness would mean if you were a caveman. It would mean food, shelter, probably a mate, a bit of sex now and again, a community to provide food/safety/etc. Basically, the pursuit of happiness would be the pursuit of things that help you survive or, more correctly, raise your fitness.
We don't have an innate care for "the world" or "our species". No animal has. If you understand selfishness, then you'll see that theoretically, such a care would make no sense at all.