I feel that we are in a nihilistic position where we can't can justify any of our actions by reference to rules, objectivity or teleology.
For example it is not wrong for me to eat a chocolate bar and it is not wrong for me not to eat one. There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated. — Andrew4Handel
For example it is not wrong for me to eat a chocolate bar and it is not wrong for me not to eat one. There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated.
Every decision we make we don't know if we are doing the right thing and what the consequences are going to be. — Andrew4Handel
It is something that can lead to an existential crisis. — Andrew4Handel
Animals know what to do to live without some outside force motivating them. — T Clark
you might succumb to analysis paralysis — Tom Storm
And wishing to avoid that unnecessary anxiety, realize that we only have control of ourselves… more or less. See: stoicism. — praxis
I am no expert on animal behaviour but it seems to me humans can never exist (spontaneously?)like an animal in the wild without language communities and complex learning. — Andrew4Handel
There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated. — Andrew4Handel
babies as young as three months old, long before they have language, are already judging other people's behavior and making value judgements. — T Clark
Homo Sapiens have been around for 200,000 years. They were genetically equivalent to people today. Do you think evolution didn't provide them with the ability to make decisions and act on those decisions? Do you think people 100,000 years ago couldn't act without application of rules, objectivity or teleology? I'm sure they didn't have existential crises or nihilistic feelings. The problems you've identified are overlays on basic human behavior associated, I guess, with modern civilization. — T Clark
But my general point is that every choice we make is done in a situation of infinite possibilities and without anyway to know we have done the best or correct thing. — Andrew4Handel
There are studies that show babies as young as three months old, long before they have language, are already judging other people's behavior and making value judgements. Karen Wynn, who conducted the studies, suggests this does show there are innate rules for behavior. — T Clark
There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated.
Every decision we make we don't know if we are doing the right thing and what the consequences are going to be. — Andrew4Handel
What this also means, is that because we evolved this set of abilities for cultural learning that is more flexible, we didn't need all these hard-wired traits and instincts anymore unlike other animals... and so we presumably eventually lost a lot of those traits, as tends to happen in evolution with traits that aren't useful anymore. — ChatteringMonkey
we lack all of these instinctive algorithmic behaviors. — ChatteringMonkey
I would say there is reason here to suggest a human preference/desire for rules, but not necessarily that any innate ‘rules for behaviour’ exist as such. — Possibility
I am no expert on animal behaviour but it seems to me humans can never exist (spontaneously?)like an animal in the wild without language communities and complex learning. — Andrew4Handel
Every decision we make we don't know if we are doing the right thing and what the consequences are going to be. — Andrew4Handel
existential crisis — Andrew4Handel
Babies are dependent on (M)others, and therefore make connections and loyalties very quickly, — unenlightened
The early emergence of the evaluation of social actions—present already by 3 months of age—suggests that this capacity cannot result entirely from experience in particular cultural environments or exposure to specific linguistic practices, and it suggests that there are innate bases that ground some components of our moral cognition. — Karen Wynn
It would make sense, given what we know I think — ChatteringMonkey
Do you have a source for your understanding? — T Clark
I don't think what I'm saying is that outlandish, but you know, I'm not a professional so I very well could be somewhat off the mark. — ChatteringMonkey
Iit is not wrong for me to drive a car and it is not wrong for me not to drive a car. Iit is not wrong for me to write this comment and it is not wrong for me not to write this comment What's the issue here?For example it is not wrong for me to eat a chocolate bar and it is not wrong for me not to eat one. — Andrew4Handel
I don't think what I'm saying is that outlandish, but you know, I'm not a professional so I very well could be somewhat off the mark.
— ChatteringMonkey
I don't think it's outlandish, but I provided specific sources for my opinions. The extent to which human behavior is innate has been argued on the forum before. There is scientific evidence on both sides. No one argues that cultural influences don't have a big role to play. If your positions weren't expressed so definitively I wouldn't might not have responded so vehemently. — T Clark
I see this as a very moderate expression of an argument for a genetic component to moral behavior. — T Clark
Though I do still disagree about Homo Sapiens being just another animal. — ChatteringMonkey
But how to do deal with this anxiety? — Andrew4Handel
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