When you look at something, are you aware of all that happening? Or do you just see it?
I just see it. I’m aware on some abstract level, but I never think about this when I see things, and I don’t take it into account when I confidently believe what I see.
“His reason to murder someone is because, let’s say, they’re dating a girl he wants to date. Most non-sociopaths wouldn’t consider that a reason to murder anyone”
I guess I’d disagree with the second claim, or at least I’d want to qualify it. Having a broken brain center is an inadmissible reason to kill someone. If that’s the only explanation someone could give (or that we could supply them) then we wouldn’t even hold them responsible for their actions. But dating your beloved really is a reason to kill someone. It’s a very bad reason, all things considered, but it is a reason. In this case, the killer would be held responsible.
“The way I see it, the biology aspect is both necessary and sufficient for this kind of behaviour. ”
Necessary, we agree. Sufficient is, I think, too much, especially if we’re relying on evolutionary explanations, which should never stand in without qualification for psychological, much less rational explanations. After all, I could come to hate my family if our relationship soured. This happens to many, many people who are not significantly different from me in this biological respect.
An ordinary human being raised with no exposure to moral rules in an extremely strange counterfactual: no person I have ever met, or ever heard of, is like this. I would probably say that there’s not really any sense in which they were ‘raised’ at all. Could they have friends? Is that so morally neutral an idea that one could learn it while leaning nothing of loyalty? I really don’t think I can imagine a rational, language-using human adult who hasn’t been exposed to moral rules.
So the ‘necessity’ case is granted. We agree there. The ‘sufficiency’ case is very problematic. I don’t think you could even have learned a first language without being exposed to moral rules, and if you never learn any language, then you’re just not really a rational agent.
An ordinary human being raised with no exposure to moral rules in an extremely strange counterfactual: no person I have ever met, or ever heard of, is like this.
A weak example of this: someone from a society that doesn’t have any explicit moral rules, i.e. ‘Ten Commandments.’ They might follow laws, but but the laws aren’t explained ‘A is the right thing to do’ or ‘B is wrong’. Strong version: someone whose parents never told them ‘don’t do that, that’s wrong/mean/bad/etc’ or ‘you should do this, because it’s the right thing/what good people do/etc.’ Someone raised in that context would probably be strange, and kind of undisciplined, and probably pretty thoughtless about the consequences of actions, and might include only a small number of people in their ‘circle of empathy’...but I don’t think they’d be incapable of having friends/being nice.′
A weak example of this: someone from a society that doesn’t have any explicit moral rules, i.e. ‘Ten Commandments.’ They might follow laws, but but the laws aren’t explained ‘A is the right thing to do’ or ‘B is wrong’.
I can see a case like this, but morality is a much broader idea than can be captured by a list of divine commands and similar such things. Even Christians, Jews, and Muslims would say that the ten commandments are just a sort of beginning, and not all on their own sufficient to be moral ideas.
Someone raised in that context would probably be strange, and kind of undisciplined, and probably pretty thoughtless about the consequences of actions, and might include only a small number of people in their ‘circle of empathy’...but I don’t think they’d be incapable of having friends/being nice.′
Huh, we have pretty different intuitions about this: I have a hard time imagining how you’d even get a human being out of that situation. I mean, animals, even really crappy ones like rats, can be empathetic toward one another. But there’s no morality in a rat, and we would never think to praise or blame one for its behavior. Empathy itself is necessary for morality, but far from sufficient.
I just see it. I’m aware on some abstract level, but I never think about this when I see things, and I don’t take it into account when I confidently believe what I see.
“His reason to murder someone is because, let’s say, they’re dating a girl he wants to date. Most non-sociopaths wouldn’t consider that a reason to murder anyone”
I guess I’d disagree with the second claim, or at least I’d want to qualify it. Having a broken brain center is an inadmissible reason to kill someone. If that’s the only explanation someone could give (or that we could supply them) then we wouldn’t even hold them responsible for their actions. But dating your beloved really is a reason to kill someone. It’s a very bad reason, all things considered, but it is a reason. In this case, the killer would be held responsible.
“The way I see it, the biology aspect is both necessary and sufficient for this kind of behaviour. ”
Necessary, we agree. Sufficient is, I think, too much, especially if we’re relying on evolutionary explanations, which should never stand in without qualification for psychological, much less rational explanations. After all, I could come to hate my family if our relationship soured. This happens to many, many people who are not significantly different from me in this biological respect.
An ordinary human being raised with no exposure to moral rules in an extremely strange counterfactual: no person I have ever met, or ever heard of, is like this. I would probably say that there’s not really any sense in which they were ‘raised’ at all. Could they have friends? Is that so morally neutral an idea that one could learn it while leaning nothing of loyalty? I really don’t think I can imagine a rational, language-using human adult who hasn’t been exposed to moral rules.
So the ‘necessity’ case is granted. We agree there. The ‘sufficiency’ case is very problematic. I don’t think you could even have learned a first language without being exposed to moral rules, and if you never learn any language, then you’re just not really a rational agent.
A weak example of this: someone from a society that doesn’t have any explicit moral rules, i.e. ‘Ten Commandments.’ They might follow laws, but but the laws aren’t explained ‘A is the right thing to do’ or ‘B is wrong’. Strong version: someone whose parents never told them ‘don’t do that, that’s wrong/mean/bad/etc’ or ‘you should do this, because it’s the right thing/what good people do/etc.’ Someone raised in that context would probably be strange, and kind of undisciplined, and probably pretty thoughtless about the consequences of actions, and might include only a small number of people in their ‘circle of empathy’...but I don’t think they’d be incapable of having friends/being nice.′
I can see a case like this, but morality is a much broader idea than can be captured by a list of divine commands and similar such things. Even Christians, Jews, and Muslims would say that the ten commandments are just a sort of beginning, and not all on their own sufficient to be moral ideas.
Huh, we have pretty different intuitions about this: I have a hard time imagining how you’d even get a human being out of that situation. I mean, animals, even really crappy ones like rats, can be empathetic toward one another. But there’s no morality in a rat, and we would never think to praise or blame one for its behavior. Empathy itself is necessary for morality, but far from sufficient.