The speaker personally chooses not to lie and cheat (or, one hopes, murder). He doesn’t claim that humans don’t have programming that encourages such behaviours at times, he claims that humans are programmed to have morality, which can involve suppressing other programming. We having names that we use to moralize and disapprove of lies, cheating and murder is somewhat of an indicator that humans do have impulses that push them in that direction.
Morals are also culturally dependent. In some cases it would be considered immoral not to commit what we would describe as ‘murder’. The closest male relative of a victim is considered morally obligated to avenge him. Our culture (or perhaps ‘cultures’ given that my culture doesn’t care about tips) calls this ‘murder’ and disapproves even though most people would have some degree of empathy for the motive. That is, *they expect the killer to be programmed to want to commit such a murder”.
As for cheating and stealing: the speaker allegedly personally does neither. But does he lock his car or leave his keys in the ignition?
The speaker personally chooses not to lie and cheat (or, one hopes, murder). He doesn’t claim that humans don’t have programming that encourages such behaviours at times, he claims that humans are programmed to have morality, which can involve suppressing other programming. We having names that we use to moralize and disapprove of lies, cheating and murder is somewhat of an indicator that humans do have impulses that push them in that direction.
Morals are also culturally dependent. In some cases it would be considered immoral not to commit what we would describe as ‘murder’. The closest male relative of a victim is considered morally obligated to avenge him. Our culture (or perhaps ‘cultures’ given that my culture doesn’t care about tips) calls this ‘murder’ and disapproves even though most people would have some degree of empathy for the motive. That is, *they expect the killer to be programmed to want to commit such a murder”.
As for cheating and stealing: the speaker allegedly personally does neither. But does he lock his car or leave his keys in the ignition?