I haven't read the book, but like the undermentioned sentences :)

G) Morality is a set of rules given by a higher authority; if you conform to them, you will be rewarded; if you don't conform to them, you will be punished.

H) "Who are you to judge me?" - It's something that inherently implies "judging" other people . . . and judging other people is immoral . . . so therefore, morality is . . . immoral.

Ex:

http://www.livereal.com/psychology_arena/what_is_morality.htm

Thank you for the link, Andrzej! I was able to glean a couple of quotes to use in my presentation.

I haven't read the book so. But by my heart philosophy served morally,that like some things action or control the man behavior to be the peace community then to the world.

Morality is very personal. It affects each person. If you are moral you get positive vibes and if a person is negative he gets sick by his act. As I know for that effect to take place you dont need a boss or superior.

I do appreciate all of your heartfelt comments. It has helped me to remember, in spite of evolutionary psychology, we are still very, very much human....all over the world!

~Janet

#H1-237. Ref Janet Wise, 0128110525 : The idea of "moral modules" new to me, therefore i tried Bing search, and have learnt the following. Thanks to you.

1. The idea isn't necessarily new; can be traced back to Mencius, Buddha and Aristotle. Nevertheless, the latest is likely to be better:

The moral modules (so far defined) are five:

2. I came across another interesting idea/observation: These differences lead Fodor to introduce “Fodor’s First Law >> “the more global (e.g., the more isotropic) a cognitive process is, the less anybody understands it. Very global processes, like analogical reasoning, aren’t understood at all”.

The link is: http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/events/pdf/048_Flanagan_Owen_3rd_BESETO.pdf

3. How this compares with Brown's "human universals"?: Values hardwired into all human beings.

4. my idea: For ethical roots too, we may start from single cellular organisms onwards. I some how think some proto-ethics [pre-human, pre-primate, pre-mammalian] preceded. Would dinosaurs [reptiles, or snakes/crocodiles] not have/had?

Then we have to go to the question of if plants have something similar. I wouldn't hesitate plants may have "consciousness or similar", may not hesitate "some proto-thought", but clear "proto-/phyto-virtues/values"?

I had always thought one of the purposes of human life is to discover higher ideals.

But if called to extend that to animals and plants and microbes, how far i will be able to resist or quantify their status?

But if every living being is to strive for virtue, and there is possibility the conceptual space is n't too numerous, and is reducible to a few "moral modules", will there be sufficient new discoveries of new morals if we/i start thinking to qualify/quantify the status of every biological genus/species/family? (new morals in the sense, they need not be higher, but broken versions of what we recognise, for example fairness. May be we will develop an evolutionary taxonomy of "moral modules", and can see what symmetry concepts (symmetry qualities and quantities and concepts) has been used along the way.

___________________________

EDITdone: one spelling error corrected. Line 1: [m]oral.

Thank you so much for posting relative to my comments. The topic of my presentation for the conference is how these things help us to "Engage Our World." VERY SPECIFICALLY, you have allowed me to do just that, by your kind and intelligent responses. I will be mentioning you by name in my presentation. (I hope that's okay!)

~Janet Wise

#H1-249. i wanted to add one, which of course you would not have overlooked, the statement "our Morality is innate, and not under our Will", may be better understood as "part of our morality is innate, not fully under our Will".

2. Will be interested to read your paper, to better know the "moral modules".

3. A link for the related concept (it's not that you would not have already come across) "Human Universals" of Brown: http://condor.depaul.edu/~mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm

Yeah! 300+ universals! It doesn't surprise me, but I have wondered how it would be best to incorporate this. Any comments. anyone?

JW: "Philosophy has to be reworked, in order to account for the findings of Cognitive Science, that our Morality is innate, and not under our Will."

Will is a concept that has been greatly misunderstood. Something is willed if it is caused by one's knowledge of the world. Thus will is knowledge put into action, as it were.

Consider the following examples...

In the first example, I am standing on a ladder. My enemy walks up. I see him coming toward me and drop the hammer so that it hits him on the head.

In the second example, I am standing on a ladder. My enemy walks up. I do not see him coming. He shakes the ladder surprising me. Grabbing wildly to keep from falling, I drop the hammer. It falls and hits him on the head.

In the first case, it was my knowledge of my enemy's presence that caused me to drop the hammer. The act was clearly willed. In the second case I had no knowledge of my enemy's presence. Hitting him was therefor incidental to my attempt to keep from falling... it was not willed.

SN: "part of our morality is innate, not fully under our Will."

There seems to be a category error in the statement... as it is, I can make no sense of it.

Aristotle discusses the nature of ethics in the ***Rhetoric.*** There he points out that there are two types of law... written law and unwritten law...

"We saw that there are two kinds of right and wrong conduct towards others, one provided for by written ordinances, the other by unwritten. We have now discussed the kind about which the laws have something to say. The other kind has itself two varieties. First, there is the conduct that springs from exceptional goodness or badness, and is visited accordingly with censure and loss of honour, or with praise and increase of honour and decorations: for instance, gratitude to, or requital of, our benefactors, readiness to help our friends, and the like. The second kind makes up for the defects of a community's written code of law. This is what we call equity; people regard it as just; it is, in fact, the sort of justice which goes beyond the written law. Its existence partly is and partly is not intended by legislators; not intended, where they have noticed no defect in the law; intended, where find themselves unable to define things exactly, and are obliged to legislate as if that held good always which in fact only holds good usually; or where it is not easy to be complete owing to the endless possible cases presented, such as the kinds and sizes of weapons that may be used to inflict wounds -- a lifetime would be too short to make out a complete list of these. If, then, a precise statement is impossible and yet legislation is necessary, the law must be expressed in wide terms; and so, if a man has no more than a finger-ring on his hand when he lifts it to strike or actually strikes another man, he is guilty of a criminal act according to the unwritten words of the law; [1374b] but he is innocent really, and it is equity that declares him to be so. From this definition of equity it is plain what sort of actions, and what sort of persons, are equitable or the reverse. Equity must be applied to forgivable actions; and it must make us distinguish between criminal acts on the one hand, and errors of judgement, or misfortunes, on the other. (A 'misfortune' is an act, not due to moral badness, that has unexpected results: an 'error of judgement' is an act, also not due to moral badness, that has results that might have been expected: a 'criminal act' has results that might have been expected, but is due to moral badness, for that is the source of all actions inspired by our appetites.) Equity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his intentions, nor this or that detail so much as the whole story; to ask not what a man is now but what he has always or usually been. It bids us remember benefits rather than injuries, and benefits received rather than benefits conferred; to be patient when we are wronged; to settle a dispute by negotiation and not by force; to prefer arbitration to litigation -- for an arbitrator goes by the equity of a case, a judge by the strict law, and arbitration was invented with the express purpose of securing full power for equity.

"The above may be taken as a sufficient account of the nature of equity."

~ Aristotle; ***Rhetoric;*** Book I; Chapter 13

http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/rhet1-13.html

JW: "our Morality is innate, and not under our Will."

It is not clear to me what is being asserted. As it seems to me, the legislator in writing a law wills it into existence. Aside from that case it would seem that ethics --- if the word means anything at all --- is something innate... as Aristotle said. Cicero developed the idea into what we now call, 'natural law.'

The contrary claim, that ethics in general is simply willed into existence comes, I suppose, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

or perhaps, Friedrich Nietzsche?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

I'm all for Morality being under our Will, or at least, some of it. As it stands now, the argument is that we only use our Will when we want to think of a better decision; when we want to go beyond the "that makes sense" heuristic.

Certainly many acts are the result of habit. I suppose that habit may at times completely overwhelm the mind in some sense.

But I wonder... does the teenager, 'dancing to the music' not know what he is doing? Would he not insist that he was free to dance?

One wonders what sort of hidden agenda is implied in denying that one wills such things.

What is now a habit was once distinctly willed. That it is now indistinctly willed does not seem to change its nature. A bad deed done out of habit is in fact, a worse deed on account of the habit... for the habit comes from a character that has become corrupt. The 'Green River Killer' could hardly claim that he was not guilty because he acted from habit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Killer

I remember a strange event some thirty years ago in which I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was in a grocery store. I had no idea of why I was there. I had no memory of having walked there. I can only suppose that some habit guided me.

I do not doubt that I took each step of the journey freely... that each step was willed... indistinctly, perhaps, but truly willed, nevertheless.

#H1-262. Ref Bill O, Feb 20, 2011 1:00 am.

@*. That due to inadequacy of my language, i take it as goes without saying that i could make errors. I understand how is the error. You have said will is "knowledge put into action". When i used the word, i hadn't been meaning that; instead, due to my limitations, i meant by "Will", something very routine as "conscious control" of of a person of some act of his.

(some other times i have used "Will" to mean, an higher/broader/wiser+fairer intellligence; from B-Gita).

"Will" , To wonder if some actions are reflexive or "consciously buildable".

.

@*. ie a conscious action; ie a pre-planned action.

@*. "consciously buildable" [not restricted nor reference to "built"] action: do i mean pre-planned action? I seem to mean "choice". How different is choice from plan? One cannot plan to get a result without choosing before to, and one cannot choose and get a result without acting.

The preference for future orientation of definition for Will, and the significance attached to the intention behind act;

and the preference for past orientation for definition of Will, and the significance of intentedness of the act. That is the difference, and nothing more nor less.

Am i ok to hold that Tense orientation is that much important, and still, the meaning i use for the word "will" is acceptable? Sometimes even a dictionary may help, but i'm interested in RG answers.

#H1-263. BO, above two posts: i think no doubt i am starting to admire Aristotle.:

Wherefrom he was getting ideas so-back those days?

@*. 1. : Aristotle.

2. >: Rousseeau.

TO

1. reflexive?

2. conscious building?

i read the linked wp articles; nust say thanks.

@*. If you use the word "wonder" I am attracted to:

1. "dancing to the music": do i feel once again drawn inevitably to finding the contributions of both the opposing arguments? 2.. genereating thought through "innate interest"; then further developing "freedom" to dance as pleased.

@*. i am developing a belief in there is always a region where any particular rule does not apply. Would i say 0.01 to 0.99 is ok, but 0.99999 can differ from even 0.99? Essential outlier. Where does the changed chirality starts, i am yet to contemplate on. [or an internet search shall disabuse any my thoughts of inventing any new question!]

It is often claimed that free will implies that one's actions are uncaused... that they are simply 'random.'

The problem with such an idea is that it destroys the notion of responsibility. Who can blame me if my actions are simply random effects?

When I say that will is knowledge in action, I mean two things... (1) That there is a cause to one's choices; and (2) that the cause is not to be found in matter... i. e. the body as a collection of parts. The cause is the form or soul... i. e. the whole of man which is more than the sum of so many bodily parts.

#H1-276. 60m. Ref Bill Overcamp, Feb 27, 2011 1:35 am. Does not free will means one's actions are freely chosen by the person himself his the act, and therefore self-"caused", and therefore naturally self-only responsible?

i don't usually decompose the acts as caused by the body or mind or brain or heart. One of them might have been dominant factor in influencing the decision to act, but they usually neither exist independent of the person, (nor vice versa).

SN: "i don't usually decompose the acts as caused by the body or mind or brain or heart. One of them might have been dominant factor in influencing the decision to act, but they usually neither exist independent of the person, (nor vice versa)."

I'm not sure, but I think we are in agreement. I would attribute the will to knowledge in action. That knowledge may come from my eyes or from my ears, etc. It doesn't matter what the source may be. The crucial point is that I know such and such a thing and that knowledge causes my action.

DOUBLE UPLOAD, CANCELLED.

#H1-295. Ref Janet Wise, Feb 22, 2011 6:40 am. Interesting. It is very rarely in RG/Phil i hear "when we WANT".

2. About 2 weeks back, i read some long articles on moral modules, etc. I made gleanings, but since could not make any commentary, so far i have not added them here. Presently, i shall attempt. [But all these below appear like only a collection of definitions. So, the less chance for me.]

3. FROM What does the Modularity of Morals have to do with Ethics? Four Moral Sprouts Plus or Minus a Few,

Owen FLANAGAN & R. A. WILLIAMS, Duke University.

4. The Genealogy of the Moral Modules, JOHN BOLENDER, Department of Philosophy, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 06531, Turkey;

5. SIR DAVID ROSS'S PLURALISTIC THEORY OF DUTY (The Beginnings), by Ken Cooley.

@*. I think, practical day to day circumstances, are weaning me away from purpose to duty (teleology to deontology).

@*. True. Too much integration with emotion/responsibility feeling/respect feelings, seem to be a sure way reason will fail along with.

@*. I think that, my latest should appear to be correct, but since there is no guarantee my approach itself need necessarily be right, there is aslo no guarantee, if my approach could possibly wrong, that i would not be more wrong in the latest.

As i have already said here somewhere, the route to "truth" could be through other than "approximate truth". Here we can equal truth to right.