| ScienceMorality.mp3 |
| PANGEA PROGRESS |
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Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Simon Blackburn (a philosopher) and Lawrence Krauss discuss what is moral and what science can tell us about human values.
Add Comment ![]() "The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole of nature." - Spinoza Humans are animals and their morality comes from their living brains not from dead dogma. Other animals care for their young, protect their group and help cooperate and connect with their community. Animal Morality is real. Other animals may lack written language but their actions of care and protection are as real as human morality. For those who want to separate humans from the animal kingdom you are like a leaf that did not know it was part of a tree. "Empathy and solidarity have held human groups together for ages. Admittedly, these groups were small. In both animals and humans empathy is biased. It is always stronger for the in-group than the out-group, stronger for one's own family than for nonrelatives. These biases are not hard to explain in evolutionary terms and have also been found in animal studies. We still have the psychology of a primate that evolved in smaller groups, even though now we live among millions of strangers. In order to do so successfully we need to rely on a blend of old psychology that makes us empathize with others and an appeal to what is good for all of us. " Frans de Waal "There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties ... The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes a well-developed condition, in the lower animals." Charles Darwin | |||