Morality without god - reprise -- Back Talk

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Subject: Morality without god - reprise

Author:
Forest

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Date Posted: 17:37:29 07/24/01 Tue

I don't know if folks are tired of this subject but I wanted to post something here.

Frans de Waal writes:
"Evolution has produced species that follow genuinely cooperative impulses. I don't know whether people are, deep down, good or evil, but I do know that to believe that each and every move is selfishly calculated overestimates human mental powers, let alone those of other animals." p.356

"Darwin believed that there was plenty of room wihtin his theory to accommodate the origins of morality and he attached great importance to the capacity for sympathy." p.352

In fact Darwin wrote:
" Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts the parental and filian affecxtions being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers were as developed, or nearly as developed, as in man." p.353

de Waal argues and provides powerful anecdotes to support that such a moral sense can be found in many animals.

quotes are from: The Ape and the Sushi Master, by Frans de Waal.

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[> Subject: I have to add this

Author:
Forest
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Date Posted: 18:15:47 07/24/01 Tue

de Waal writes at the end of his book:
"I see little life left in the position that we humans fall outside of nature, and that it is culture that sets us apart. A retreat to "symbolic culture" as the hallmark of humanity may provide some relief, but in the long run, I see a much more fruitful challenge for scholars in search of typically human accomplishments. The time has come to define the human species against the backdrop of the vast common ground we share with other life forms. Instead of being tied to how we are unlike any animal, human identity should be built around how we are animals that have taken certain capacities a significant step farther. We and other animals are both similar and idfferent, and the former is the only sensisble framework within which to flesh out the latter."

[> [> Subject: Re: I have to add this

Author:
Rawlin
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Date Posted: 14:26:38 07/25/01 Wed

Forest, I can send you the link to the "Animal Attacks" website....there is a basic difference but one I found interesting was in 1999 in Kenya just before dusk in a large clearing in the open lions would line up on one side of the field and hyenas on the other. It was reported they would charge and battle each other for hours, retreat and battle the following day at exactly the same time. The "war" lasted a week with 34 hyenas and 12 lions killed...They are evolving, in several million years they will be just like us!

[> [> [> Subject: yes please
Author: Forest [ Edit \| View ]	Date Posted: 15:00:03 07/25/01 Wed I'd love that link.