Asst. Prof Joshua Greene's area of study fits right into many of the forum discussions.
Thisfrom todays Sci Amer
Article
[ QUOTE ]
"Part of normal development is this emotional responding to another human being," he says. "It's not something you have to learn or you have to go have a specific religious experience to pick up, or have a cultural experience…. It is based on emotionally responding to others, and there's a part of the brain dedicated to that."
[/ QUOTE ]
From his homepage I then reached this - from an article of his in
Nature Reviews Neuroscience -
"A world full of people who regard their moral
convictions as reflections of personal values rather than reflections of ‘the objective moral
truth’ might be a happier and more peaceful
place than the world we currently inhabit".
That seems to capture some of the exchanges on here.
My take - we have evolved a sense of morality but it's too broad brush, especially for todays social conditions, including mobility and mass weapons, and it needs to be mixed with a gollop of rationality.
luckyme