Self-preservation is not an immoral action, nor a cause for guilt, it is the natural law itself. I understand a certain Christian notion of self-sacrifice, but consider such action against natural law and therefore immoral ...

Self-preservation itself is not wrong, but our inclination toward it does very often set us opposed to the natural law (not law of the jungle--a univeral and innate ablitlity to distinquish between right & wrong). For example, greed is a result of our inclination toward self-preservation. Sharing and giving in self-sacrifice would be a result of our understanding of the natural law. The two desires are in opposition.

Katherine,

Your natural law has the strange characteristic of dispossesing humanity of a property of its own psyche,as if it is imposed upon from the outside.You still did not explain how compassion and/or morality could be innate and universal and not be subjective.I think this dispossessing is your religious inclination coming through,it does not make sense otherwise.What is this natural law which enables us to identify with other living things.I do take it you are saying this proceeds identification with.On second thought you are saying we have a natural innate universal ability to tell right from wrong,this does not holds water.Katherine, I have an innate universal ability to know when you are wrong-----------just kidding!!!



:eek: "We could be robots - and have a set of instructions, which produce the least harm possible in any given situation. That wouldn't make us 'good.' It would just be a algorithm. Good isn't a meaningful concept unless it's internal to us, unless it belongs to us rather than being an externally imposed command, like 'turn right at the next stoplight.' ":eek:

Katherine, you are denigrating self-preservation by contrasting it with a higher moral purpose. We cannot achieve the second without maintaining the first. They are absolutely NOT opposed. I do see the point you are trying to argue, but consider that one cannot give more then he has.

I do not think it is possible to have an innate ability to distinguish right and wrong. What we do have is an innate ability to protect ourselves from harm. When we protect others from harm we begin to move towards a higher moral principle.

Hello again Doors.
Just a short summary of thoughts that arose upon reading the above:
1. "Self-preservation is not an immoral action" - how do you arrive at this statement? By what moral authority can this claim be made?
2. "nor a cause for guilt" - what is guilt, how provoked or engendered, that the claim can be made that self-preservation is not a cause?
3. "the natural law itself" - is that the sum total of the natural law? What is the natural itself, where stated?
4. In what sense is one to understand the word "law" here? Is a law immutable and invariable as in a physics, or is it, as with codified rules of human behaviour, something which can be transgressed - albeit with consequences if one is apprehended doing so. May it not be helpful to distinguish between that which we might properly call laws and that which call rules. Perhaps it could be the other way 'round; laws may be flouted and rules may not be broken?
5. What really is morality? What are morals: Can they be said to be distinct and universal? Are morals laws or rules? That is to say, are they inviolable or can they be transgressed? What are the consequences?


In response to your 'second post', Doors:
6. I apologise for not taking the time to look up the appropriate references, but I will nonetheless assert that there are studies that demonstrate (I think quite unequivocally) that human beings do have an innate sense of right and wrong (of justice or fair play, even). What they do not have is an innate sense of the values that determine boundaries and application. Values and their application seem to be largely a product of socialising, of interaction with other human beings. Thus, the warp of human genetic heredity is interwoven with a weft drawn from the threads of human experience.
7. Whether or not an individual exercises self-preservation in the face of a perceived threat to their well-being, in an effort to benefit another, seems similarly to be mixture of an inherent human tendency to so-called altruistic behaviour, with the urge to ensure self-preservation. Thus we may expect (and indeed, demonstrably do find) that some people will unhesitantingly go to the aid of others, with apparent dis-regard for their own well-being, and others well stand by and watch or turn away. The circumstances in which a particular outcome is realised have been well studied and a predictive understanding of this facet of human behaviour attained. This is not a matter of philosophical claim, but of verifiable actuality.
8. As to whether or not Katherine was "denigrating self-preservation", in either case, as with your own opinion on the 'right' attitude to be pursued, it would seem to be a matter individual response that in turn, reflects the sum total of your respective life experiences to date. Neither in the posts I've read in Psych Forum, nor the writings of people such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, Lyotard and whoever else I've chanced upon, have I found anything to convince me that there exists any universally applicable, inviolable moral laws (or rules, for that matter) as such. Now that does not mean there are none; simply it means that I haven't found any - at least not in the sense of divinely or supernaturally determined and imposed dictates. What I have found is, that human beings generally behave in ways that suggest they do so in accord with certain physiologically or biologically determined criteria, which are determinable (though to what extent I do not claim to know, save that I doubt we are anywhere near the limits).

Thus I am of the opinion that, it is most likely that morality is real insofar as the word refers to human behaviour that might be described as 'rules based'. However I do not think it necessary to posit the existence of a 'God' to explicate the existence of morality itself, or a universe in which moral behaviour exists. This may just as satisfactorily be derived from other conceptual bases, which accord my simply with human experience and understanding of the world - as limited as that may be.

Hey guys and gal(s?), I'm going to have to drop-out for the next few months - I really have to get better grades if I'm to pursue my goals. Many thanks for having me; hope to catch up with you all before too long.

There...solved by fuzzy logic.

Umm . . . :confused:

Yeah! Thanks for proving my point Aristoddler!

I hope that puts it in perspective for the rest of you!

Isn't it wonderful that they invented the wheel before the automobile,imagine the terriable scrapping noise coming from the freeway!

That's a horrible thought, Boagie.

I jotted that fuzzy logic down earlier this week, while in the car. I thought it was kind of funny that any debate could be surmised in a single mediate, especially using such an irregular thought process.
Obviously it's not a serious note, but I wanted to share it regardless.