Sure, but so do atheists. They just believe their morality is special because they believe in the current social norms, within the current societal context. In 10 years they’ll be different, should a catastrophe happen it will shift completely. It’s just as flippant in its own way.
There’s pretty solid evidence supporting empathy as a beneficial evolutionary trait, it’s not like it’s random that “don’t be shitty to each other” is a social norm.
if empathy was truly universally favored by evolution, then there wouldn’t be any non-emphathetic humans today and we wouldn’t have this discussion, just saying.
That’s not at all how that works. First at no point have I made any “universally” claims. Nothing in evolution or psychology is 100% universal. Second, empathy, on average, is good for the health of the species. Selfishness is a gamble: it can dramatically increase the individual’s odds of passing on their genes but it requires enough non-selfish targets to exploit or it actually has a negative impact. More simply, jackasses fighting each other are worse off than pacifists working together.
So what’s favored is for most people to be altruistic and a small percentage of predators take advantage of them.
But social norms aren’t empathy. They are adhered to because of the punishment that will result if you break them. Before you have any chance of developing empathy or emotional intelligence, you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.
And that is exactly the same mechanism as religious morality.
you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.
I’m sorry to hear about your sociopathy, but no this is not how most people work.
First, I said “sociopath” not “psychopath”. There’s different connotations. Second, it’s a description of a pattern of thought. Because you’re saying that the only reason people don’t to terrible things to each other is because of the fear of punishment, not some intrinsic internal sense of fairness or social cohesion. Like a sociopath would think, because they don’t feel normal emotions or empathy.
“Psychopath” would be an insult but also an accusation of malice or cruelty. I don’t think you’re cruel. (I think you’re high on your own farts, and that’s not so much an insult as an observation because you’re doing the same kinda shit over in one of the Ed Sheeran threads. You sound like a young 20-something with some 100 level psych classes under your belt, and the one-day-old account screams “my main account got banned”.)
There’s no distinction between sociopath or psycopath, both were dropped from the DSM in favor of ASD.
I’m gonna assume you’re not arguing in bad faith and have just been brought up sheltered or in a cult - the reason we have POLICE which enforces laws through VIOLENCE is that people generally need fear to not do bad things.
It’s not something religious people need, nor people with ASD, the majority of the people in our jails are not mentally ill.
It’s something every society in every era of history has recognized as a necessity, including the one you live in right now.
People WILL do bad things unless they have fear of punishment, people are not naturally empathetic or oriented towards social cohesion. That’s why crime and punishment is a perennial instution throughout all recorded history.
I’m going to avoid all the insults at the end, I don’t know your past history but the voracity with which you sling insults whenever someone disagrees with you has apparently never occured to you to be immoral, unempathetic, or against social cohesion, so I doubt it will land today either.
you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.
I didn’t give up meat because I was worried about angry vegans coming to my house and beating me up, I gave up meat because I rationally evaluated the effects eating meat would have on the world and determined that those weren’t effects I wanted to cause.
Yes, in all likelihood you have some kind of neurodivergence. That’s why you’ve probably noticed people around you rarely function through rational choice the way you do.
People are generally programmed to follow the tribe, keep opinions to confirm and demonstrate fealty to the tribe, and to avoid committing any taboos that could cause them to be cast out and die alone in the wild.
And the people who did not do this mostly just had this exact happen and died.
I am neurodivergent, but I’m not prepared to accept the implication that neurotypical people lack moral agency. Anyone is capable of thinking critically about their behavior and changing it. Not every vegan is neurodivergent.
You do not need to be neurodivergent to be vegan, but if you have arrived at veganism through rationality, you are neurodivergent.
Neurodivergents have very strong empathy, so it is nearly psychologically impossible to see neurotypicals for what the really are. The truth is simply too painful that even though confronted with it thousands of times, and hurt deeply by it, most neurodivergents prefer the delusion to reality.
So you’re really advancing this idea that all neurotypicals are essentially p-zombies? That every moral philosopher or moral person in history was secretly neurodivergent?
What do you mean “advancing”? Every great person in history was clearly neurodivergent. They were clearly described as weird even for their time.
And of course every moral person was neurodivergent? Why do you think moral people are emphasized in our history? Why do you think people talking about morals are emphasized in our history? Do you think that’s because morals are normal?
If someone was moral it was noteworthy, because it was abnormal. They were literally divergent.
Sure, but so do atheists. They just believe their morality is special because they believe in the current social norms, within the current societal context. In 10 years they’ll be different, should a catastrophe happen it will shift completely. It’s just as flippant in its own way.
There’s pretty solid evidence supporting empathy as a beneficial evolutionary trait, it’s not like it’s random that “don’t be shitty to each other” is a social norm.
if empathy was truly universally favored by evolution, then there wouldn’t be any non-emphathetic humans today and we wouldn’t have this discussion, just saying.
That’s not at all how that works. First at no point have I made any “universally” claims. Nothing in evolution or psychology is 100% universal. Second, empathy, on average, is good for the health of the species. Selfishness is a gamble: it can dramatically increase the individual’s odds of passing on their genes but it requires enough non-selfish targets to exploit or it actually has a negative impact. More simply, jackasses fighting each other are worse off than pacifists working together.
So what’s favored is for most people to be altruistic and a small percentage of predators take advantage of them.
But social norms aren’t empathy. They are adhered to because of the punishment that will result if you break them. Before you have any chance of developing empathy or emotional intelligence, you are taught as a child that breaking social norms will result in punishment, and from then on your only motivation to follow them is fear of punishment.
And that is exactly the same mechanism as religious morality.
I’m sorry to hear about your sociopathy, but no this is not how most people work.
Deflection beats introspection, eh? It always amazes me how easily insults come to the “morally righteous”.
At least now you know how people become bad - they don’t have the courage to question whether what they’re doing is actually good.
It’s not an insult It’s illustrating the ridiculousness of your claim. Your faux-intellectual philosophy is not convincing.
Of course, when you call people psycopath it’s not an insult, but if someone else were to say it to you, it would be.
And it’s like this with everything, isn’t it? But you’re the good guy.
First, I said “sociopath” not “psychopath”. There’s different connotations. Second, it’s a description of a pattern of thought. Because you’re saying that the only reason people don’t to terrible things to each other is because of the fear of punishment, not some intrinsic internal sense of fairness or social cohesion. Like a sociopath would think, because they don’t feel normal emotions or empathy.
“Psychopath” would be an insult but also an accusation of malice or cruelty. I don’t think you’re cruel. (I think you’re high on your own farts, and that’s not so much an insult as an observation because you’re doing the same kinda shit over in one of the Ed Sheeran threads. You sound like a young 20-something with some 100 level psych classes under your belt, and the one-day-old account screams “my main account got banned”.)
There’s no distinction between sociopath or psycopath, both were dropped from the DSM in favor of ASD.
I’m gonna assume you’re not arguing in bad faith and have just been brought up sheltered or in a cult - the reason we have POLICE which enforces laws through VIOLENCE is that people generally need fear to not do bad things.
It’s not something religious people need, nor people with ASD, the majority of the people in our jails are not mentally ill.
It’s something every society in every era of history has recognized as a necessity, including the one you live in right now.
People WILL do bad things unless they have fear of punishment, people are not naturally empathetic or oriented towards social cohesion. That’s why crime and punishment is a perennial instution throughout all recorded history.
I’m going to avoid all the insults at the end, I don’t know your past history but the voracity with which you sling insults whenever someone disagrees with you has apparently never occured to you to be immoral, unempathetic, or against social cohesion, so I doubt it will land today either.
I didn’t give up meat because I was worried about angry vegans coming to my house and beating me up, I gave up meat because I rationally evaluated the effects eating meat would have on the world and determined that those weren’t effects I wanted to cause.
Am I just built different?
Yes, in all likelihood you have some kind of neurodivergence. That’s why you’ve probably noticed people around you rarely function through rational choice the way you do.
People are generally programmed to follow the tribe, keep opinions to confirm and demonstrate fealty to the tribe, and to avoid committing any taboos that could cause them to be cast out and die alone in the wild.
And the people who did not do this mostly just had this exact happen and died.
I am neurodivergent, but I’m not prepared to accept the implication that neurotypical people lack moral agency. Anyone is capable of thinking critically about their behavior and changing it. Not every vegan is neurodivergent.
You do not need to be neurodivergent to be vegan, but if you have arrived at veganism through rationality, you are neurodivergent.
Neurodivergents have very strong empathy, so it is nearly psychologically impossible to see neurotypicals for what the really are. The truth is simply too painful that even though confronted with it thousands of times, and hurt deeply by it, most neurodivergents prefer the delusion to reality.
So you’re really advancing this idea that all neurotypicals are essentially p-zombies? That every moral philosopher or moral person in history was secretly neurodivergent?
What do you mean “advancing”? Every great person in history was clearly neurodivergent. They were clearly described as weird even for their time.
And of course every moral person was neurodivergent? Why do you think moral people are emphasized in our history? Why do you think people talking about morals are emphasized in our history? Do you think that’s because morals are normal?
If someone was moral it was noteworthy, because it was abnormal. They were literally divergent.