I refer to my previous posts on the interesting subject of whether there is an "objective moral order", which Gene Callahan broached in a May blog post, returned to in a subsequent post but abandoned, to be picked up but ultimately punted by Bob Murphy (and again by Gene when he visited Bob`s thread).
While I certainly agree that man has an exquisite moral sense, my own view is that that sense and capacity are something that we acquired via the process of evolution, as an aid to intra-group cooperation,
- as Bruce Yandle has suggested,
- as argued by Roy Rappaport (former head of the American
Anthropology Assn.) in his book "Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity" (which I have discussed here) and - as I have recently discovered -
- as David Sloan Wilson has argued in his book "Darwin`s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society".
I note that the NYT has recently run a series of posts on related topics.
In my view, our moral sense, rituals and "sacred postulates" (later,
religions) have played a central role in the evolution of man as a social animal, by
providing a fundamental way of ordering the world, the group`s role in
it, and the individual`s role in the group - thereby abating commons
problems both within and created by the group. The religious
lies at the root of our human nature, even as its inviolable, sacred
truths continue to fall by the wayside during the long march of
culture and science out of the Garden of Eden. While we certainly have made progress (partly with the aid of "universal" religions) in expanding the boundaries of our groups, we very much remain group, tribal animals, fiercely attentive to rival groups and who is within or outside our group, and this tribal nature is clearly at work in our cognition (our penchant for finding enemies, including those who have different religious beliefs that ours).
But I didn`t really kick off this discussion - why are Callahan and Murphy so reticent to describe what it is they think they mean when they assert that there are "objective moral truths" and an "objective moral order"? (I can understand why I seem to have earned the clear hostility of one them; after all I have proven by my persistence or thickheadedness to be, if not an "enemy", then in any case not one of the august clear-sighted.)
Here are a few questions I left with them at Bob`s most recent post:
-
Are those who believe that there is an objective "moral" order
asserting that, for every being - regardless of species - that there is
a uniform, objective moral order in the universe? Or is the argument
that there is an object moral order only for conscious and self-aware
beings, and none for organisms that are not conscious, or are conscious
but not self-aware?
- Or is the argument that the "objective"
moral order exists only for humans, and perhaps someday can be
identified and located in universally shared mental processes, based on
brain activity and arising from shared genes? Will such objective moral order still exist if all mankind ceases to exist?
- Or is the
objective moral order one that exists for some humans, but not all -
depending on physical development of the brain as we mature (with the
development of some being impaired via genetic or other defect)?
- Is the human "objective" moral order universal, for all individuals - of whatever, gender or age - across all history?
- Is an objective moral order something real that can be tested for
despite the inability of a particular observer to perceive directly -
like beings that can`t directly perceive light (or like us who can`t
personally physically observe much of what technology allows us to)?
- And
if the objective moral order is a part of the universe, can we apply
the scientific method to confirm its existence of and explore its
parameters, and to explain (and test) it with "laws"?
- What are some of the parameters and laws governing the moral order?
If I`m being self-deluded about the willingness of those who believe that there IS an objective moral order to explain it (and to evidence it in their actions), I hope a good reader or two will let me know.