The concept of absolute truth is ambiguous. To split it up, melt it down, reshape it, built it back up again... one is left standing in circles. no one knows the answers to this question. the subject itself has plagued philosophers since the beginning. humans might not ever find out what is absolute. we can only speculate. we can only form an opinion which best fits our understanding.
"I have already hinted, that our sense of every kind of virtue is not natural; but that there are some virtues, that produce pleasure and approbation by means of an artifice or contrivance, which arises from the circumstances and necessity of mankind. Of this kind I assert justice to be; and shall endeavor to defend this opinion by a short, and, I hope, convincing argument, before I examine the nature of the artifice, from which the sense of that virtue is derived." (david hume)
this is an excerpt from "Treatise of Human Nature" by David Hume, PPC new focus this month. morality and how it relates to justice. morals are a very personal concept. many philosophers have focused on morality and its place in justice. why do we have morals at all? where do they come from? how does society deal with the morality spectrum? Its easy for one person to agree with a law if it favors their moral belief. but what if it doesn't? do we flex our morality based upon governmental law? do we base it upon natural law?
opening the table to discussions and information....
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I enjoyed WHYY’s show, “Where does our moral sense come from?” It was fun, informative, and timely.
ReplyDeleteThey discussed whether our sense of morality was top down (derived from culture and experience) or bottom up (inherent in the brain, our inner chimp). It was also noted that we may make decision thru competing brain areas struggling for dominance.
The unaddressed assumption throughout the discussion was that our moral sense comes directly and solely from brain activity. Basically, the belief is that the chemicals in our brains, through complicated neural depolarization, creates the consciousness which exhibits a sense of morality.
Yet there has never been any evidence of chemicals becoming conscious. Neither has science proposed any mechanism to explain how inert matter can learn to think, imagine, and mysteriously develop of a sense of personal identity. An identity which, oddly, is totally divorced from any sense of the chemicals themselves or any of their activities. Actually, most people, and scientists in particular, simply assume 'conscious chemicals' as an article of blindly followed faith.
george's comment...