Morality道德观1 morality play

Morality 道德观(1)

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner,character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions,decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) andthose that are bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality(according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) anda moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code.Theadjective moral is synonymous with "good" or "right." Immoralityis the active opposition to morality (i.e. good or right), whileamorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifferencetoward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.An example of a moral code is the Golden Rule which states that,"One should treat others as one would like others to treatoneself."

Philosophy

Morality and ethics

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is thatbranch of philosophy which addresses questions about morality. Theword 'ethics' is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ...and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principlesof a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certaintypes of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics,sometimes distinguish between 'ethics' and 'morals': "Although themorality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing,there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that ofKant, based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles ofconduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach topractical reasoning, based on the notion of avirtue, and generallyavoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from otherpractical considerations."

Descriptive and normative

 In itsdescriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or culturalvalues, codes of conduct or social mores. It does not connoteobjective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to that whichis considered right or wrong. Descriptive ethics is the branch ofphilosophy which studies morality in this sense.

 In itsnormative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything) isactually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values ormores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethicsis the branch of philosophy which studies morality in thissense.

Realism and anti-realism

Philosophical theories on the nature andorigins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics) are broadlydivided into two classes:

 Moralrealism is the class of theories which hold that there are truemoral statements that report objective moral facts. For example,while they might concede that forces of social conformitysignificantly shape individuals' "moral" decisions, they deny thatthose cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior.This may be the philosophical view propounded by ethicalnaturalists, however not all moral realists accept that position(e.g. ethical non-naturalists).

 Moralanti-realism, on the other hand, holds that moral statements eitherfail or do not even attempt to report objective moral facts.Instead, they hold that moral claims are derived either from anunsupported belief that there are objective moral facts (errortheory, a form of moral nihilism); the speakers' sentiments(emotivism, a form of moral relativism); or any one of the normsprevalent in society (ethical subjectivism, another form of moralrelativism).

Theories which claim that morality is derivedfrom reasoning about implied imperatives (universalprescriptivism), the edicts of a god (divine command theory), orthe hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being (idealobserver theory), are considered anti-realist in the robust senseused here, but are considered realist in the sense synonymous withmoral universalism.

Anthropology

Tribal and territorial

Celia Green made a distinction between tribaland territorial morality. She characterizes the latter aspredominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person’sterritory, including his or her property and dependents, which isnot to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from theseproscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing theindividual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territoryof another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposingthe norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will bearbitrary, culturally dependent and ‘flexible’, whereas territorialmorality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such asKant’s ‘categorical imperative’ and Geisler's graded absolutism.Green relates the development of territorial morality to the riseof the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contractover status.

In-group and out-group

Some observers hold that individuals applydistinct sets of moral rules to people depending on theirmembership of an "in-group" (the individual and those they believeto be of the same culture or race) or an "out-group" (people notentitled to be treated according to the same rules). Somebiologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believethis in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because itenhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simplecomputational models of evolution. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falgerhave argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of thisin-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted thatexperimental observation indicates an in-group criterion providesone moral foundation substantially used by conservatives, but farless so by liberals.

Comparing cultures

Peterson and Seligman approach theanthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areasand across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues haveprevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues theyidentified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice;temperance; and transcendence. Each of these includes severaldivisions. For instance humanity includes love, kindness, andsocial intelligence.

Fons Trompenaars, author of Did the PedestrianDie?, tested members of different cultures with various moraldilemmas. One of these was whether the driver of a car would havehis friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protectthe driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting apedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quitedifferent expectations (from none to almostcertain).

Evolution

The development of modern morality is a processclosely tied to the Sociocultural evolution of different peoples ofhumanity. Some evolutionary biologists, particularlysociobiologists, believe that morality is a product of evolutionaryforces acting at an individual level and also at the group levelthrough group selection (though to what degree this actually occursis a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Somesociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitutemorality evolved largely because they provided possible survivaland/or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success).Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelingsof empathy or guilt, in response to these moralbehaviors.

On this understanding, moralities are sets ofself-perpetuating and ideologically-driven behaviors whichencourage human cooperation. Biologists contend that all socialanimals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, byrestraining immediate selfishness in order to improve theirevolutionary fitness. Human morality, though sophisticated andcomplex relative to other animals, is essentially a naturalphenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism thatcould undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing theindividuals' fitness. On this view, moral codes are ultimatelyfounded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selectedfor in the past because they aided survival and reproduction(inclusive fitness). Examples: the maternal bond is selected forbecause it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarckeffect, where close proximity during early years reduces mutualsexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because itdecreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such asinbreeding.

The phenomenon of 'reciprocity' in nature isseen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understandhuman morality. Its function is typically to ensure a reliablesupply of essential resources, especially for animals living in ahabitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably.For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nightswhile others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat willthen regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecificfrom starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups overmany years, an individual can count on other group members toreturn the favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984)Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality isa suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammalsliving in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants,dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite ofinterrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulatecomplex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviorsincludes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a senseof fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstratedthat chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety ofcontexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, anda level of social 'politics' prototypical of our own tendencies forgossip and reputation management.

Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized thatthe incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominidevolution was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes andinjuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons.Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply acorrelate of increasing group size and brain size, and inparticular the development of theory of mind abilities. RichardDawkins in The God Delusion suggested that our morality is a resultof our biological evolutionary history and that the Moral Zeitgeisthelps describe how morality evolves from biological and culturalorigins and evolves with time within a culture.

Neuroscience

Mirror-neurons

Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain thatfire when another person is observed doing a certain action. Theneurons fire in imitation of the action being observed, causing thesame muscles to act minutely in the observer as are acting grosslyin the person actually performing the action. Research on mirrorneurons, since their discovery in 1996, suggests that they may havea role to play not only in action understanding, but also inemotion sharing empathy. Cognitive neuro-scientist Jean Decetythinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experiencewhat another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in theevolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. Theinability to feel empathy is one of the defining characteristics ofpsychopathy, and this would appear to lend support to Decety'sview.

Neuroimaging andstimulation

The explicit making of moral right and wrongjudgments coincides with activation in the ventromedial prefrontalcortex (VMPC) while intuitive reactions to situations containingimplicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area.Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation hasbeen shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take intoaccount intent when forming a moral judgment. SimilarlyVMPC-impaired persons will judge an action purely on its outcomeand are unable to take into account the intent of thataction.

Neuroscience has also looked at the phenomenonof so-called moral luck:

A father who leaves his child by the bath,after telling his child to stay put and believing that he will stayput, is judged to be morally blameworthy if the child drowns (anunlucky outcome), but not if his child stays put and doesn't drown.. . . Yet these judgments may also seem paradoxical. After all, . .. everything from the agent's perspective was exactly the same,including what the agent thought would happen, and what the agenthimself did. In general, we expect that morality should not dependon luck.

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