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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi

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To: jhild who wrote (9919)4/17/1998 2:41:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte  Read Replies (1) of 71178
 
I'd elaborate on that as follows: Individually, we get our morality from our families and then from the playground. Upon hitting adolescence, and again in college, we tend to put our own moral/ethical frames under a pretty comprehensive review. This is the "reason" part if I hear you right. To me reason is a process which is highly dependent on the premises. It's the source of the premises which fascinates me. In the broadest terms, the premises come from the sum total of human-human interactions across the ages, and the moral premises of today attempt to distill What Works.
As individuals, we subject the moral options available to us to a rational review. Since we are creatures of nature&nurture as well as intellect, this review process is not pure or absolute. "We are what we eat" morally. That's why the study of the humanities will be forever with us.
As a culture though - that's the neat part. Apes have a nascent sense of morality which is very much socially determined. The group punishes bad behavior. (The groups which punish the correct bad behavior are most fit.) I see this as the kernel from which collective or social morality grew, the stuff we get with our mothers' milk. I see mythology as a narrative framework to teach and illustrate moral and ethical precepts.
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