How did this in-built sense of justice originate? How did this in-built sense of justice originate?
How do you define a **natural **being?
If it did, you would have to explain why said supernatural being cares about the fate of other mammals who exhibit a sense of justice - in particular, the other great apes - when your religion is kind of exclusively directed at humans.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God.”
My hypothesis, based upon such reading and observing as I’ve done, is that a sense of justice is a product of our ability to imagine that other minds exist. This is the same ability that enables us to deceive. This ability confers upon us the concept that other beings who are bodily like us are experientially like as well, and sufficiently so that they will experience injustice as we do.
The
knowledge that they are like us does not entail an
obligation to respect their feelings - as we can see from the state of the world.
“they will experience injustice” implies that it is not simply a human idea.
If we lacked this ability, there would be no coherence in any human society. I think it’s pretty obvious why nature selected for this ability in us.
If nature selected it nature has been highly unsuccessful. The existence of so many laws in our society and the numbers of people in prison shows that fear of punishment is the dominant factor. And the millions of unnecessary abortions in modern society are hardly evidence for the wisdom of nature.
In that case human nature is intrinsically valuable…
It’s valuable to us, because that’s the way we are.
So you don’t believe human life is intrinsically valuable? Many people demonstrate by their behaviour that other human beings are not valuable to them. It is certainly not the way everyone is.
Do you suppose it’s valuable to anyone else?
Many animals regard us as valuable.
Human nature is as rapacious as it is compassionate.
Inconsistent?
I’m not sure that dodos, Stellar’s sea cows or Megaloceros felt the intrinsic value of human nature.
Is that intended as evidence that human nature has no intrinsic value?
Is it perverse to enlighten people and demonstrate that love is the only ultimate solution to violence and conflict? What is your solution?
I think you’re diverting the argument here. You’re equating love and peace in some cosmic afterlife with love and peace here and now in the real, physical world. They’re not the same.
It is often a solution to violence and conflict** in this world** - as Gandhi demonstrated. What other solution is there to vendettas - apart from executing entire families?
A belief in cosmic, eternal justice mellows and even deadens the perception of injustice in the here and now, and so can prevent people from pursuing the objectives they value in this life.
Belief in Karma and Nemesis - for which there is evidence even in this life - has proved far more effective than the view that this is the only life we have. The decline in religious belief in the West has led to a massive increase in crime and antisocial behaviour. So much for encouraging everyone to pursue the objectives they value! You yourself have recognised the threats to society posed by individualism.
Do you think one more execution of a Jew would have bothered them? It wasn’t an unusual event…
It should have bothered them, as an act of injustice against a being fundamentally like them, who just happened to have different ideas
“should” is only your perception from a postChristian view. Roman justice was restricted to Roman citizens who regarded Jews as barbarians.
The commonplace nature of such actions only perpetuated the injustice, by hardening the observers to the spectacle of human suffering, which they could not - because they considered themselves immune - imagine themselves experiencing.
The Romans? What happened to the wisdom of nature - and the moral superiority of those with no religious belief?
If people are civilised they observe the same basic principles.
Then whence civilisation? Do you think it has an origin independent of human culture?
It has its origin in religious beliefs. Atheism is a rare phenomenon in the history of mankind.
You stated that there are principles by which human societies have been observed to operate successfully…
Such principles are variable. However, there are differences in terms of which principles deliver the best individual outcomes.
So there are
no basic principles?
It seems rather self defeating to assume that self-annihilation is the preferable outcome in any and all circumstances.
When did I make that assumption?
When any person chooses this above self-interest, you can bet that they have weighed up the possible outcomes and found that it’s preferable to die for the sake of others than to live with guilt.
You think Christ wanted to avoid living with guilt?
So you reject self-preservation as a basic instinct in advanced forms of life?{/QUOTE]
Absolutely not. I only reject it as the one-and-only motivation for action.
Is there a more powerful natural motivation?
Is all human activity motivated by empathy and altruism? Is there no element of choice? Or responsibility?
Why would you assume that my assertion that some human activity is motivated by empathy and altruism means that all human activity is so motivated?
I am asking whether there is an element of choice in human activity. That is why I specified “all”.
