The Moral Instinct

[Richard_Powers]

An interesting article:

Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century. Bill Gates, infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death, has been decapitated in effigy in “I Hate Gates” Web sites and hit with a pie in the face. As for Norman Borlaug . . . who the heck is Norman Borlaug?

nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

 

[Al_Masetti]

Gosh, and I thought EVERYBODY knew Norman Borlaug.

I could understand if folks don’t know Noel Vietmeyer.

But Borlaug is an icon of life saving agronomy.

[Where’d you find that quote? Who was the author? He needs to get out more.]

 

[JeffGuidry]

Having read most of the article (it is rather long) it seems that the author wants us to believe that morality comes down to nothing more than what a person instinctively feels. As noted in the article, this breaks down for people with anti social personality disorder who through no fault of their own are incapable of “feeling” empathy for others.

It’s just a long winded way of saying what secularists think about morality, that it is all only in the mind of the person perceiving the moral situation, and that your morality is as good as mine, even if different.

If we relied only on man and societal consensus about what is moral and what is not, we would have a document constantly revised, and ultimately worthless as a guide for moral behavior. Which is precisely why we must appeal to a higher authority. I think man also understands that instinctively. If the author had done any research into why man worships, I think he would have done much more good…