Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

Re:Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments by Joeri on Thursday December 10, 2015 @01:56PM (#10712527)

Morality is not purely a matter of opinion, not more so than say the theory of evolution. You can say that evolution is just an opinion of how things work, but you have to be willing to take very unreasonable or illogical assumptions for your reasoning. It is the same with morality. To say that all morality is relative requires unreasonable assumptions, like saying that minimizing harm is sometimes harmful. Let's say that morality aims to minimize harm, well, we can make some definitive conclusions from that, like saying that killing people is bad unless it is to prevent further harm they or others would do. That throws a completely different light on the death penalty, where it is hard to argue that it is morally justified, unless you again force your way through contrived reasoning.

I think the biggest cause of immorality is that we assume morality cannot be treated logically and scientifically, and instead call it the province of faith. Faith has proven itself wholly unsuited as arbitrator of morality. Maybe it's time to give science and logic a go at it.

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Re:Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments by stcredzero on Thursday December 10, 2015 @06:16PM (#10714340)

To say that all morality is relative requires unreasonable assumptions

Moral relativism is invoked almost exclusively by people trying to justify their own actions, after they find that many object to their actions.

Faith has proven itself wholly unsuited as arbitrator of morality. Maybe it's time to give science and logic a go at it.

Any evidence-based system would be better than any system that ignores evidence. We have scientific evidence that the psychology of hate is tangible and specific in how it manifests. We have literally thousands of years of observations and ruminations on this topic, including the teachings of the major world religions.

Culture and society can be surprisingly good at dealing with largely invisible and quite subtle psychology. (Example: love/lust/dating -- Average people are actually quite sophisticated in how they perceive and deal with this.) But societies and cultures are constructed in such a way as to make group psychology around group membership invisible. Group psychology is part of what societies are made out of so the products of group psychology are promulgated as truth.

It's no accident that two different activist movements that are praised for their moral understanding -- those of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. -- were effectively structured around the prevention of pathological group-think and othering. I think a subtle societal understanding of such group-think is the last great barrier to humanity's "Waking up from History."

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