Aspirational Morality

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Morality is presented as either grounded in some kind of religious faith or as the product of natural adaptive processes operating within social species. This latter often seems to ally altruistic morality with 'rationalism'; the logic of 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.' It seems to me though that the great moral innovators, Ghandi, Jesus, Lincoln, etc. were remarkable because they behaved IRRATIONALLY by the standards of their time and the adaptive logic of their circumstances. These people seemed to be reaching for an aspirational morality, one which would operate not in the world in which they currently lived but in one they wished to help to bring about. This seems to me to be a kind of glorious irrationality.

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Category: Education
Uploaded: May 16th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
Author: conferencereport

Length: 09:53
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Views: 19

Tags: ethics evolution ghandi jesus moral morality rational rationalism religion shermer spirituality wilberforce

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