I feel like all these are sorta off.
We are born both virtuous and corrupted, with a capacity for both, but also a hole that can be filled with either based on culture, environment, and personal choice.
Morality is derived from our humanity. If we were another thing, we would have a different morality.
In some ways, morality is built in because at times acting morally ended up being the only thing that saved the human race. As our brains got bigger, men for example went from having a mostly promiscuous strategy for having children to having a strategy where men take an active role in childrearing. Part of that change would be cultural, but part of it would be genetic where men who are predisposed to active childrearing would survive better. (Apparently that happened about 250k years ago).
In other ways, immorality is built in because at times acting immorally (or acting with a different morality) is the only thing that saved people. There are genes for heroism and risk taking and some areas of the world have these genes a lot and other areas of the world don't have them at all, depending on the history of the regions people. Some men still use the 750k year old promiscuous path for having lots of kids because sometimes that still works (and our kids have different behavioral expressions depending on which path their father takes, being more prosocial and less violent if the father sticks around).
In my last paragraph I touched on this, that genetics have an impact, but so do epigenetics or entirely non-genetic factors. Epigenetics suggests that our behavior and other bodily regulation depends a lot on our immediate environment. A stressed out mother who never meets her children may nonetheless pass on characteristic behaviors induced by that stress onto children. Non genetic factors.ay be cultural. Someone who grows up in a society like ancient Sparta is going to think the highly aggressive, slave based, martial life is normal and good, but most modern people would be aghast at that.
Finally, even after everything else is accounted for, there's personal choice. I'm one of six kids. We grew up in the same house, were raised the same, but went on to live quite different lives. Some of that is the butterfly effect of different minor experiences, but a lot of it is we chose how we were going to live and chose differently, and that led to different outcomes.
So while it might seem I'm saying we are born neutral, in fact I'm saying we're born both good and evil, and it's quite a complicated thing.
We are born both virtuous and corrupted, with a capacity for both, but also a hole that can be filled with either based on culture, environment, and personal choice.
Morality is derived from our humanity. If we were another thing, we would have a different morality.
In some ways, morality is built in because at times acting morally ended up being the only thing that saved the human race. As our brains got bigger, men for example went from having a mostly promiscuous strategy for having children to having a strategy where men take an active role in childrearing. Part of that change would be cultural, but part of it would be genetic where men who are predisposed to active childrearing would survive better. (Apparently that happened about 250k years ago).
In other ways, immorality is built in because at times acting immorally (or acting with a different morality) is the only thing that saved people. There are genes for heroism and risk taking and some areas of the world have these genes a lot and other areas of the world don't have them at all, depending on the history of the regions people. Some men still use the 750k year old promiscuous path for having lots of kids because sometimes that still works (and our kids have different behavioral expressions depending on which path their father takes, being more prosocial and less violent if the father sticks around).
In my last paragraph I touched on this, that genetics have an impact, but so do epigenetics or entirely non-genetic factors. Epigenetics suggests that our behavior and other bodily regulation depends a lot on our immediate environment. A stressed out mother who never meets her children may nonetheless pass on characteristic behaviors induced by that stress onto children. Non genetic factors.ay be cultural. Someone who grows up in a society like ancient Sparta is going to think the highly aggressive, slave based, martial life is normal and good, but most modern people would be aghast at that.
Finally, even after everything else is accounted for, there's personal choice. I'm one of six kids. We grew up in the same house, were raised the same, but went on to live quite different lives. Some of that is the butterfly effect of different minor experiences, but a lot of it is we chose how we were going to live and chose differently, and that led to different outcomes.
So while it might seem I'm saying we are born neutral, in fact I'm saying we're born both good and evil, and it's quite a complicated thing.
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