Morality is in every human being; it is what makes up
capable of doing good or bad things. The definition of morality is the
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad
behavior. However, where we get our morality is different and what we believe
to be moral can also differ from people to people. We get our sense of morality
from many different things. In Robert Wright’s article “Why Can’t We All Just
Get Along? The Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality” he says we get our sense
of morality from the “tribes” we are involved in. These tribes can consist of
groups of religions, nations, and political parties. I tend to believe what is
right or wrong and good or bad based on what I believe my religion says. Robert
Wright uses the example of gay marriages, there are people in the world who
says that they are for it and there are people who say they are against it.
Joshua Greene says that we base our standings on these hard topics with our
emotions. If we were all to think like a utilitarian, there would not be a
problem. “Rather, the different tribes would argue about which moral
arrangements would create the most happiness. Sure the arguments would get
complicated, but at least they would rest ultimately on a single value everyone
agrees is valuable: happiness.” This statement is easier said than done. What
is being asked is for tribes to abandon their religious based values. This is
not easy for many people considering that their morals have been drilled into
them since they were kids. When I was young, I was rewarded for doing good
things and punished for the bad things. For example, I was rewarded for sharing
and punished for talking back to my mom. It is our nature to believe there is a
wrong or right, good and bad.
While reading “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along” I could not help but think how some of the things that Joshua Greene stated could be true. His statement about the tribes makes sense because it describes how natural selection works in our minds present day. In the trolley experiment, Greene says that the people who did not take push the man in the tracks to stop the subway have an underlying tribal reason for this. The tribal fear is that if we are responsible for hurting someone then we will suffer the consequences from that persons “tribe” or family and friends. Greene also states that values are not necessarily the prime mover in conflicts, but that “intertribal tensions” hold just as much weight when we are faced with challenges. These intertribal tensions cause us to think that our so called “tribe” is being threatened by another “tribe” which causes the situation to be sub-zero. I can think of many instances when this theory can be applied to real life situations. For instance, take high school sports teams. Many times there are rivalries between teams and a lot of tension is between the athletes not only at the game but on social media and such. Even though they are rivals and do not like each other per say, in all reality they most likely have a lot in common to where they could actually get along well. They live in the same area, play the same sport and so on but because of our intertribal tensions it causes these athletes to not give each other a chance and to stick with their group. I think that Greene has a lot of good points about our morality and how things that most of us would think only exists in the stone age actually still happens within us in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteI agree that trying to convert everyone to an utilitarian is easier said than done. Essentially wanting people to drop their religion and standards and old ways of thinking is preposterous; it will never happen. There is a reason people die for their faith and they will not just hand it over to just anyone. In a perfect world, yeah, it would be nice if we did live in tribes and everyone we lived with believed and agreed on the same things we did, but then the whole purpose of faith is lost. In most religions, one of the reasons why they always try to push their beliefs on to others is because they believe that's their purpose. In Christianity, the whole point of living and being a christian is to spread his word and to save as many people from hell as possible. In the end it has less to do about them and more to do with just simply trying to save the godless people.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the answer to 'Where does mortality come from?' is in the end religion. I don't mean that you have to be involved in a religion to have morals, but I feel that morals essentially root from religions and faith in a greater power.
Something I thought was very interesting was that through all these pages of reading and experiments, the Trolley experiment seemed to be lacking a whole another possibility. As I was reading about this experiment in both selections of reading, I was thinking about what I would do in that situation. To the first question of pulling the lever, yes, I would pull it, but to the second, I have another solution entirely. If I knew that the train would stop if there was a body on the tracks to stop it, before event thinking of pushing the clueless dude on the edge, I would throw myself on the track first, in order to stop the train. In the other scenarios of pushing someone off the boat to keep it afloat, I would jump out myself before I decided someones fate for them by pushing them off the boat. Most of the scenarios given seemed selfish, I think if those people were given the third option of self sacrifice, I would be interested to see the results.
It's fair to assert that both ideologies are flawed if one believes either wholeheartedly. It seems that morality comes from more than one specific source. One of the main problems with utilitarianism is that it relies too much on what is likely to happen and therefore cannot certainly guarantee good results. Wright’s idea that morals are formed from our social spheres is not entirely true because even though a lot of morals are learned, some morals are intuitive. For example, a toddler feels guilt when asked, “Who ripped mom’s new flowers out of the flower bed?” Obviously that is his own intuitive response because people are not born knowing you’re not supposed to do that, but he did it anyway and immediately associated negative feelings with the action. Therefore, yes, I agree that we get our sense of morality from different sources. However, I disagree that if we all perceived morals with a utilitarian approach there would be no problems. There are problems with every system of thinking, even utilitarianism. Another thing is that what is happiness for one person is not necessarily the same thing for another person. So, if happiness is what we all agree is the best for everyone, no one answer can be given to the question, “What is happiness?”
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