Being fully rational requires taking stock of the whole. To focus exclusively on good (or bad) is to make a partial judgment. To deny the Enlightenment's responsibility for anything bad after, say, 1750 while giving it credit for everything good thereafter is a double standard.
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Sure, I agree. My point (which I perhaps could have made better earlier) is that universalist ethics defy human nature and demand moral arguments that transcend scientific facts.
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This is still part of the response to the hypothetical scientist who doesn't know this? It seems like everyone in the conversation knows this.
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But, look, the conversation went there because some people were questioning that. And saying that some of our evolved moral sentiments are enough to expand morality.
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Well, they're all we have. We can only do morality to the extent that we conceive of morality & this has been shaped by our evolution as social mammals. It's a human thing tho some other social mammals share rudimentary forms of empathy, reciprocity, fairness etc.
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Yes, it's true. But you also have to choose among them to conduct yourself. That's why you have "the better angels of our nature". You also have the worse angels of our nature. So, you can't just follow them indiscriminately.
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That's what the discussions are for, yes. Was anyone arguing for following them indiscriminately? I thought the difference was over whether our evolved morality was enough to explain why we set moral premises & then seek facts about how to implement them.
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Of course our evolved morality is enough for that. But then you have reason and other cognitive processes, and morality is more than just a evolved moral sense + scientific facts to inform it. Even though it's also that, of course.
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Yes, of course. Is anyone arguing otherwise? Let's clarify: Are you arguing that human moral values come from anywhere other than human brains & their evolved capacities expressed through language and mediated in groups in relation to other humans & things in the environment?
End of conversation
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Of course! But what I mean is that empathy by itself doesn't guarantee that moral values will expand to encompass other human beings, particularly the ones who aren't part of the in-group.
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.Well, no. There's no need to go from the claim that our sense of empathy is a large driver of our moral sense to that claim that we apply it well and universally and I don't think anyone did claim that, did they?
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Well, it seemed to me, at least.
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Ah. No Pointing out that empathy exists and drives morality does not indicate that humans empathise universally. Just that it exists and drives morality.
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Of course. No side here denied the importance of underlying moral sentiments.
End of conversation
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