The Moral Instinct Analysis

As we practice resolving dilemmas we find ethics to be less a goal than a pathway, less a destination than a trip, less an inoculation than a process. —Ethicist Rushworth Kidder

The belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim that all of society's troubles - everything from AIDS to out-of-wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of God. This paper will look at different examples of how a god could be a bad thing and show that humans can create rules and morals all on their own. It will also touch upon the fact that doing good for the wrong reasons can also be a bad thing for the person.

When thinking about morality, it is necessary to consider how aspects from both nature and nurture, along with free will, may form ones moral beliefs and dictate ones moral actions. To understand how moral beliefs as well as actions formulate and operate within individuals and societies, it is imperative that a general definition of morality is laid out. Morality, then, can be defined as ones principles regarding what is right and wrong, good or bad. Although an individual may hold moral beliefs, it is not always the case that moral actions follow. Therefore, in this essay I aim to provide an explanation that clarifies the two and in doing so I also hope to further the notion that one’s moral framework is a product of all three factors; nature, nurture, and free will. The first part of this essay will flush out what exactly morality it and how it manifests similarly across individuals and differently across individuals. Contrariwise, I will then explain how morality manifests similarly across societies and differently across societies. Alongside presenting the information in this order, I will trace morality back to primordial times to showcase how morality has evolved and developed since then, not only from a nature-based standpoint, but also from a

This research focuses on the importance of moral behavior and its relations with critical thinking. In order to do this I chose to view a certain situation that occurred and had the qualities to prove and discuss my main topic. I chose to use a recent story that occurred during the 2016 NFL Draft, in which a player by the name Laremy Tunsil was publicly humiliated due to him going against his moral behavior. His agent, family, and himself all had to find a way to quickly and critically think how to fix their problem. Through social media and television Mr. Tunsil found himself defending his moral behavior and redeeming himself in order to be drafted.

Unless there exists a divine law-giver, without the presence of God there can be no objective standard of what is right and wrong. The absence of significant interaction with superior command ethics by Sam Harris demonstrates that his book ‘The Moral Landscape’ is another atheist ideological view against Christian doctrines. Hence, Green demonstrates that the overall project of Harris is not convincing, incoherent and

Author Steven Pinker’s essay, "The Moral Instinct," states that we have a tendency to rationalize rather than use reason when we make our moral judgments we then moralize and search for a reason later. He outlines this with a few hypothetical circumstances, including sex between brother and sister, using the American flag as a cleaning cloth, and eating a dog. Pinker also shows the apparently odd gap between individuals decision to moralize something and their justification for doing so with the "Trolley Problem," which found that several different people could legitimize their decision to pull a switch to execute one and spare many however, couldn't push a man onto a track to kill one and spare many. Pinker clarifies that moral goodness is

One of the most famous and generally influential arguments against grounding morality in theism comes

From 1937 to 1940 most of the anti-Semitic cartoons depicted zoomorphic Jews. The animals portrayed took on features attributed to the Jews such as large noses, evil smirks, and claw-like hands preying on world domination. This technique is called ‘crude zoomorphism’ and stereotypes humans as animals (Garrard). “The notion of animality assumed here is uncontrolled in violence” and it is used to condemn a certain group of people (Garrard). A prime example of these monstrous animal depictions comes from an issue of Der Sturmer from 1937 titled “The Economy and Jewry” that presented a cartoon titled “Demon Money”. A wild animal, as the subject of the painting, is engraved with the Star of David over his heart, labeling that the Jews had intentions

The link between morality and human nature has been a progressive reoccurring theme since ancient times (Prinz, 2008). Moral development is a characteristic of a person’s general development that transpires over the course of a lifetime. Moral development is derived by a wide variety of cultural and demographic factors that appear to influence morally relevant actions. Turiel (2006) defined morality as an individuals “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.” Individuals’ moral judgments are frequently considered to be a product of culturally specific controls that provide a framework for behavioral motivations that are sensitive to the effects of gender, education, religion and politics (Banerjee, Huebner & Hauser, 2010). While several approaches have been utilized to examine the interaction of multivariate contributors to fundamental moral differences such as: disputes about family life, sexuality, social fairness, and so on, research has suggested that ideological considerations have provided a potent and diverse explanation for the polarization of contrasting views (Weber & Federico, 2013).

Even in matters of outwardly secular morality, religion plays such a hegemonic role that, in many instances, secular morality is inadvertently influenced by religious morality. It could even be said that religious morality is greatly influenced by secular morals and not the other way around. While it would be difficult to assess the genealogy of morality it would be safe to say that morality has a very strong connection with religious morality. Moreover, to evade the almost omnipresent influence of religious morality would be nearly impossible; this allows for the almost constant melding of the two making them almost indistinguishable. While certainly not all morality is based on religion, it has become such a force that morality can

In his essay “On Moral Instinct,” Steven Pinker criticizes the different aspects of morality, such as a moralization switch, moral reasoning versus moral rationalization, whether or not morality is universal,and different varieties of moral experiences, Pinker states that moralization is a psychological sense, it steers an individual’s actions, but there are rules and exceptions to moral standards. In some cases, moral standards can change such as smoking, it was once seen as a very casual and common habit (amoralized) but now there are so many laws restricting smokers on where and when they can smoke (moralized). Pinker introduces Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, to clarify the distinction between moral reasoning and moral rationalization.

In James Rachels’ book, the Element of Moral Philosophy, he made interesting point in the fourth chapter. He points out the similarities and differences between morality and religion. Mostly, when thought about morals, religion is mention. Religion is almost all about morals. Directing what is wrong and right. Divine Command Theory is morality relationship between God (gods) and the people. God (gods) orders the meaning of good and the bad. People need to follow the rules to receive blessings from their creator. The Theory of Natural Law, everything has it purpose. If it is against nature, then it is wrong. Moral standards in religion are backed with scriptures and church tradition. But, there is some flaws in the reasons why religion

At eighteenth century, the cost of increasing development of capitalism is anomie: people chasing material life insanely even sacrifice others’ benefits. Because of this, Adam Smith, a successful philosopher and economist, released that the original morality principle was not suitable for that society anymore, and it needed to build another new theory system to suit the developing society. He wrote two masterpieces that proposed his ideas: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which discusses the human development by analysing the human emotion, and The Wealth of Nations, which summarises the development of capitalism and it is also a foundation for today’s economy. This essay will analyse the self-interest, plays as a motivator role in morality and economy field, and benefits the development in that society. Moreover, will suggest some limitations of Smith’s idea.

Would you describe a dog as capable of being evil? Or a cat? Or a chimpanzee? Most likely you could not. We humans belong to the taxonomic kingdom of Animalia and are therefore animals. Our species has evolved from animals that looked and acted more like the modern chimpanzee than we do. So at what point did we go from being creatures of instinct do developing the concept of morality? A great deal of literature has been written about morality, examples of which can be located in fiction and non-fiction as well as in scientific, theological and philosophical fields. Specific examples include the bible, as well as the writings of Plato (c. 424-348 BCE), Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and John Steinbeck (1902-1968). Morality is a trait that

These religious codes of conduct, such as the Ten Commandments, are generally very broad statements, elucidating only general principles that may be inconvenient to apply to each specific case. Some religious moral codes may also contradict one another. These contradictions compel religious believers to decipher religious directives or to draw out the implications of particular views- this is otherwise known as doing ethics.