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Richard Cocks's avatar

"What humans consider moral is a function of evolution." If that unprovable assertion is true, there is nothing more to be said, is there? Moral debate is pointless. There is no there there. Morality is a fiction with no truth of the matter. However, the assertion that "what humans consider moral is a function of evolution" is merely an assertion of EP supremacy.

Presumably, thinking that "what humans consider moral is a function of evolution" is also a function of evolution and is not believed because it's true. If we can step outside evolution in order to appraise the truth of that statement, then we can do that with regard to morality.

Moral relativism is co-extensive with moral nihilism, and only psychopaths are real life, as opposed to classroom, moral nihilists. Moral differences can be objectively relative to culture and circumstance - with no prisons, what are Inuit to do with miscreants? If slow and fast life history strategies are appropriate to differing environments, what is actually right to do might really differ. A fast life strategy in a slow life context might really be immoral.

Dead men have no moral opinions, but the living ones do not embrace "might makes right" as the content of their moral perspective. The common observation is that morality governs the in-group and the out-group gets subjected to the non-moral "might makes right." The conquering of out-groups takes place within a non-moral "might makes right" perspective. In other words, morality governs our in-group beliefs and actions but can simply fall by the wayside with regard to out-groups.

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Gym+Fritz's avatar

I think that you are wrong, in that there is a natural core morality centered around, among other things, the secular part of the 10 commandments. Thou shalt not kill . . .

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