Mario,

I knew you were going to say that, but I'm afraid that's not how things should be understood. What you call external morality cannot be something other than an expression of something internal to living creatures, unless you think it comes to us from "above".

The thing is, either you believe morality has an evolutionary basis or you believe it comes from God. In either case you must realize that some form of morality is at the core of any creature's behaviour. Of course we have a word for "socially right" and another one for "individually right" but we should not let our language fool us into thinking both are not essentially the same.

If you think "thou shalt not kill" is not essentially the same thing as "help your own species thrive", I'd suggest you think again.

• The evolution of morality - stormcrow - July 25, 2001 - 14:12 UTC
  • Morality is just encoded behaviour - aurino - July 25, 2001 - 15:49 UTC
    • Morality is a survival of fittiest (social evolution) - alexander - July 25, 2001 - 18:26 UTC
      • Forget morality - aurino - July 25, 2001 - 19:10 UTC