It is a moral prejudice that equates empathy with morality: more precisely, a particular moral system elevates empathy above the other impulses and drives, assigning it a premiere status and worth...why empathy is deemed primary is not a scientific decision: more precisely, science did not assign the moral value of empathy- no, choosing empathy is an act of submission...like all moral evaluations, it involves kneeling before something superior- throwing oneself at the feet of a value one cannot live without, understanding that to do otherwise, to offend this value would mean death- or a fate worse than death.

Likewise, choosing reason as one's moral gatekeeper, (the engine and foundation of one's morality- the filter that separates good from evil, right from wrong, moral from immoral) is a similar prejudice, and one that is not entirely rational...assigning regency to reason is still an act of submission: a falling at the feet of something/someone begging for mercy and protection, asking for guidance and wisdom....but why you select reason above all else is the result of a prior moral evaluation- meaning that reason is not the premiere point of departure.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Q8x403a-Q[/youtube]

There is moral and then there is behavior. Since moral is a value judgement it would seem prudent to ask what value these values have, since behavior is an act it would seem efficient to consider only the most relevant factors resulting in the effect.

Much of philosphy deals with reality as a metaphor. Moral DNA as a metaphor juxtaposes with Dawkin's Selfish Gene as a metaphor. The result: a morality of the selfish. It is in reality actually non-sense. DNA has nothing directly to do with morality. If you think that it does you are simply confused about the relationship between the physical and the abstract within the context of the present. This is de Waal's failing as well, too much emphasis on genetic relationship as an abstraction (which it is not) and not enough on practical difference as expressed physically (which it is).

If genetics influenced our morality then we could expect differing morality based on race due to intraspecies-interracial genetic variation. The slave subspecies as opposed to the morally slavish mentality.

Empathy is easily duped. Primal tendancies (whatever the f- that means, to whatever relevance) are not any more reliable. Genetic fallacy. While it may be true that we possess "primal tendences" pointing to that as such is not enough of an argument to be persuasive.

"May be necessary but aren't sufficient." - you are seemingly the man who has forgotten several words.

Next sentence: obviously.

DH: 'understanding that to do otherwise, to offend this value would mean death"

Emotions such as empathy are the largest hurdle to evaluating situations with a critical eye. Understanding the role of empathy in morality isn't moral prejudice, whatever that means.

DH: "...assigning regency to reason is still an act of submission: a falling at the feet of something/someone begging for mercy and protection"

Being unreasonable is always an option.

DH: "...the filter that separates good from evil..."

Any why would we want them separated? Do good and evil really exist? The very dichotomy of what is good and evil is a prejudice of the relationship between uncaring nature and subjective, selfish homo sapiens.

Grim: "There is moral and then there is behavior."

And then there are certain behaviors which we consider moral.

Grim: "If you think that it does you are simply confused about the relationship between the physical and the abstract within the context of the present."

Perhaps it is you who is confused about what I mean. You say DNA has nothing directly to do with morality, and that may be correct. However, our genes most certainly have something to do with morality, although it is most likely not a direct correlation since any emergent behavior resulting from changes in brain structure are indirect. What won't change are the things we deem moral. What would change is the guilt and empathy and other chemical feedback mechanisms that influence behavior. Do you deny that there are most likely genes that control the chemicals responsible for guilt and empathy?

Grim: ""May be necessary but aren't sufficient." - you are seemingly the man who has forgotten several words."

Grim, sometimes I think you honestly don't understand what I mean. I've asked this many times in the past, rephrase what you think I mean with the above sentence. There really is nothing wrong with it.

Grim: "If genetics influenced our morality then we could expect differing morality based on race due to intraspecies-interracial genetic variation."

Right, just like we can expect people of different races running around with their heads attached to their asses instead of their necks since there is genetic variation.

Morality is genetic in large part. De Waal proves this with his trolley example, where people who reject a calculative decision in favour of an emotional response use the reptilian part of their brain to do so, while those who calculate the consequences use the cerebellum, the newly evolved higher rational human unique faculty.

I think you mean that morality is in large part psychological. Again, it's that same genetic fallacy you don't seem to acknowledge. Heredity (anthropologically & physiologically speaking) is important but DNA as such is irrelevant to moral discussion. Except as a metaphor, and a poor one at that.

What kinds of examples would you be thinking of? Would these be edging closer to ideas of justice rather than morality (though the two are related)? I just find myself more impressed with the idea expressed by the old-fashioned term 'the moral sentiments ' than by whatever we can (merely) conceive as being moral. There are interesting problems such as "trolley problems" (pushing a fat man off a bridge to stop a train and save more lives), in which reason might dictate the push is the right thing to do. But despite the "reason" behind the action, are most people emotionally comfortable with the morality of it?

Or, might the acts you're thinking of have a traceable root back to empathy, which tends to get lost in abstraction? Just groping here.

Are you saying that empathy (an emotion) is not sufficent for morality? Then I would disagree, as I think an instance of empathy calls for reasoned input, so by definition is an example of morality (but not necessarily of the normative type). We know that apes do have rudimentary reasoning, which explains observations of empathic responses in them. De Waal gives at least two examples in the book (pp. 30-33). I agree of course about the advance represented by our ability to articulate a moral system. There is always the unfortunate problem of living up to these ideals.

DWill: "What kinds of examples would you be thinking of?"

Separating the function of reasoning and empathy is an oversimplification of the way the brain works. In some cases, I think that when reasoning through a situation, imagining a certain course may elicit the feeling of guilt as well, which I think is a critical element in morality.

Although a bit overused, tipping of the waitress comes to mind as an example. It's not as though we use reasoning at that moment, just as I don't have to use reasoning for many things that require it, since it's been reasoned through in the past, or by someone else.

Perhaps a bit more elementary, holding the door for a person who has their hands full is also a good example. We make the mental connection that they cannot effectively open it themselves, so we empathize with their situation and open it for them. It's a quick process where most of us reason and empathize so quickly it's almost simultaneous, but it must first be reasoned through. Empathy without reason here is blind, you may feel for the person, but not open the door. As a disclaimer, this scenario happens often enough that we don't need to reason it through each time, and perhaps originally were instructed to do it from our parents.

Grim, I have a question. Are guilt and empathy not at all dependent upon our genes? Are guilt and empathy not at all a part of morality?

Interbane: Emotions such as empathy are the largest hurdle to evaluating situations with a critical eye. Understanding the role of empathy in morality isn't moral prejudice, whatever that means.

Naming the 'critical eye' as the most valued perspective is the result of a moral obligation: choosing to evaluate situations (or morality) critically is the result of a moral directive- "thou shalt not deceive, or be deceived...nor deceive oneself."

Of course morality is genetic. We are hardwired for empathy. Humans live to 70 because children raised with the assistance of grandparents are more likely to survive than those raised by parents alone. Genes for longevity prosper due to their moral purpose. Primeval grandparents who exhibited moral feeling for children were more likely to pass on their genes, leading to mutation of hominids in moral directions. De Waal makes the point that much of our morality, such as empathy, is in fact genetic, as can readily be seen by observation of apes who share over 98% of our DNA and behave in moral ways with striking similarity to human behaviour. Our psychology, which includes some cultural wildcards, is largely based our our biology, which is completely genetic. Of course, as I noted earlier, morality cannot be reduced to biology. Concepts such as duty and justice require input from the higher rational faculty of the brain which is evolving (or perhaps devolving) in a way somewhat decoupled from genetic evolution. There is no fallacy here. The Genetic Fallacy here would require the claim that morality is solely genetic, a view which I have specifically argued against. What's wrong Grim, don't you like people calling you a monkey? Are you embarrassed by your cousins?

Obviously no more than we are hardwired to speak the English language as we are to take part in contemporary culture. You speak of morality as if it were something other than a value, mix in emotion (a psychological effect - determined by physical structure - the potential stimulated by DNA) as a behavior and create this horrificly irrelevant metaphor.

Neitzsche writes that:
"Assuming as true what in any event is taken as “the truth” nowadays, that it is the purpose of all culture simply to breed a tame and civilized animal, a domestic pet, out of the beast of prey “man,” then we would undoubtedly have to consider all those instincts of reaction and ressentiment with whose help the noble races and all their ideals were finally disgraced and overpowered as the essential instruments of culture—though to do that would not be to claim that the bearers of these instincts also in themselves represented culture. By contrast, the opposite would not only be probable—no! nowadays it is visibly apparent! These people carrying instincts of oppression and of a lust for revenge, the descendants of all European and non-European slavery, of all pre-Aryan populations in particular—they represent the regression of mankind! These “instruments of culture” are a disgrace to humanity, and more a reason to be suspicious of or a counterargument against “culture” in general! We may well be right when we hang onto our fear of the blond beast at the base of all noble races and keep up our guard. But who would not find it a hundred times better to fear if he could at the same time be allowed to admire, rather than not fear but in the process no longer be able to rid himself of the disgusting sight of the failures, the stunted, the emaciated, the poisoned? Is not that our fate? Today what is it that constitutes our aversion to “man”?—For we suffer from man. There’s no doubt of that. It’s not a matter of fear. Rather it’s the fact that we have nothing more to fear from man, that the maggot “man” is in the foreground swarming around, that the “tame man,” the hopelessly mediocre and unpleasant man, has already learned to feel that he is the goal, the pinnacle, the meaning of history, “the higher man,”—yes indeed, that he even has a certain right to feel that about himself, insofar as he feels separate from the excess of failed, sick, tired, spent people, who are nowadays beginning to make Europe stink, so that he feels at least relatively successful, at least still capable of life, of at least saying “Yes” to life."


This has nothing to do with morality. Male monkeys rape females to pass along their "moral DNA." Human beings even with moral and cultural development remain psychologically driven.

Neitzsche writes that:
"Precisely that development is the long history of the origin of responsibility. That task of breeding an animal which is permitted to make promises contains within it, as we have already grasped, as a condition and prerequisite, the more precise task of first making a human being necessarily uniform to some extent, one among others like him, regular and consequently predictable. The immense task involved in this, what I have called the “morality of custom” (cf. Daybreak 9, 14, 16)—the essential work of a man on his own self in the longest-lasting age of the human race, his entire prehistorical work, derives its meaning, its grand justification, from the following point, no matter how much hardship, tyranny, monotony, and idiocy it also manifested: with the help of the morality of custom and the social strait jacket, the human being was made truly predictable. "



What morality? Morality is a value!! Not some behavior or emotion. Supposing they valued sacrifice to an imagined idol. It would be morally good to sacrifice, but that same "good" sacrifice would not help these people survive. So you are saying that the desire to sacrifice of ones self is inheritable?

Neitzsche writes that:
"For we cannot analyze the question “Value for what?” too finely. Something, for example, that would have an apparent value with respect to the longest possible capacity for survival of a race (or for an increase in its power to adapt to a certain climate or for the preservation of the greatest number) would have nothing like the same value, if the issue were one of developing a stronger type. The well-being of the majority and the well-being of the fewest are opposing viewpoints for values. We wish to leave it to the naivete of English biologists to take the first as already the one of inherently higher value. . . . All the sciences from now on have to do the preparatory work for the future task of the philosopher, understanding that the philosopher’s task is to solve the problem of value, that he has to determine the rank order of values."


Again: morality - value, empathy - psychological. (Man repeating yourself get booring fast). Ok 2% differences in less than 5 seconds..GO -> Larger, less hairy, live in houses, talk in sophisticated language. These are quick and obvious differences, I would assume that there are less obvious differences as well. Hormonal, life cycle etc. If we could measure these obvious differences and similarities how close do you think we would actually be? I'm going to bet a bit higher than 2%. Genetic fallacy. At what point do the differences begin to outweigh the similarities? Also consider that for a supposed 2% difference chimps actually have 10% more genetic matter than humans.

Wikipedia on Human Genetic Variation tells me that:
"The distribution of variants within and among human populations also differs from that of many other species. The details of this distribution are impossible to describe succinctly because of the difficulty of defining a "population," the clinal nature of variation, and heterogeneity across the genome (Long and Kittles 2003). In general, however, 6%–10% of genetic variation occurs between large groups living on different continents, with 5%-6% distributed between localised populations within the same continent, the remaining ~85% of the variation exists within populations. (Lewontin 1972; Jorde et al. 2000a; Hinds et al. 2005)."

The point being not what exactly is being calculated but that relationships are largely subjective and perhaps don't represent meaningful differences or similarities.

Neitzsche writes that:
"In fact, all the tables of value, all the “you should’s” which history or ethnological research knows about, need, first and foremost, illumination and interpretation from physiology, in any case even before psychology."

But I'm sure none of this matters when a monkey coddles its young..."why how like my own morally just mother" you are apt to wax absurd.

The anthropomorphic effect when observing animals is strangely discounted. After all don't all animals seem to act like us? Why not study Dolphins? They are after all smarter than your average chimp (which ain't really all too smart). Morality is a human concept as is empthey and duty, is it really appropriate applied to apes?


Now you are suggesting that morality is beyond our bodies!!! You are more mixed up than a bucket of bolts. As if ideas were not a part of our physical structure. Morality isn't even remotely genetic. Genes are real, morality is a human abstraction. I think that by ignoring a vast amount of environmental factors and talking about moral DNA within the context pf an obscure relationship to monkeys (ignoring obvious differences) as anything but marginally relevant you are practicing the genetic fallacy.


Well the suggestion is rather base. The ape as a metaphor for man? Pure fancy. It's not that I don't want to have the ape family over, it's just that I don't expect that they would have much to offer in the way of conversation! Also if I really wanted to observe behavior I would open a daycare.

DH: "Naming the 'critical eye' as the most valued perspective is the result of a moral obligation: choosing to evaluate situations (or morality) critically is the result of a moral directive- "thou shalt not deceive, or be deceived...nor deceive oneself."

I don't see a quest for truth as being a moral quest. It is similar to the religious commandment only by connecting the concept with key words and clever semantics. The meaning, however, is a bit removed. It may be one of my ultimate concerns though. Which book did Neitzsche speak of ultimate concerns?

Grim: "Obviously no more than we are hardwired to speak the English language as we are to take part in contemporary culture."

The capacity for speech is genetic. The mechanism for moral behavior is genetic. English and the Ten Commandments are not genetic.

Robert Tulip wrote:


Primeval grandparents? The feelings exhibited by care givers of children were those of survival, not morality. Male children were especially nurtured, but for reasons of survival. Male children would one day provide for the tribe as a whole, and preserve it's longevity.

I do agree that genes do play a part in the longevity of ones life, but I have to disagree, I don't think there is a morality gene, especially from the example you give. If there is a morality gene, what happened to it? I certainly don't see it in the Chinese culture.

Robert Tulip wrote:



Primeval grandparents were oftentimes desgarded after their usefullness. Nomadic tribes would just leave them behind, "Just walk over grandmom honey, we don't need her anymore". If grandparents gave morality genes, why where the elderly in many tribes treated so badly? I will continue and say, why are our own elderly treated so badly?

Genes for longevity prosper due to survival. I don't believe there is any correlation between morality, and a long life.

And we seem to have one more genetic fallacy for Interbane. What is this hodge podge "moral behavior?" Do you even know what you are saying?