extremely rough thesis outline. more of an outline of the area I am hoping to investigate in my pre-draft reading. written during a lecture period.
Organisms causally interact with their environments. It seems that human beings are uniquely complex organisms. This means that we have a uniquely complex existence within our environment. I hope to investigate the aspect that we label "social interaction." I find that the interesting facets of social interaction are; the relational dynamics and situations in which morality is invoked in the face of choice.
I am curious as to whether morality is a danger to the momentum of a progressive system. In one sense morality is just a part of the momentum of our existence. However, it seems that human beings entered a situation that remains within the realm of momentum while adding a component of high level abstraction and manipulation.
Looking at this in an evolutionary context, it seems that morality transcends any characteristics that helped or allowed our ancestors to survive. Human beings designate things with moral standing. The designations, moral or amoral, within the ethical systems do not always coincide with intuition. If we have moral modules (modular theory of brain/mind) that come from our evolution, or at least were not selected against, then how are our synthetic/societally formulated moral postures effecting our progress or the dynamics of life momentum.
Can morality/ethical logic be considered to be something along the lines of a drought or comet contact... just something that came along in the series of events that take place as occurence weaves time? Can we label such a complex construct as morality a natural event in the infinite all-encompassing causal chain? Or can we allow morality to have a special standing because it came about through abstract intellectual formulation? How much of ethical logic and morality is abstract intellectual formulation and how much comes directly from the reasoning modules that our genes slap in to us? If the ethical logic module does exist how does it connect to normativity... along the lines of abstract morals and enforced ethical systems?
simpler questions:
Is there a ethical logic module in the brains/minds of human beings?
If that module exists, is the general form of morality present in our social world a separate formulation or one that follows from the intuitions that the supposed ethical logic module provides?
How does ethical modularity bear on normativity?
fun time;
for how much of this shitty dong-show can i be held accountable?
is it acceptable to search for an ideal anal insertion object for over one hour?
are constant underlying sex-themes creepy?
is thinking more fun than socializing?
is thinking more fun than sex?
is fooling youself really as awful as it seems in supposed moments of clarity?
PISS ON MY GRAVE!!!!!!!!?????!!!?!?!?!?!?!?
3 comments:
What is a progressive system? I attended a lecture today which echoed the oft-repeated questions of what justice is. One example of several cited was that NAFTA (comprised of first world nations) claims to promote justice but blocks third world imports due to lax working conditions. This is redundant protectionism. The point I'm trying to present is that everyone will always lack a common consensus. Those that counter NAFTA look to transnational organizations aimed at promoting "what is right." What isn't a moral standing? Everyone likes to present what they have to say as "correct" as "ethical".
is it acceptable to search for an ideal anal insertion object for over one hour? Yes
are constant underlying sex-themes creepy? No
is thinking more fun than socializing? Most of the time
is thinking more fun than sex? Rarely
is fooling youself really as awful as it seems in supposed moments of clarity? Maybe?
PISS ON MY GRAVE!!!!!!!!?????!!!?!?!?!?!?!? Sure
the nature of progression that i am addressing is related to survivability and evolution. i am trying to figure out where moral norms come from. a progressive system in that sense is one that never enters a dynamic which disallows selection and adaptation. the nature of my thesis is to uncover whether moral normativity, the extension of concepts into guidelines, stems from a certain brain module, a system comprised of a network within the brain that is not directly physically connected... it is more of a series of physical processes that allow certain areas of the brain to combine functions and allow for complex cognitive apparatuses to arise. and after all the technical jargon is out of the way. i hope, although it may be unreasonable, to throw in a section on the potential danger of normative systems.
i agree with most of your answers on the questions.
and as far as pissing on my grave... i would expect nothing less.
Darwin would have us believe morality is hardwired in our brain - hence our evolution.
Well, I hate to bring up Kierkegaard again, but...Society likes to apply spurious principles to an irrational world. Some would say morals are erroneous, created by higher bureaucracies somewhere in an attempt to control us. The fact that humans revert back to an animalistic state when isolated, show that morals only arise from social conditioning. It's all very Lord of the Flies. (Shrug)
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