Update: On Virtues

So, just as I make my post, I find perfect article for what I'm talking about.

"Prof Marc Bekoff, an ecologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are "hard-wired" into the brains of all mammals and provide the "social glue" that allow often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups."

According to this controversial study, it's not just humans who know what right and wrong is. It's animals. Which isn't surprising considering we are animals. We're not the supreme being that rules the world.

So when you think about morality, maybe there are some absolute truths. Those truths being ones that are necessary for not only humans to have societies, but also animals around the world. It's obvious that humans and other animals such as wolves, coyotes, etc that are mentioned in the article will have some differences on what is right and wrong, but is it possible that at the most basic level, our different species can agree that some things (like random murder) are just wrong.

I think that if it was just you...you were the only person in the world, then nothing could really be right and wrong. It's up to you, you're the only person who can decide. But once you start introducing other people into the mix, then it becomes important to decide on a few basic rules that will govern society. That's not to say that everyone will follow them, but everyone NOT following them will lead to the destruction of the society. Therefore, from an evolution standpoint, there is basic sense of morality that is in everyone of us. Our ancestors decided to form groups and have basic societies. So maybe it ends up that the little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you are doing the wrong thing is really your DNA telling you that you're doing something against the fabric of society. People aren't always going to follow the rules, but I think that everyone of us knows what the right thing to do is, whether or not we choose to do it.

On Virtues

Where do virtues come from? How do you know what is really right and wrong in this world? How could you truly know if an action was "correct" or "incorrect"?

I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues the other day about this. He didn't really end up telling me where he thinks our virtues as humans come from (he would probably say God -- which I deny). Before the church, and the Internet, and books, and newspapers, how did we come to settle on a group of ideals that people are supposed to have to be a "good" person.

As I was talking with him, it all became clear to me. It has to be related to our DNA and our evolutionary history. Because if humans our ancestors engaged in mass cannibalism, deceit, theft, etc. then a human society could not form. If you have an excess amount of people that do things to the detriment of others without even thinking about it, you won't have a functioning society. You'll have anarchy. So maybe in our evolutionary history, certain traits (we call them virtues) have been selected for and as a result, most of us inherently understand these virtues, because accepting these them has helped form our society. I think that most people know what the "right" thing to do is, but acting on it is different.

So then what becomes "right" and "wrong"? Something that is "right" would have to be related to the virtues that lead to the formation of our society (ex: honesty) and something that is "wrong" would undermine those virtues.

I'll have to think about it this more.

On Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin.

I don't think one name has bothered me so much in recent memory. If McCain & Palin would have won, all hope for America would have been lost. We would be one John McCain stroke away from having the most inept President of all-time.

The ideas that she epitomizes. The people that she represents. It makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Where do I start? While we have different views on many topics, I will focus on her views on creationism in science classrooms, abortion in cases of rape, and global warming. Other sources of contention are her views about gay marriage and her support of a referendum to deny same-sex couples state health benefits and her views on capital punishment.

1. Palin supports teaching both evolution and creationism in science classrooms.

• Creationism has no place in a science classroom. People have cleverly repackaged it as "intelligent design", but they cannot fool me. According to this article, Palin says intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in order to give students more information since evolution is only a theory.

• "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

• Everything she says sounds good in theory, but it is monumentally flawed. You cannot teach science based on the proposition that there is a creator. The fundamentals of science are based on the Scientific Method; making an hypothesis, experimentation, analysis, etc. However, with intelligent design or creationism or whatever you want to call it, the fundamentals of science fade away. For example, if someone finds a sufficiently complex organism that cannot be fully explained, then a person who relies on intelligent design can only attribute this organism to the design of God. All the analysis and experimentation of complex organisms goes away. Thus, science fades away and molds itself into another part of religion. However, as we have known throughout history, when man finds problems that cannot be initially solved, lots of the people work on to figure it out. As more and more people perform their own experiments, they make more and more progress toward finding a greater truth. If the U.S. were to implement her ideas about science, it would only cloud the minds of the young science students of our country and lead us to take another step back as a nation. We are already behind other countries in our science and math aptitude. The U.S. can't be a superpower if our students believe that God "designed" everything when we clearly have a better explanation of the development of our universe -- evolution.
  

2. Palin is against abortion in cases of rape.

• Why should a woman who has been raped have to keep this unplanned child in her life? Learning about this issue in a Contemporary Moral Problems class in college really helped me see that abortion in cases of rape is morally permissable. Judith Thompson created the "Violinist" analogy to show the flaws in anti-abortion arguments. It goes something like this:

• A third party kidnaps you and you wake up attached to a famous violinist. You are told that detaching yourself would kill him, as he is using your kidneys to stay alive. Thomson argues that you are free to detach yourself on the grounds that the violinist has no right to the use of your body. The logic follows that if you agree with this analogy, then you agree with abortion in cases of rape.

• To me this analogy is a perfect parallel of the situation when a woman is raped and becomes pregnant. She has the life of another being in her hands, but due to the circumstances, I believe that she is under no obligation to keep this being alive. Thus, I believe that Palin's view on abortion in cases of rape is flawed and infringes on the rights of women.
  

3. Palin is not sure about global warming.

"I'm not one though who would attribute [global warming] to being man-made."

• Right as she was being nominated, Palin most clearly voiced her opinion that global warming is not a man-made problem. This quote generated a lot of controversy, so she later softened her stance and remarked:
  

• "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change. Here in Alaska, the only arctic state in our Union, of course, we see the effects of climate change more so than any other area with ice pack melting. Regardless though of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet -- the warming and the cooling trends -- regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution."

• Here's the thing...since she believes that global warming is NOT man-made, then any effort to cut down on pollution will have NO effect. Thus, cutting down on emissions would be a big waste of everyone's time. She only changed her mind because she's one of the only whack jobs in Washington who still questions the causes of global warming. Maybe she hasn't seen An Inconvenient Truth. Or maybe she got some bad science teaching in her state of Alaska. Since we already know that she is not quite sure about evolution, who knows what people are being taught there. To me, it is quite appalling that in 2008 a person like Sarah Palin, someone who people look toward for leadership in this nation, still has such outdated beliefs.