Empathy, the key to "good morals"?
Lately, I've been thinking more about empathy and how useful it is to humans.
Empathy is defined as "The ability to understand and share the feelings of another" (at least to google..)
I came to a conclusion, empathy is the reason humans (and other animals) have some degree of "morals" the more I thought about it, the more I realized that almost every thing deemed "immoral" in society is in some way harmful, of course there is exceptions such as homosexuality, while some people deem it "immoral" I see no reason how this is harmful, so I put that kind of "morality" in the "faith based" because it's based an idea or philosophy rather than reason.
What is deemed "immoral" usually causes pain or suffering, such as rape, murder, abuse.. ect. And because humans are able to "feel" each others pain, we're very good at being able to understand how painful or unconformable something is, making it "bad" to us.. Often bad enough for us to sign into law.
I'm still thinking about it.. And I'm likely over-thinking it too.
I'm pretty sure I'm not making any sense, and I'm waiting you time.. I apologize.
Peace.
Killerma.
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Comment by Nelson on March 12, 2012 at 3:14pm -
That's a proximate, not an ultimate cause though. For why should we be moved to feel empathy? In feeling empathy, why should we act upon it, let it guide us to act in certain ways (and not act in others)? Notice that even in feeling empathy, that much of the time the best strategy is, at least on the surface, apparently to ignore the feeling and act in ways whose outcome is best for you.
You have to go the next steps.
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Comment by Steven Killerma on March 12, 2012 at 3:19pm -
Hm.. Now I have more things to think about haha.
Thank you for commenting, and for giving me some things to think about.
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Comment by Nelson on March 12, 2012 at 3:30pm
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No problem. That's what we do for each other around here. :)
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