Wednesday, April 18, 2007

VA Tech

I'm curious as to what are your thoughts.
  • Is humankind innately evil, or born innately good?
  • Do we have free will?
  • If so, do we possess it at all times?
  • When a wolf gruesomely attacks a herd, it is considered normal. What do we mean by moral conscience?

6 comments:

jonathan said...

My grandfather believed that wolves and mountain lions killed for sport and he hated them for it. Which is interesting because he killed for sport. I wonder what wolves and mountain lions thought of him.

Anonymous said...

i like the funny stuff better

Anonymous said...

To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful - Jung

Normally college students don't express themselves in such a way, hmm...

Anonymous said...

It is my belief that humankind is born, not just innately good, but with aspirations of divinity. We are all capable of great things, it is evident in children the wisdom endowed to us or seeded with us still at birth.

It seems we spend most of our lives forgetting it.

For those of us who concentrate on that connection we once had we discover wonderful things. For those of us who follow the other route, the path of destruction, serious psychological adversities await. This is my main argument for the innate goodness of humankind; when we stray from the path of construction our minds won't let us forget it. We have horrible disorders that follow such as PTSD and depression. If we were designed to cope with atrocities we commit it seems that PTSD wouldn't be the problem it is for 98% of combat vets.

As for free will; all of the choices we make even the mundane how we feel/react to everyday occurrences are under our control. It is very important to recognize this for accountability/responsibility.

If we were to say that our life is controlled by fate/destiny it is easy to attribute obviously bad decisions to some higher being who is 'in control.' If we are to assume free will; responsibility lies on us to make good decisions and to be held accountable for the decisions we make.

The best argument seems to lie on the side of free will because of our immense spectrum of choices. We can literally act any way we want, all of the different actions have consequences some good, some bad, but the fact that we can choose from this seemingly endless supply of actions, and regularly do, seems to support free will.

It is also important not to make exceptions to the rule in the case of free will such as 'crimes of passion' or the influence of drugs. The importance is to realize the choice that puts you into the situation to begin with, it all starts with a choice.

I think a wolf gruesomely attacking a heard should be looked upon differently then violent, destructive human actions. When a wolf attacks a herd it is acting upon instinct, something much different than post-infant humans act on. It is written in the wolf's genetic make-up to hunt food as a predator, just like it is in spider's genetic make-up to spin a web as a predator. It isn't like the spider is hiding a beautiful blue print somewhere or has written instructions to spin a web if it gets hungry, it just 'knows.' When humans have some drive that they want fulfilled we try to arrive at a way to fulfill that drive through reason/rationalization. This is why we can have such radically different outcomes then beings acting on instinct. A dog knows it's time to reproduce when it goes into heat. When a person feels the need to reproduce they buy a nice car, or new clothes, or cologne/perfume. It seems completely irrational, but this is what we've been trained is our mating call.

Well, that got off subject... Moral conscience is easy to define, but hard to explain. I think my point was that morality can only be applied to beings acting on rational thought. It would be unhealthy for a wolf to NOT act on it's instict to hunt in the way it is 'told' to by it's make-up. We've created a spectrum of acceptable behavior to judge actions on that we call morality. Actions can range on this scale from highly moral to highly immoral.

The 'conscience' part comes from all of the accumulated reactions we've had to our own actions and what we 'just know' or what is 'written on our heart.' So what we mean when we say moral conscience is; "that a person has to have some idea of this spectrum from growing up and from what they 'just know' and it is our responsibility to hold them accountable and make sure they know they are responsible for acknowledging the existance of this spectrum, and applying it to the decisions they make."

What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Good questions - I've been thinking about them since you posted them. I'm not sure what to say about the innateness of the good and evil, so I'll comment on free will.
I believe we are alot more determined than we are willing to admit, or even realize, but we still have free will. The partial determinism I speak of is the influence of our genetics and past experience on what choices we make. If I were given a choice of green beans or asparagus for a vegetable at dinner tonight, I would almost certainly choose green beans because I like them much more than asparagus. I think that I could still choose asparagus; but if I did, it might be because I think that asparagus is better for me, and that in turn is because I think I should eat things that are better for me, which I learned from others.
When we start down that road of examining our motives for actions, we often realize that the reason we choose as we do is very much determined (influenced?) by our past experiences, and that so many of our past experiences are not the result of our own choices. For example, I probably like green beans much better than asparagus for (maybe) two reasons: my taste buds give me a more pleasant sensation when I eat green beans, or I grew up in a household that served green beans much more often than asparagus. Both of these possible reasons were not the result of my own choices (for the most part, at least), so I have been determined to like green beans better than asparagus.
Determinism can be insidious this way - the more we trace our motives back the more we realize that we are the passive recipients of our genetics, desires, likes and dislikes, feelings, etc.
But, we sometimes do things contrary to our usual choices, desires, and feelings. Are these instances of free choice? A hard determinist would say that it is merely a matter of one determined motive outweighing another. I choose asparagus over green beans because I've heard that green beans are not that good at this restaurant; a determinist says it is because our will was swayed by the influence of the other person, and a freewill advocate says it was a choice. It can be hard to decide which is the case. I've found the same true in ethics: are we giving to a charity because we think it is right or because it will make us feel good? When we examine our motives it might be confusing (this is the trap of psychological egoism).
This brings me to my personal opinion. I think that while we can debate the issue of freewill and determinism continuously, it may not matter. Regardless of whether we are truly free or determined, we live as if we are free. Maybe our choices are determined by the physical laws of the universe tracing back to the big bang, but it SEEMS like we are freely making choices throughout our lives. We live practically as if we are free, and as if others are making free choices as well. Would we want to eliminate morality from our lives if we decided that we are determined? I still feel like I am making choices and should be accountable for those choices, and that others are responsible for theirs also. I think Cho Seung-Hui had a false sense of determinism - he could have done otherwise, because he lived the rest of his life as if he were making free choices.

Thanks for giving me a place to ramble...
- Andy

Dennis R. Plummer said...

I appreciate the very thoughtful reflections. Maybe they will continue.

I tend to agree with Andy, perhaps even leaning more strongly towards a deterministic view than does he. For instance, the fact that he grew up in a household that served green beans often and that his taste buds liked the sensation are, I would argue, fully out of his control, not just partly. Unless he can show how he changed the innerworkings of his taste buds from other unconditioned or undetermined actions. Like he said, it is insidious.

And this challenges Anonymous's statements before him: that accountability and responsibility are dependent upon free-will. Perhaps one can be determined and held accountable at the same time?

If I construct a machine, fully determined (imagine that laws of the theory of chaos are suspendend), can I not take action (hold it accountable) if it fails to function properly?

Innate goodness or evil...I'm still thinking about that one. Both the lily and the poison ivy sprout with purpose.

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