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Originally posted by Spanky
Yes - that kind of religious philosophy.
I used to be an Atheist/Agnostic for years. The problem was that my instincts told me that female circumscission in North Africa is wrong. My instincts also told me that as long as there are starving people in the world something is not right and needs to be fixed. My instincts also told me that it is wrong to kill innocent people. My instincts also told me that these truths are universal. Killing is wrong in every society and all the time. In addition, I have no problem that tons of antelopes are being killed every year by Lions. My instincts tell me there is right and wrong and it aplies to everyone everywhere.
The problem is if my instincts are just there as a survival mechanism than how do you argue with someone and tell them slavery is wrong. But if it just an instinctual feeling that helps me survive how do I tell a Northern Sudanese what they are doing is wrong when the enslave a black Sudanese. Like Jefferson, I think certain morality is self evident, and the only way it can be self evident if is it comes from somewhere.
Where is the lapse in my logic?
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Based on your upbringing and conditioning, female circumcision, starvation and slavery are pains you would not find at all tolerable personally. You project this intolerableness onto other people -- these three things are so foreign to your experience that you cannot see how they would be tolerable to anyone. Therefore, to you, these people are in intolerably bad conditions. We have evolved such that we have an innate desire that other people not be in intolerable conditions because it impairs their ability to thrive and, thus, threatens the survival of the species.
