DISQUS

bethany · 5 months ago

One assumption of the enlightenment as well as this science that we should perhaps protest is the idea that "reasoning" or "thinking" are activities that are not constructed through social institutions. I would argue that they are at least as much as moral intuition is.
The other troubling assumption in this research is that just because something is constructed socially that makes it somehow less real or valid. I think God intended for us to learn things in a community, and the value of the people as a group is consistent across the Bible. The idea that God made us to think morally within society doesn't mean that it wasn't God that gave us that tendency.

nbierma · 5 months ago

Good points.

Do we dare make a stab at a Trinitarian analogy here: that God exists/does/ 'knows' in (one &) three persons?

bethany · 5 months ago

I hadn't thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense. The doctrine of the trinity teaches us that even God knows and works communally. The idea of sovreignty can lead to an idea of an isolated God who knows inherently and not through relationships, but trinity complicates that significantly.

rick · 5 months ago

I don’t see reason or morality, at least in a Biblical sense, as social constructs, products of group interaction. We are made in the image of God, it is part of our character. No one had to tell Cain that is was wrong to slay Abel. Our sense of morality was very accute before the law was ever given. And, in the genesis story, before tribes were ever formed. Adam’s sense of morality was very acute before families existed. In fact, if you want to be very literal about it, the moral code was not only a part of our God-likeness with attendant obligations, but it was handed down on Mt Sinai in stone tablets from the hand of God.

Paul identifies our ability to reason as an innate gift, a god-likeness: “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.” God has constructed the world such that no matter what culture or race our universal faculty for reason would translate the message He has written in creation: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” The ability to reason transcends culture, place and time.

If one accepts the evolutionary perspective that reason and morality are social constructs then morality becomes subjective. Whatever gives the social group or tribe a survival advantage is incorporated into their moral code.The Aztecs sacrificed a young person once a year to insure a good harvest. This was a moral and right thing for them to do if the group were to survive and prosper. As was the caananite tribes sacrificing their children to Molech to insure good fortune. Who is to say that our moral sense, which includes protecting children and rejecting murder, is right? Who is to say that Sodom and Gomorrah’s sexual proclivities were immoral if it is all a social construct.

Nathan presents a case where morality is either a cognitive (reason) or affective (emotion) product but perhaps that leaves out a spiritual dimension. Morality and the ability to reason transcend culture are part of our spirit, our created God-likeness. But that might not sit well with the New York Times.

bethany · 5 months ago

I think the trinitarian argument that nathan brought up suggests that being made in the image of God means that we are made to be communal.

You say "subjective" like it's a dirty word. I don't think saying morality is socially constructed means it's ok to believe any old thing, it means God created us in his communal image, to work out our morality together through the holy spirit. And on some issues there may be a bit of wiggle room.

nbierma · 5 months ago

see a related column in the NY Times this morning on how to change your mind: http://tr.im/mFii

rick · 5 months ago

I suppose Kristoff’s column is interesting but its not really accurate. Here’s how he closes his column:

“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

(No, our minds were designed by God to explore nature and find the truth. Psalms 19)

Thus persuasion may be most effective when built on human interactions. Gay rights were probably advanced largely by the public’s growing awareness of friends and family members who were gay.

(This is what happens when we believe morality is a social construct)

A corollary is that the most potent way to win over opponents is to accept that they have legitimate concerns, for that triggers an instinct to reciprocate. As it happens, we have a brilliant exemplar of this style of rhetoric in politics right now — Barack Obama.

(This is the most ideologically divided Congress and senate we have ever had. Votes are right down party lines. This is not a brilliant strategy, it is a failed one.)

John · 5 months ago

It takes a village, have you heard that before. My parents were not what you would call the best and even the community I lived in for some time. But as I got older and was able to communicate with others and see what they did and how they did those moral things, I caught on. My parents gave me something as I'm here and not somewhere else. It's not where or how I grew up, but the people I interacted with during my informative years that shaped my morals as well as friendships, family and how I felt about community. Then I heard about God and when I started to look at what was proclaimed I understood I had a choice to make. I thank God for giving us the example to follow in his son. In God's Grace John

David Murdoch · 5 months ago

I question the findings of this research. As an historian I can point to the fact that infanticide, human sacrifice, abandoning the elderly and weak to die, and all sorts of other immoral behaviour disappeared in places wherein the christian faith came into existence. What does this have to do with neuroscience?

God Bless,

rick · 5 months ago

Yeah. I agree. Nathan seems to be arguing out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand he agrees that “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and … moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.” And then he takes a swipe at John Hagee and Christopher Hitchens to assert that that these people's morality is just a figment of their emotions. And then he wants to make a case that morality is developed in community. I say, nope. Not so. Morality is a matter of divine revelation and a product of being created in God likeness and transcends culture, time and place. One spirit-filled moral revolutionary can bring systemic changes to a social group. It's not neuro-science.

alvin_tsf · 5 months ago

i think the most basic point of the article confirms that God created us both as moral and social beings. and that those facts are very much intertwined. yet, our fallen nature has twisted that. there is "eternity set in our hearts" that seeks and somehow knows a truth that points to all that is good, beautiful and meaningful in our lives. consequently, we seek that most in community. our depravity however inclines us to seek our own good only as individuals and to seek validation of this in community. but as Jesus points out clearly with the rich young ruler..."there is only One who is good."

Marc · 5 months ago

Lewis' argument is not that different cultures share the same values but that they all understand justice or fairness. (He was however in a position to survey ancient cultures and comment on the similarities in legal and moral codes and I think there is more overlap than we perceive.)

But it's not the overlap that points to a Christian God but the mere fact of objective justice which points to a God (not neccessarily Yahwe) who defines what justice is.

If morality is socially conditioned then what Hitler did was morally acceptable.

roland · 5 months ago

all i know is we are all humans and we make mistakes remember what you did yesterday so you dont repeat it tomorrow and love and forgive your brother avnd sisters