[lit-ideas] Re: Inner Moral Law
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:17:23 -0400
Andy: Historically human behavior has been consistently shockingly
immoral and amoral.
Eric: By what standard are you judging this behavior?
Andy: .... Would you agree with that? If you do, why has it been
that way if we all have this inborn moral sense?
Eric: I would say that our innate ability to make moral judgments is
in ongoing evolution. That explains how "universal human rights"
eventually gets extended to all humans.
Every stage of our evolution both INCLUDES and TRANSCENDS its
predecessors. Molecules include and transcend atoms; cells include
and transcend molecules; organisms transcend and include cells; and
so forth.
You can see this in moral judgments too. Take Moses, whom you
mentioned: his teachings included and transcended many of the moral
admonitions of his predecessors. For another example, the book of
PROVERBS in the Bible is likely built on a collection of Egyptian
proverbs from the captivity....includes and transcends. Christians
argue that the dispensation of Jesus includes and transcends the
teachings of Moses.
And true, for most of this time, people have been slaughtering each
other in barbaric ways. Annoying but not surprising.
To use an analogy, imagine musicians playing the history of music in
the past 800 years. As they play they gradually evolve musical
structures (each style including and transcending the earlier style)
from modal music to tonal music to greater degrees of increasing
chromaticism. But outside the hall where the musicians are playing,
the same vulgar street noise dominates.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
