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::"Herr Gobles"? You surely don't mean Joseph Goebbels, right? --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 11:05, 2 April 2007 (EDT)
::"Herr Gobles"? You surely don't mean Joseph Goebbels, right? --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 11:05, 2 April 2007 (EDT)
:: Since I left all the stuff about the religious basis of morality strictly alone, believing that it was right that it should be there because that is what many people believe, give me one good reason why my well-referenced contributions on the non-religious bases of morality should be deleted. Here it is again, just to remind you -
Some biologists argue that morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution. They see social behaviors displayed by some primates as the precursors of human morality. They cite examples such as rhesus monkeys which, when given a chance to get food by pulling a chain that delivers a shock to another monkey, have been known to starve themselves for a considerable time.<ref> "Primates and Philosophers" by Frans de Waal</ref> This ideal governing our free actions is common to the human race.
Though there is wide divergence as to theories of ethics [[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05556a.htm]] , there is a fundamental agreement among men regarding the general lines of conduct desirable in public and private life. L. T. Hobhouse has well said: <blockquote> ''"The comparative study of ethics, which is apt in its earlier stages to impress the student with a bewildering sense of the diversity of moral judgments, ends rather by impressing them with a more fundamental and far-reaching uniformity. Through the greatest extent of time and space over which we have records, we find a recurrence of the common features of ordinary morality, which to my mind at least is not less impressive than the variations which also appear".'' [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911hobhouse.html] </blockquote>
Dr Frans de Waal argues that primates are social animals, and must constrain their behavior in order to live in a group. He maintains that these constraints have shaped behaviors from which human morality has emerged. He does not assert that chimpanzees are moral, but argues that emotional bases that can be observed among primates are the foundation for the evolution of human morality.
Thomas E. Brewton wrote in ''Moral Models from Mainstream Media'' <blockquote> +"Many secular writers and scholars say a clear and decent moral philosophy may be and has been developed without recourse to mysticism, as religion is. There is no way to prove, objectively, that any religion is truer than any other. On the other hand, basing a moral philosophy on duty, loyalty, and “women and children first” can produce, and has produced, a set of principles for living a just and proper life that does not require a belief in a deity or other prop outside of recognition of human fellowship. -He points to the display of both empathy and self-awareness among apes, and asserts that human morality begins with a similar concern for others and the understanding of social rules about the treatment of others.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5124&en=84f902c89c5a9173&ex=1332043200&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]