Please comment to the following statement:

Morality has formed because of the evolutionary advantage of having a nervous system that can experience pain and pleasure.

Why is this an evolutionary advantage?

If you feel pain if you are too long out in the cold you try to get warm simple. If you don't feel pain you cannot avoid certain dangers to your body.

Over time the ability of our nervous system to produce pleasure and pain has changed a grey world without morality into a word with right and wrong.

Things that have become associated with pain, such as being scammed, beaten, pschologicaly abused are now being called immorality. Those that are associated with a feeling of slight pleasure such as being helped etc. are associated with moral behavior.

Would morality make sense or be of any use in a world without emotion, pain and pleasure and is the true origin of morality really our nervous system ability to experience pain and pleasure?

This post was edited by YaC on Dec 11 2014 07:39am

no idea what you are talking about, morality is not an evolutionary concept, ethics maybe, but morality deals in a realm entirely different. If more people die than are born, humanity ends, does this answer your question?

i think evolution has formed the nervous system and hence the ability to experience pleasure and pain. if this evolutionary process would not have been taken place we would not be able to experience pleasure or pain. If all behaviors have no impact on our happiness or sadness why should these behaviors still be considered as good or bad, would not everything be neutral? I think a concept such as morality would have never been created if we could not experience emotions, pleasure, happiness, pain, sadness, humilation etc.

for example we have a moral theory utilitarianism. this theory would not exist if we could not experience pleasure or pain.

This post was edited by YaC on Dec 11 2014 08:04am

no, morality is absolute, concepts of morality tend to be directed at "the way things ought to be", it is ethical principals that attempt to minimize suffering/loss. I know what you are trying to say i think, but you are using the wrong word. in ethics a thing is "good" if it helps more people than it hurts, in morality you are attempting to conform to a "perfect" ideology. morality belongs in a philosophical discussion, ethics are for scientific discussions.


e: and as far as the evolution of morality/ethics, any civilization not concerned with minimizing deaths and maximizing births would certainly perish, what exactly are you questioning? (or are you just hoping for a conflicting opinion?)

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 11 2014 08:27am

The mystery is, how does feeling pain or pleasure affect behavior?

There's no good reason to think consciousness has causal power, or else science is false across the board, because that would imply merely thinking things can causally affect the physical world. How then can a mental phenomenon be adaptive? Is the mental world merely an arbitrary byproducts of physical processes? Or is there something deeper?

There are various responses to this problem, I'm not sure the best one.

But yes, I am a hedonistic utilitarianist and agree that the pain and pleasure systems are the sole reason the concept of morality exists at all.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Dec 11 2014 09:41am

I don't think morality has to do with feeling pain or pleasure, but more so with favoring actions that preserve the species. I.e., killing someone doesn't preserve the species.

ethics ethics ethics! morality is "perfect" (usually said to be instilled by a deity), it would be moral to kill yourself right now to make more room on earth for others, but not ethical.

Wouldn't that make rape moral?

no because societies where rape occurs frequently actually breed less, they are less productive, and offspring are not as well cared for (usually 1 parent at best). you kind of have to understand that "rape" mentality is similar to "pack dominance" mentality, in that only the dominant male has breeding rights, whereas the contemporary ideology has as many possible mates matching off. Now as far as single cases in a normal society, very likely the fetus will be aborted and the perpetrated, emotionally damaged. Yes, many scientists can't find a rational evolutionary explanation for rape, but i contend that they are idiots (or outdated).

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 11 2014 05:37pm

I'm not sure if evolution has much to do with this.

I mean, it takes a certain brain to determine that fire hurts. Once understood, voiding fire would come naturaly. It's still falls under evolution, cause the brain has evolved in a matter of seconds to determine that.
It's only ethical to void danger, pain, etc.
You mention the nervous system has evolved, how long do you think this evolution took? Imo. the 1st beings evolved quite fast to determine the difference from pleasure and pain.

But I think you mean evolution took a much longer time to develop the aspects you mentioned. Which I doubt.

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As for good or bad, pleasure and pain. All ppl are different, it depends on the person and their own evolution since birth to determine emotions/feelings felt for differents aspects.
One person might take joy for X, while another might feel pain.
As for ppl who frown for other ppls feelings towards something, that's being judgemental. Just cause someone feelings does not conform to the "norm" of society, they get vindicated.