Personally, I don’t know what morality is, or what’s the ‘inherently the right thing to do’. For me, the situation is simple.
If I hurt someone, my mirror neurons will hurt me. If I hurt someone’s baby, I’ll experience the pain I inflicted upon the baby, plus the pain of the parents, plus the pain of everyone who heard about this story and felt the pain thanks, in turn, to their mirror neurons.
And I’ll re-experience all this pain in the future, every time I remember the episode—unless I invent some way to desensitize myself to this memory.
I’m a meat machine built by evolution. One of my many indicators of ‘inclusive genetic fitness’ is a little green light titled “I currently feel no pain”. If I hurt someone, this indicator will go red, which means that I will tend to avoid such behavior.
So, the short answer: I won’t be inclined to kill anyone even after some ‘authority’ tells me that killing is now ‘moral’ and ‘right’.
(A personal inside perspective: if I ever murder someone, I hope I’ll have enough guts to remove myself from the gene and meme pools—you can have my brain for cryo-slicing and my meat to feed some stray dogs).
Personally, I don’t know what morality is, or what’s the ‘inherently the right thing to do’. For me, the situation is simple.
If I hurt someone, my mirror neurons will hurt me. If I hurt someone’s baby, I’ll experience the pain I inflicted upon the baby, plus the pain of the parents, plus the pain of everyone who heard about this story and felt the pain thanks, in turn, to their mirror neurons.
And I’ll re-experience all this pain in the future, every time I remember the episode—unless I invent some way to desensitize myself to this memory.
I’m a meat machine built by evolution. One of my many indicators of ‘inclusive genetic fitness’ is a little green light titled “I currently feel no pain”. If I hurt someone, this indicator will go red, which means that I will tend to avoid such behavior.
So, the short answer: I won’t be inclined to kill anyone even after some ‘authority’ tells me that killing is now ‘moral’ and ‘right’.
(A personal inside perspective: if I ever murder someone, I hope I’ll have enough guts to remove myself from the gene and meme pools—you can have my brain for cryo-slicing and my meat to feed some stray dogs).