Unlike most of the others who’ve commented so far, I actually would have a very different outlook on life if you did that to me.
But I’m not sure how much it would change my behavior. A lot of the things you listed—what to eat, what to wear, when to get up—are already not based on right and wrong, at least for me. I do believe in right and wrong, but I don’t make them the basis of everything I do.
For the more extreme things, I think a lot of it is instinct and habit. If I saw a child on the train tracks, I’d probably pull them off no matter what you’d proved to me. Even for more abstract things, like fraud, the thought that it would be wrong if there were a basis for right and wrong might be enough to make me feel I didn’t want to do it.
Unlike most of the others who’ve commented so far, I actually would have a very different outlook on life if you did that to me.
But I’m not sure how much it would change my behavior. A lot of the things you listed—what to eat, what to wear, when to get up—are already not based on right and wrong, at least for me. I do believe in right and wrong, but I don’t make them the basis of everything I do.
For the more extreme things, I think a lot of it is instinct and habit. If I saw a child on the train tracks, I’d probably pull them off no matter what you’d proved to me. Even for more abstract things, like fraud, the thought that it would be wrong if there were a basis for right and wrong might be enough to make me feel I didn’t want to do it.