The psychology and sociology of "morality"

[hug]

I'm looking for psychologists, psychiatrists, evolutionary psychologists, sociologists, and others in related fields (or who are studying those fields) to participate in a poll and (then) discussion (on this site) regarding the nature, origins, dynamics, and universals of morality. Check out the quotes below. Then, if you are interested of course, please join in by first participating in the initial kick-off poll. The poll question is, "What is 'morality' ultimately about?" and is located in the relatively easy-to-find (especially for people who think about thinking itself!) community poll area.

 

Don't forget to tell your friends. See you there. "hug" :naughty:

 

"I am convinced that we must commit ourselves to the view that a universal ethics is possible, and that we ought to seek to understand it and define it. It is a staggering idea, and one that on casual thought seems preposterous. Yet there is no way out."

-- Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga, former President of the American Psychological Association, from his book The Ethical Brain

 

"The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable -- namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man." -- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

 

"Good science, good psychology, cannot be narrow-minded. All avenues should be explored, all stones turned." -- M. Scott Peck, M.D.

 

"Each one has its own personality. ... Some are shy, while others seem to enjoy ... company. ... Can distinguish one person from the next. ... Can also express their emotions ... to match their mood. ... One of the smartest creatures we know of."

-- Regarding the octopus, from an exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, California

 

"It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement." -- The Dalai Lama

 

"Human nature is not the genes, which prescribe it, or the universals of culture, which are its products. It is rather the epigenetic rules of cognition, the inherited regularities of cognitive development that predispose individuals to perceive reality in certain ways and to create and learn some cultural variants in preference to competing variants."

-- E.O. Wilson

 

"Man 'possesses' many things which he has never acquired but has inherited from his ancestors. He is not born as a tabula rasa, he is merely born unconscious. ... (I, "hug", will provide the middle of this quote later) .... 'You were in bygone times my wife or sister,' says Goethe, clothing in words the dim feelings of many." -- Carl Jung, from Vol. 4 of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Princeton University Press

 

"Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering." -- Epicurus