Op-Ed Columnist - The End of Philosophy - NYTimes.com

Levy Rivers's personal annotations on this page

Oldude59 bookmarked on 2009-04-08 morality philosophy brooks

As our brain sorts out of the thousands of bits of info it takes special note of those things your system of values and interest. We take note of those things that have been socially enriched objects and concepts

Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.
Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.
Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference. Some of those make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our unconscious, but ... what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”
Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.
We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.
They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.

This link has been bookmarked by 19 people . It was first bookmarked on 07 Apr 2009, by elukka riikonen.

08 Apr 09

Levy Rivers
As our brain sorts out of the thousands of bits of info it takes special note of those things your system of values and interest. We take note of those things that have been socially enriched objects and concepts

morality philosophy brooks
- Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.
- Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.
- 4 more annotations...
- - Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference. Some of those make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our unconscious, but ... what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”
  - Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.
  - We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.
  - They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.
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Denice Gamper
07 Apr 09

bigfoot69 Prevedel
Richard Rosell
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Cristina Pruneda
Cognitive skills Neurosciences behavious
- moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are
  constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate
  processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.
- what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of
  value in our environment.”
- 6 more annotations...
- - Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and involve
    the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make snap moral judgments
    about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this
    when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t
    explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.
  - “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral
    reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.”
  - What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been
    evolution, but in recent years there’s an increasing appreciation that evolution
    isn’t just about competition. It’s also about cooperation within groups.
  - We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other
    individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are
    all the descendents of successful cooperators.
  - People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link
    themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.
  - humans, as Darwin speculated, competition among groups has turned us into pretty
    cooperative, empathetic and altruistic creatures — at least within our families,
    groups and sometimes nations.
stevenson34
Moralitly, ethicsm, rght and wrong, religious dogma.
turkey_burger
- Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know.
  Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.
- “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.”
- 1 more annotations...
- - The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions. It challenges the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people. It challenges the Talmudic tradition, with its hyper-rational scrutiny of texts. It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.
Robert Lent
reasoning alone does not necessarily produce good moral judgements. emotional reactions to what we see in the world around us ("moral intuitions") are emerging as just as important or more important.

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Nan Kilkeary
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elukka riikonen