6 Surprising Scientific Findings About Good and Evil

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/culture/6-surprising-scientific-findings-about-good-and-evil



***SNIP

1. Evolution gave us morality—as a default setting. One central finding of modern morality research is that humans, like other social animals, naturally feel emotions, such as empathy and gratitude, that are crucial to group functioning. These feelings make it easy for us to be good; indeed, they're so basic that, according to Greene's research, cooperation seems to come naturally and automatically.

***SNIP

2. Gossip is our moral scorecard. In the Public Goods Game, free riders don't just make more money than cooperators. They can tank the whole game, because everybody becomes less cooperative as they watch free riders profit at their expense. In some game versions, however, a technique called "pro-social punishment" is allowed. You can pay a small amount of your own money to make sure that a free rider loses money for not cooperating. When this happens, cooperation picks up again—because now it is being enforced.

***SNIP

3. We're built to solve the problem of "me versus us." We don't know how to deal with "us versus them." Cooperation, enforcing beneficial social norms: These are some of the relatively positive aspects of our basic morality. But the research also shows something much less rosy. For just as we're naturally inclined to be cooperative within our own group, we're also inclined to distrust other groups (or worse). "In-group favoritism and ethnocentrism are human universals," writes Greene.

***SNIP

4. Morality varies regionally and culturally. This is further exacerbated by the fact that in different cultures and in different groups, there is subtle (and sometimes, not-so-subtle) variation in moral norms, making outside groups seem tougher to understand and sympathize with.

[daleanime]

1. Kick....

[Demo_Chris]

2. K and R

[malaise]

3. Interesting

Rec

[PADemD]

4. cooperation seems to come naturally and automatically

in our Congress?

[el_bryanto]

5. I think the third point addresses that

We are divided up into different tribes - there's nothing wrong with the Republican tribe screwing over the Democratic tribe. And vice versa. Those of the other tribe are inhuman - literally - they don't count as human.

Bryant

[BlueJazz]

6. Corporations and certain News outlets (Fox) are like Sociopaths that seem to destroy..

..our basic trust and cooperation toward each other.

[randr]

7. Currently in America, a faction of our "group" is attempting to "divide and conquer" us

in order to gain more power. Is the widening gap between people in our country, the worlds melting pot, not a result of some evil intentional motivation?
How does morality play out in this situation?
We are rapidly becoming a nation of "us and them", separated largely by economic class and race by the daily barrage of bullshit from the source of all bullshit--Faux and the far right.
Is it past time to call for an American Awakening; a return to patriotic values that bring us the unity we once shared?
Who'd duty is it to call attention to this threat?

[Berlum]

9. + 1

indeed

[CFLDem]

8. I don't think I'd push the fat guy onto the tracks, either.

Not his fault a bunch of morons are playing on a train track.

[Zorra]

12. Why did you use the phrase "fat guy" in your post? nt

[CFLDem]

14. B/c the guy in the article's scenario was fat so he could stop the train. nt

[bettyellen]

10. "Morality varies regionally and culturally. " I thought about this in Italy, where married men

very frequently hit on me with the most romantic words they could muster, while standing right next to their poor beleaguered wives and children. That was freaky, and sad.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.

[4 t 4]

13. My take on # 4

Morality might just be a little contagious, no? So if you have a wonderful group of people with good morals it may just well spread and if you have the opposite , ditto?? 4. Morality varies regionally and culturally. This is further exacerbated by the fact that in different cultures and in different groups, there is subtle (and sometimes, not-so-subtle) variation in moral norms, making outside groups seem tougher to understand and sympathize with.