5 Moral Laws

In terms of differences, Oliver calls this perspective „morality as cooperation.” Recently, I preferred a change to „Morality as Strategies of Cooperation” to emphasize that these strategies involve and even punish the refusal to cooperate with exploiters. Morality is the solution to problems of cooperation. They come in many different shapes and sizes – characteristics, instincts, intuitions, virtues, values, norms, rules, conventions, institutions, etc. Some moral violations are punished, but not all. For example, people are praised for performing „super-erotic” acts of bravery, but not punished for not doing so. (That`s exactly what a restrictive and expensive signage approach would predict.) In contrast, Option 2 – focus on one problem and ignore the rest – is arbitrary, unnecessarily restrictive, and refuted by „known facts” about what people around the world consider moral. The prisoner`s dilemma is not the only game, and reciprocity is not the only moral! The volumes are written about the many important character traits/moral values of how to acquire them and maintain balance. It is an art to grow them in the right quantity. Many have a weekly practice (mussar) to develop them by focusing on one trait each week.

A third supreme moral commandment comes from Confucius: „Do not do unto others what you would not have done to yourself. The Five Commandments (Sanskrit: pañcaśīla; Pali: pañcasīla) or five training rules (Sanskrit: pañcaśikṣapada; Pali: pañcasikkhapada)[4][5][Note 1] is the most important moral system for lay Buddhists. They form the basic code of ethics that must be implemented by the secular followers of Buddhism. Commandments are obligations to refrain from killing living beings, stealing, being sexually misconduct, lying, and being drunk. In Buddhist teachings, they must develop spirit and character to progress on the path of enlightenment. They are sometimes called the Śrāvakayāna commandments in the Mahāyāna tradition and are contrary to the rules of the Bodhisattva. The Five Commandments form the basis of several parts of the Buddhist teachings, both lay people and monks. In terms of their fundamental role in Buddhist ethics, they have been compared to the Ten Commandments of the Abrahamic religions[6][7] or the ethical codes of Confucianism. Commandments have been associated with utilitarian, ethical, and virtuous approaches to ethics, although in 2017 such categorization according to Western terminology was largely abandoned by researchers.

Commandments have been compared to human rights because of their universal nature, and some scholars argue that they can complement the concept of human rights. In general, Buddhist traditions are against abortion. [111] However, in many countries of Buddhist tradition such as Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, abortion is a widespread practice, whether legal or not. Many people in these countries consider abortion immoral, but also think it should be less banned. Ethicist Roy W. Perrett argues, echoing Ratanakul, that this field data does not point so much to hypocrisy as to „common ground” in applying Buddhist teachings to resolve a moral dilemma. Buddhists tend to take „both sides” in the pro-life pro-choice debate, as they are opposed in principle to killing a fetus, but also believe in compassion for mothers. Similar attitudes could explain the Japanese Mizuko Kuyō ceremony, a Buddhist memorial service for aborted children that sparked a debate in Japanese society about abortion and eventually led the Japanese to a consensus that abortion should not be taken lightly, even though it should be legalized. This position, defended by Japanese Buddhists, strikes a balance between the Japanese neo-Shinto „pro-life” position and the liberating „pro-choice” arguments. [129] Keown points out, however, that this compromise does not mean a Buddhist middle ground between two extremes, but involves two opposing perspectives. [110] In Thailand, women who want an abortion usually do so in the early stages of pregnancy because they believe that the karmic consequences are then less.

After an abortion, Thai women usually gain merit to compensate for negative karma. [130] What criteria did you use to select the dataset to test assumptions about morality? Well, about kinship. The main question is whether the selection of parents can explain how and why people take care of their families. It`s possible. A secondary question is whether people consider such kinship altruism to be morally good. The answer is yes, and the evidence is overwhelming. Shakespeare provided my supreme moral virtue: „This especially to be true of yourself, and then it must follow as the night of the day, you cannot be false to any man” (Hamlet). The team found that these seven cooperative behaviors were considered morally good in different cultures 99.9% of the cases. Curry makes sure that people around the world are very different in the way they prioritize different cooperative behaviors. But he said the evidence is overwhelming in the widespread adherence to these moral values. While your comments seem to be directed at Oliver, I would like to respond to them. First of all, thank you for your positive remarks on my views on morality as a solution to the cooperation/exploitation dilemma.

Dr Oliver Scott Curry, lead author and principal investigator at the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, said: „The debate between moral universalists and moral relativists has been raging for centuries, but now we have answers. Everywhere, people face similar social problems and use similar moral rules to solve them. As expected, these seven moral rules seem to be universal across cultures. Everywhere, everyone shares a common moral code. Everyone agrees that cooperation, the promotion of the common good, is the right thing to do. According to co-author Professor Harvey Whitehouse, anthropologists are uniquely positioned to answer long-standing questions about moral universals and moral relativism. „Our study was based on historical descriptions of cultures from around the world; This data was collected before and independently of the development of the theories we tested. Future work will test finer predictions of the theory by collecting new data even more systematically in the field. If enough people think something is moral, they will work to have a law that prohibits it and punishes those who do, or, in other words, if there is a law that says it is wrong and illegal to do X, and enough people no longer agree with it, then these people will work on it.

to amend this Act. Commonly listed moral values are: acceptance; charity; compassion; cooperation; courage; reliability; take due account of the feelings, rights, traditions and desires of others; empathy; equality; fairness; loyalty; forgiveness; generosity; Bring joy; good sportsmanship; gratitude; hard work; humility; integrity; justice; Keeping your promises; user-friendliness; Love; loyalty; do not cheat; not to hurt others; patience; persistence; courtesy; reliability; respect; respect for the dignity and freedom of others; accountability; self-control; self-discipline; Service; Share; teamwork; tell the truth; tolerance; treat others as you wish to be treated; reliability; volunteer for the community; etc. Thank you for this bold declaration of universal morality! If we equate morality with cooperation, then it extends immediately beyond humans to all cooperative species on this or another planet. In a sense, I`m comfortable with this ultra-general definition of morality. He explains, for example, why humans so often treat individual organisms (as a harmonious society of cells) and social colonies of insects (as a harmonious society of individual insects) as moral ideals that human societies can emulate. If cooperation is the main criterion of morality, then these societies are MORE moral than human societies! Of course, kinship altruism is important for humans (and for all animals!) Cooperation and we could define kinship altruism as part of morality. The question is whether this is the most useful definition for understanding morality as a matter of science, for resolving moral disputes, and for refining cultural moral codes to best meet human needs and preferences. Can people in hierarchies be exploited (treated unfairly)? Sure. For me, the morality of hierarchies is a mature field for exploration in the science of morality. In other words, how can we obtain the increased benefits of the hierarchies of cooperation that we allow without that cooperation being destroyed by exploitation? To David Sloan Wilson: I totally agree with your comments on the list. What a horror to think that a child should reciprocate to a pedophile who gave him a toy. What a horror! There are very serious gaps in this list.

And so there is a common core of universal moral principles. Morality is always and everywhere a cooperative phenomenon. And everyone agrees that cooperation, the promotion of the common good, is the right thing to do. Appreciating this fundamental fact about human nature could help promote mutual understanding between people from different cultures, thus helping to make the world a better place. For what it`s worth, six months after the original publication: I don`t agree with Oliver Scott Curry in this description of morality. Morality is not a set of cooperative qualities. Morality is a system of collective behavior that allows for human forms of cooperation. I agree with Mark Sloan that mutualism and kinship altruism are suspect here because they are already evolutionarily stable. These behaviors exist in other animals such as social insects.

Why are human forms of cooperation so different from other animals? Humans have a moral system and other animals do not. .