Morality Apart from Religion?

[CorSec]

I just happened across this excerpt from Drs. Sagan and Ann Druyan's book. I haven't finished Demon Haunted World and I already have my next "assignment".

"Humans who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them -- without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.

In the annals of primate ethics, there are some accounts that have the ring of parable. In a laboratory setting, macaques were fed if they were willing to pull a chain and electrically shock an unrelated macaque whose agony was in plain view through a one-way mirror. Otherwise, they starved. After learning the ropes, the monkeys frequently refused to pull the chain; in one experiment only 13% would do so 87% preferred to go hungry. One macaque went without food for nearly two weeks rather than hurt its fellow. Macaques who had themselves been shocked in previous experiments were even less willing to pull the chain. The relative social status or gender of the macaques had little bearing on their reluctance to hurt others.

If asked to choose between the human experimenters offering the macaques this Faustian bargain and the macaques themselves suffering from real hunger rather than causing pain to others our own moral sympathies do not lie with the scientists. But their experiments permit us to glimpse in non-humans a saintly willingness to make sacrifices in order to save others even those who are not close kin. By conventional human standards, these macaques who have never gone to Sunday school, never heard of the Ten Commandments, never squirmed through a single junior high school civics lesson seem exemplary in their moral grounding and their courageous resistance to evil. Among these macaques, at least in this case, heroism is the norm. If the circumstances were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well? (Especially when there is an authority figure urging us to administer the electric shocks, we humans are disturbingly willing to cause pain and for a reward much more paltry than food is for a starving macaque (cf. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Overview). In human history there are a precious few whose memory we revere because they knowingly sacrificed themselves for others. For each of them, there are multitudes who did nothing."

For comparison, one can find pull quotes of S. Milgram's study at his website.

[ArmorPierce]

Good. Just more proof that morality is not derived from religion.

[Darth Wong]

Simple morality is not derived from religion.

However, all of that weird inexplicable bullshit that some people call morality such as "sexual desire is sinful" or "not believing in my imaginary deity in the sky is evil" does come from religion.

[ArmorPierce]

Yeah, what I meant common sense morality. Wrong to kill people, wrong to hurt people, etc

[CorSec]

It's nearly a black and white comparison when you set the two seperate stuides side by side.

On one hand, a healthy majority of the macaques were willing to go hungry rather than cause harm to one of their own.

In Milgram's study, people could be coerced into shocking another person. The coercion was coming from someone perceived to be in authority. A person in another room was cued as to when a 'shock' was being administered.

The idea that monkeys can be more humane than humans may not be definitive, but it is at least interesting.

Anecdotal of nothing, but intriguing to me, is that I read about Koko and her companions. Not only does Koko know ~2000 ASL (modified), she also has real feelings, as evidenced by her behaviour after her Alpha (named Mike) died.

Without religion to tell me that I'm better (different, set apart, superior) than animals, I am free to see how much in common I have with the animals (by the same token, how much they have in common with me). But anecdotal evidence from the various pet dogs could or should have convinced me of that long ago.

Life, all of it, is not so simple as to be confined by religion (unless, of course, your religion is life).