[Doggler]

Originally Posted by randilover

Cool that someone else jumped in here.

Sorry I missed it up to this point!

Originally Posted by randilover

I'm going to take a step back because you jumped right over something. Why would would man #2, the first rescued, feel inclined to save #1 rescuer when he was in trouble? What is it in that #2 that instigates him to reciprocate?

It may have started as an instinct, a genetic mutation, or simply an understanding that his well-being depends greatly on the other mans well-being. This is hardly unique to humans. Why to animals such as elephants, gazelles, wolves, travel in packs? They understand that their chances of survival are greater when they work together than if they don't. Call it an instinct or a desire, I don't know if it much matters as we exhibit the same behavior as these animals.

Originally Posted by randilover

But it doesn't explain the desire, as that desire is something separate from instinct, which we all have. See, you have this above scenario as an example. When the first man is on his way and hears the second calling for help, he's confronted with 2 options. Run (save himself) or help the other (save someone else). Herd instinct might be what causes him to feel a desire to help, but that is quite different than the feeling you ought to help whether you want to or not (which we can all atest to feeling), and which our test subject would feel. Now, this third pressure, something that is separate from the other 2 options, this will tell him to suppress the first instinct and act on the second. We would call this good behavior if he submits to the impulse not to run and help his buddy.

I'd like to think that a large part of that is simply empathy. Empathy is a feeling. Feelings have their roots in instincts...heck, the line between instincts and feelings is itself quite blurry.

Originally Posted by randilover

Now, you may counter that this third impulse it just another instinct. But that is a problem, because instincts are neutral. They are neither good nor bad. We should be able to point to some impulse inside that is what we call good, and that never points to any one thing, it is separate. You can never call any of your instincts bad and others good. If we take something like patriotism or mother-love are good instincts, versus fighting or sexual instinct, which are bad, all you are saying is that the impulse to suppress the later two are more frequent. But you also have to suppress the other two as over mothering or being overly patriotic can also have bad effects.

So I would assert the thing that we call good and bad, fairness, the Law of Human Nature is not instinct. Evolution can not really explain it.

Sorry, I'm not really sure if I'm following you here? Can you try again for the slow guy? ;)

I would venture to say that I'm not all that sold on 'good' and 'bad'. Sure, things are good/bad relative to other things (i.e. a Hurricane is bad for most residents of the affected area but good for the flashlight and plywood industry)...here we venture into moral relativism vs. moral absolutism. Is patriotism a 'good' trait?