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Sunday-School Morality

Where, in American culture, is the domain of knowledge that we would identify as morality studied and taught?

I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality that will make it possible for us to live together on this planet in a more harmonious manner our technology will help us to destroy the species and perhaps the planet soon.

It seems to me that we have given the subject matter of morality primarily over to religion. It also seems to me that if we ask the question ‘why do humans treat one another so terribly?’ we will find the answer in this moral aspect of human culture.

The ‘man of maxims’ “is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. George Eliot The Mill on the Floss

We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school. Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.

We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school.


What is wrong with Sunday School? It is a personal choice if we chose to attend it, and not replace the Bible with science. Is your question about morality within the parameters of religion? An analysis of morality, how would you conduct this, without having some bias in one direction or the other? Morality means many things to different people.

chonsigirl;1025477 wrote: What is wrong with Sunday School? It is a personal choice if we chose to attend it, and not replace the Bible with science. Is your question about morality within the parameters of religion? An analysis of morality, how would you conduct this, without having some bias in one direction or the other? Morality means many things to different people.


You are correct. Morality has never been studied in a systematic and rational manner and it is something that is badly needed. Humanity’s greatest failure is our inability to live together in harmony. Before we had such powerful technology we could not kill one another in sufficient numbers to stop the survival of the species but those days are over.

I think that we must no longer leave such matters to religion and must develop a scientific effort or suffer the consequences.

Than you must use the principals of the social sciences to do that. But I still think it will be very difficult, without preconceived biases about morality to begin with. As a historian who uses the social sciences to analyze past civilizations, it is very hard to keep modern age ideas, our own environment, and other issues out of an analysis. And it is always subject to revision-can morality be redefined throughout the generations in such a manner, or is there one underlying basis of it?

How would you begin to define morality, norms, etc.?

chonsigirl;1025703 wrote: Than you must use the principals of the social sciences to do that. But I still think it will be very difficult, without preconceived biases about morality to begin with. As a historian who uses the social sciences to analyze past civilizations, it is very hard to keep modern age ideas, our own environment, and other issues out of an analysis. And it is always subject to revision-can morality be redefined throughout the generations in such a manner, or is there one underlying basis of it?

How would you begin to define morality, norms, etc.?


I shall have to delay any definition of morality, norms, and etc for awhile because I am in the very early stages of studying this matter.

I am studying "The Sense of Beauty" by George Santayana, "Moral Imagination" by Mark Johnson, and "Art and Visual Perception" by Rudolf Arnheim. I have discovered that the study of values, morality is a species of value, has led me into a study of visual perception, the meaning of 'meaning', and the science of art.

The study of psychology and cognitive science has provided a foundation for this effort.

You will have many groups to study, and I would suggest primary sources themselves, rather than other's opinions on them. That is when true science is put to work, with original research. You will also need to broaden you background in the social sciences, to include anthropology, history, etc. Psychology alone cannot define morality, but you need to view the whole picture.

When recreating an event in the past, I draw on all sources available. This includes oral histories from living descendants themselves. Since I write on a culture that is not my own, I need to utilize as many viewpoints as possible to write an unbiased review.

One of the problems with dealing with the social sciences, you have to start with a thesis to begin with. That concept alone sets up a bias on how the material will be reviewed and elaborated on, even if it is a revision of a past opinion. That would require a parameter shift in how to present your ideas. A unique concept to begin with, but one to think about.

*off topic*

Oh, and I am off to Sunday School and church in a few-that is why I responded to your post.

In order to actually put forward any kind of moral code that you don't define as being purely subjective, you will need to somehow prove the existance of an overarching objective -source- for the morals you espouse.

This is why things like religions tend to be most people's basic source for morality. They can tell you their moral code has objective basis by pointing to the claim that the world was created by God who set down certain rules that He has communicated to humanity. That's the basis of the 'why should I?' of following a religious code of morals.

If you want to try and create a moral code that doesn't make appeals to the rules set down by a creator being, your difficulty is in answering the 'why should I?' of your moral code. Science has traditionally not been involved in morality because simply, morals cannot be scientifically deduced and concluded.

You will -always- have to simply set down some basic rules that must be accepted by people, functionally on faith, or by basic appeals to the idea that if everyone accepts a given rule, say "Killing people is wrong" that they will be better off both individually and as a group than by not accepting that maxim.

I feel that you could never actually prove in a lab that any act or thought or concept of morality was "correct" or "incorrect" for much the same reason that you could never scientifically prove that chocolate is the best flavour of ice cream.

Devonin;1027542 wrote:

I feel that you could never actually prove in a lab that any act or thought or concept of morality was "correct" or "incorrect" for much the same reason that you could never scientifically prove that chocolate is the best flavour of ice cream.


You are correct; morality cannot be tested in the laboratory. Morality is about meaning and value and cannot be measured with calipers or scales.

You are correct; morality cannot be tested in the laboratory.


I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality


I'm seeing a bit of a contradiction here in your views, I'd appreciate it if you could reconcile them for me?

Morality cannot be developed scientifically and yet we need to develop a science of morality?

Devonin;1028579 wrote: I'm seeing a bit of a contradiction here in your views, I'd appreciate it if you could reconcile them for me?

Morality cannot be developed scientifically and yet we need to develop a science of morality?


This is another indication of how our educational system has failed us. Such an important concept as ‘science’ has so many different comprehensions of its meaning that one must give it a definition when it is used.

In this case I use the word 'science' to mean a systematic and disciplined empirical study of a domain of knowledge.

So, because you feel a word is ambiguous, the education system has failed us? I utterly cannot see how a criticism of the english language's tendency for imprecision is somehow extendable to a condemnation of the education system.

Where I come from, you say what you mean simply for the clarity of communication. If you are going to -use- a word that has multiple meanings, it is a failing of your own attempt at communication to not specify which one you mean, not a failing of our education for lacking the psychic powers to divine which exact version of a world with multiple meanings you are using.

As to the response:

In this case I use the word 'science' to mean a systematic and disciplined empirical study of a domain of knowledge.In that case...guess what, I see in inherant contradiction in your statements. You're -still- saying that morality needs to be developed in quote 'a systematic and disciplined empirical study' and at the same time insisting that it 'cannot be tested in the laboratory...it cannot be measured with calipers and scales'

So which is it? Do we build your moral code scientifically, applying the processes and techniques of science, or is morality not something that can be tested for using scientific techniques and processes?