a discussion of ethics/moral without a religious basis

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the things that happens in any discussion of ethics and/or
morals, is this question of justification....

how do we ''know'' that any certain action is actually ethical, moral?

let us look at the 10 commandments... without any religious context...

let us go the big one first, thou shall not kill....
on what basis can we justify that commandment? On its own terms...
think about it... that is a very good rule in life... thou shall not kill anybody,
is a good rule regardless of whether it comes from the bible or not...
we can create dozens of excellent reasons for us to follow this rule..
and not one needs to be religious...this is a good rule to follow whether we
are religious or not....

or how about another religious rule.. thou shall not steal...
I find this to be a really good rule... the religious context is irrelevant
for this rule to work....we can refuse to steal and still be free of religious
context..

so we have two commandments that have no need of any religious context
to work...for our society, or any society for that matter, to work,
we cannot have random murders or stealing... after a time,
the society/state will collapse from such actions...as our society
is reeling and seems to be on the verge of collapse...
the way to end this is to simply obey such simple rules..
and good rules they are, regardless of their religious context or not...
what about the other rules? thou shall not commit adultery...
that is another excellent rule to follow, regardless of its religious
context or not... the thing about these rules is that by breaking
them, one is destabilizing the society/state...
enough stealing or murder or adultery, the society itself becomes
destabilized... we must trust that the society/state around us
will be stable enough for us to make our own plans and ideas
realizable...an unstable society/state prevents us from having
any faith or trust in that society/state... and that mistrust
prevents us from being able to carry out our plans and designs
in our life.....take this example, let us say you mistrust your mate,
your spouse... how would that impact your ability to function in
a relationship with your spouse if you don't trust them?
a great deal... the entire basis of a relationship is based on trust,
both in relationships and within a society/state....just like a marriage,
any relationship that has no trust, has no future... and that is true
in a society/or state...and murder, stealing and adultery prevents us
from having trust or faith in a state/society/relationship....

so, what of the other rules?

remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy...
or thou shall not have any other gods before me,
or thou shall not take the lord name in vain...
honor thy father and mother...

outside of a religious basis, these rules don't have any real basis for
existing... and we should consider removing them from our society...
unless, unless we think about them metaphorically...
thou shall not have any god before me... might also be a reminder that
we shouldn't put money or fame or titles or materials possessions before
us... those trinkets have nothing to offer us and by following them,
we threaten both our mental health and our societies/state health....
to put greed and lust and hate and all the other negative values
and beliefs before us, is to ask for deep problems within both ourselves
and our society....

or perhaps not the take the lords name in vain.... perhaps we can use
that to think about our words more closely... we can harm, indeed we
can severely damage people with our words if we are not careful...
to think of this commandment is to think about our use of words
and how they can impact, positively or negatively people....
we tend to be very casual about the use of words in regards to people...
whereas we can hurt, damage people, even those we love by our
harmful use of words.... and this are very good examples of what we
should do anyway, regardless of the religious context... we should heed
our words more closely... and wise words for us in terms of our relationships
with other individuals and the society/state....

so, the 10 commandments are not just religious text, but gives us an excellent
example of what actions we can take... or said another way,
the path to being a moral person can be done without being religious,
by following the 10 commandments without the religious context...
we can be moral and not pray to god... and that maybe the greatest
test of all.. to understand that morality/ethics don't need a religious
context to be excellent ideas to follow...

thou shall not kill... and our society, indeed all society/states would
be better off without this need to kill..... and that commandment stands
outside of a religious context and is an excellent idea to follow...for all of us...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we have random, out of context statements like,

"Murder is wrong"

but why? and define Murder, what exactly is Murder? and what about
the word "wrong", what is wrong and why? It leads us to a series of questions
that we don't seem to have answers for.... but that is taking the idea of Murder
and linking it to a verbal understanding... we are looking to use words to
describe Murder.. when Murder itself is not words, but is an action...
How does a words, tell us about an action? He hit the woman...
without any context, this sentence has no real meaning...He, who is he,
hit, hit in what context, the woman, who was the women and why, why
did he hit the woman? One possible context is that the man and the women
are training partners in Judo and were practicing.. and now, now the context
of the action, he hit a woman, makes sense... the why in this case is just
as important as the context...and then we take it one step further
and ask, what are the consequences of this act, of him hitting a woman...
the two were training and so, now he has practice in hitting a woman and
she has practice in being hit.. and with each practice, they become more
proficient in Judo... and that is the point.... the answer lies in the
consequences... they are training to be better at Judo... and during the
practice, they will make mistakes and in fact, hit each other...
but without context, this makes no sense...
but in the end, with practice, they will become able to engage
in Judo and be able to defend themselves.... which is the point of Judo...
if we think of the end results, or the consequences, we have a much
better sense of what happens and why...

so, let us return to the act of Murder....
why is Murder wrong? One of the consequences of Murder is that each
Murder causes chaos and disruption of the state/the society...
Murder isn't an isolated event, separate and apart from our state or
society... Look at the Murder of George Floyd... look at the consequences
of that act...and then we can further look at the consequences of those
BLM marches.... actions have consequences... and no matter how hard we try,
to avoid consequences and try to plan out possible consequences,
quite often the consequence for our actions will be unpredictable and chaotic...
and that is why Murder is wrong... the action is wrong because of the consequences...
with each Murder, we create chaos and disorder within a society/state...
regardless, if that is our goal or not...

look to the consequences of an action to see how valid that action is...
for example, take stealing.. in my store, I see it all the time, I don't
mind if it is food, I get that, but the most stolen merchandise is booze
and makeup products... and what is the consequences of all that stealing?
Higher prices for everyone, greater and greater security which interferes with
everyone.. my chain in now putting in large scale security actions...
they have locked up anything that is small and of value, they have
someone walk the booze section pretty much from 4 in the morning
to 8 at night...and they are building barricades and barriers to prevent
stealing in high theft areas, like self-checkout....with the new thought
as to begin to check out all receipts to see if the customer has actually
brought that item or items... I see these actions as draconian, but given
that in every store, we have roughly a million dollars' worth of goods
be stolen every years, what other choice do the corporation have?
if enough items is stolen, the corporation could go out of business..
That is one possible consequence of this widespread stealing...

to steal, even one product, causes chaos and disorder within the system of
capitalism....actions have consequences... and it is there that we can
quite often decide if an action is right or wrong... we cannot survive
in a system in which people can steal without consequences.. that is
asking for such chaos and disorder within a system, as to demand that
system collapses... for in any system, too much disorder and chaos
and the system potentially can collapse...
and stealing creates chaos and disorder within corporations....
threating them with collapse...

but one might say, if I don't steal, I will and my family will starve to death...
and that is quite possible, but then how does stealing booze and makeup
help you in that regard?

the rule of consequences helps us understand why stealing is wrong,
but to some, that doesn't even matter....in every society/state, we
have a certain percentage that doesn't give a shit about the state/society...
one might be able to make the argument that up to 20% of everyone is
literally a psychopath in this regards... if you truly don't care about anyone
else, that is the walking definition of a psychopath...
if your only concern is yourself and no one else, you are a psychopath...
if you say, I hope the society and state burns to the ground without
any regard to the people within that society or state, you are a,
yep, you guessed it, a psychopath...to have no empathy for anyone
is a mental illness... we see this with IQ45 and his followers...they lack
empathy for anyone outside of themselves.... people who are starving
or homeless, they don't care... it isn't their problem... for to care
about others is ''WOKE" and they have said that much...
to have empathy for others is ''WOKE" and undesirable..
but the fact is that having no empathy for others is
being a psychopath..

again, let us start from the top.. human beings are social creatures..
that we cannot, cannot survive without the help from others is
a biological fact... we need others as much as we need ourselves...
we cannot meet our goals or needs or desires without others..
we cannot find love or safety/security or esteem or food or water
or education, without others... as human beings, we have certain
biological needs which can only be met by other human beings....
needs that we cannot force or make others to tend to us by
force... our needs must be meet voluntarily by others...once again,
think about our actions having consequences... trying to force others
to love us or care about us, never works...it leads to hate,
resentment and anger...and those are certainly undesirable goals...
the true psychopath has no care that others likes them or they like
others... the rules of being human, that we need each other to
survive and to meet our needs, is ignored by the psychopath...
enough psychopaths in a society/state and the state/society
will collapse.... for the very survival of the human race depends on
having enough people to have empathy for others to keep the
society/state alive... another way to think about this is that
a society/state can survive by having most of the state/society
individuals being empathic toward others...but the state/society
cannot go on or survive if most of its citizens are psychopaths with
no empathy towards others..

and all of this is tied into our discussions about what ethics/morals are
in a no-god world... but Kropotkin, empathy is an emotion
and ethics/morals are not emotions? Are you sure about that?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so we have what we know to be Kantian questions...
among them are: "what am I to hope for?" "what can I know"
and the one I am concerned with today, "what am I to do?"
and therein lies the question of ethics/morals...

a man alone has no need for ethics or morality... he is alone...
there is also no need for political science or economics or
history...a man alone, a man without a society or state has
no need for these things... every single vision of humanity requires
a vision of us together, not alone or apart from each other...

and the question of ''what am I to do?" also has an ethical, moral
reality to it.. for it is for my own benefit to exists within a stable,
organized, society/state.. for we human beings, by being animal,
we must engage with meeting our own needs, be it physical or
spiritual or psychological...I have spoken of the physical and
psychological needs before.. but what are the spiritual needs?

that of connection.... we must feel connected to others..
to be alienated or disconnected from others is a very serious state for
a human being to be in...those who feel disconnected or alienated from
others/and/or the society often are the ones who kill themselves or commit
crimes or find repose in the bottle or drugs... it is the connections we have with
others that keep us sane and alive....and allowing us to move from animal to
animal/human to finally becoming fully human...

and part of that connection we have with others lie in our relationship
we have with others and that relationship is called morals, ethics....
if I treat others as a means to an end, that is called "immoral" and
rightfully so.... to treat human beings as a means to achieve profits is
ethically wrong....to treat humans as a means to achieve our "worker state"
is morally wrong... to constantly take from others, to take time, or love
or connections to ourselves and not give back, is morally wrong...
or to say it another way... we connect best when we have a two way
street with others.. when we connect both ways... to others and from
others...and every single relationship we have in life, be it with the one,
the spouse or child, to being within the relationships we have with the
state or society... are built on us taking and us giving... a one way
relationship that only takes or only gives, will eventually fail...
someone will get bored and leave...a person who only takes from the
state or the society, must learn to give back as well... and why?
Because a society/state that only gives, will soon run out of
the things we need from a society/state.... and what does a state/society
need the most from a person? that of energy... to put energy into
a state or society is what keeps the society/ state moving....
if we do not put time, money or effort into a society/state,
soon the state/society dies from lack of energy...
basically, we starve it to death... that is the reason for the death
of the pagan religions of old, of Greece and of Rome... there was
no more energy put into the old religions and they died of entropy...
a lack of energy... think of the last person who prayed to the gods of
old... not just prayed but put energy and time into that religion...
and then he died... and with that the old religion passed into history...
for example, take Zoroastrianism..... which lasted for over 500 years
and the religion of choice in Ancient Persia.. and who remembers
Zoroaster/''Zarathustra'' today?

the history of the world is littered with the various comings and goings
of various religions... and what drove a religion to become? energy
and time spent on that religion and what ended a religion?
no more adherents spending effort or time with that religion...

and now we can see the history of ism's and ideologies...
the ism's or ideologies that survived are the ones that
people are willing to devote time, money and effort to...
and the ism's that fail? they fail due to the lack of effort or
energy put into them......

and we suddenly see the crisis in America becoming clear...
we are in crisis because of the loss of energy and effort
being put back into America... this loss of energy and effort
comes in several different forms.. the constant attack on taxes
is one such effort to destroy America... money is needed to
uphold and maintain the state... a weak or failed state means
the society has failed....the two, the state and the society, must
be connected together... a strong state means we can have a strong
society....a weak state means the society itself is weak....

and the loss of America beliefs and values... for example, it was believed
that freedom was a very important American value.. but not today...
freedom is devalued and replaced by the value of the almighty dollar...

think of it this way... if we are spending time and effort on making
money, what is left over for America itself? what time or effort is being
spent on American values or the understanding of those values?

we only have so much time and effort... and what should we spend that
time and effort on greatly impacts the state and the society.......
and my arguments have always been that our emphasis on the economics,
has damaged other important aspects of being human.. and one of
those aspects of being human is ethics and morals...

the act of trying to make money/profits has damaged America in terms
of our putting time and energy into making America a better place to live....
which a far better place to put our time and effort/resources into....
and this understanding is true of ethics and morals too.... if we are putting
our time and effort into making money, then what time or effort/energy are
we putting into becoming ethical, moral people?
it is one or the other......and I say, alone, perhaps, that we should
be putting our energy and effort into becoming moral/ethical people
and not in making money or seeking profits...

for money, the money itself comes and goes... I have had money before,
a fair amount and then it was gone.. money as a resource, comes and goes...
it is temporary, finite.. indeed, one could make the argument that money
is an illusion... that it has no factual basis in reality...because what value
we see or get from money is an idea or image we see in our head,
that there is no reality to money outside of what reality we give it...

but becoming a moral, ethical person, that is not a temporary, ''ad hoc"
value.... being a moral, ethical person can last to the very moment I die...
and what permanence it has, comes to me in being there until that very last
moment...or said another way, morals, ethics has more permanence and value
than money does... now this is true if, if we grant the argument that
morals, values are the same since the beginning of time, to the end of time..
via Christian values... but I have argued that morals/ethics are ''ad hoc"
or situational ethics is the actually ethical theory we follow...
and even there, it has more value than money...

we hold as human beings, that material, tangible things, material
possessions have more value than intangible things, like love
and hope and care... but the truth is that the intangible things,
like ethics and morals, last far longer than any tangible/material
thing.. love the thing that all human beings have, is a love
that last forever.. the very feeling of love.. now what may be
individually loved might change but the feeling itself last forever...
I love my wife and I hope that never changes, but even if it did,
the feeling of love, regardless if the who I love changes.. from
my wife to another... the love itself remains.... at one point in time,
I loved another.. not named Pam... but that changed and now I love Pam..
but regardless of the name of the person, the very act of love itself remains...

and ethics and morals is a lot like love... the theory of ethics and morals
remains the same, but what is ethically right, morally wrong may change
but the idea of being ethical, moral remains... even if we engage
in situational ethics... the idea is that we remain ethical, even if
that specific ethical thing changes....just like love.... the one I love
might change, but the love remains the same....
and that is true of ethics and morals....

Kropotkin

[Age]

one of the things that happens in any discussion of ethics and/or
morals, is this question of justification....

how do we ''know'' that any certain action is actually ethical, moral?

VERY EASILY and VERY SIMPLY, as I keep SAYING and REPEATING here.

ANY behavior that is AGREED WITH and ACCEPTED by ALL as being GOOD or Right, and which one would want done to 'them' as young children is what IS ACTUALLY ethical, and/or moral.

How MANY TIMES do I have to KEEP SAYING 'this' BEFORE 'it' IS HEARD, and UNDERSTOOD.

There is NO USE in me reading the rest of what you wrote here BECAUSE 'you', among "others", OBVIOUSLY WILL NEVER even READ and REPLY to what I just SAID and WROTE here.

let us look at the 10 commandments... without any religious context...

let us go the big one first, thou shall not kill....
on what basis can we justify that commandment? On its own terms...
think about it... that is a very good rule in life... thou shall not kill anybody,
is a good rule regardless of whether it comes from the bible or not...
we can create dozens of excellent reasons for us to follow this rule..
and not one needs to be religious...this is a good rule to follow whether we
are religious or not....

or how about another religious rule.. thou shall not steal...
I find this to be a really good rule... the religious context is irrelevant
for this rule to work....we can refuse to steal and still be free of religious
context..

so we have two commandments that have no need of any religious context
to work...for our society, or any society for that matter, to work,
we cannot have random murders or stealing... after a time,
the society/state will collapse from such actions...as our society
is reeling and seems to be on the verge of collapse...
the way to end this is to simply obey such simple rules..
and good rules they are, regardless of their religious context or not...
what about the other rules? thou shall not commit adultery...
that is another excellent rule to follow, regardless of its religious
context or not... the thing about these rules is that by breaking
them, one is destabilizing the society/state...
enough stealing or murder or adultery, the society itself becomes
destabilized... we must trust that the society/state around us
will be stable enough for us to make our own plans and ideas
realizable...an unstable society/state prevents us from having
any faith or trust in that society/state... and that mistrust
prevents us from being able to carry out our plans and designs
in our life.....take this example, let us say you mistrust your mate,
your spouse... how would that impact your ability to function in
a relationship with your spouse if you don't trust them?
a great deal... the entire basis of a relationship is based on trust,
both in relationships and within a society/state....just like a marriage,
any relationship that has no trust, has no future... and that is true
in a society/or state...and murder, stealing and adultery prevents us
from having trust or faith in a state/society/relationship....

so, what of the other rules?

remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy...
or thou shall not have any other gods before me,
or thou shall not take the lord name in vain...
honor thy father and mother...

outside of a religious basis, these rules don't have any real basis for
existing... and we should consider removing them from our society...
unless, unless we think about them metaphorically...
thou shall not have any god before me... might also be a reminder that
we shouldn't put money or fame or titles or materials possessions before
us... those trinkets have nothing to offer us and by following them,
we threaten both our mental health and our societies/state health....
to put greed and lust and hate and all the other negative values
and beliefs before us, is to ask for deep problems within both ourselves
and our society....

or perhaps not the take the lords name in vain.... perhaps we can use
that to think about our words more closely... we can harm, indeed we
can severely damage people with our words if we are not careful...
to think of this commandment is to think about our use of words
and how they can impact, positively or negatively people....
we tend to be very casual about the use of words in regards to people...
whereas we can hurt, damage people, even those we love by our
harmful use of words.... and this are very good examples of what we
should do anyway, regardless of the religious context... we should heed
our words more closely... and wise words for us in terms of our relationships
with other individuals and the society/state....

so, the 10 commandments are not just religious text, but gives us an excellent
example of what actions we can take... or said another way,
the path to being a moral person can be done without being religious,
by following the 10 commandments without the religious context...
we can be moral and not pray to god... and that maybe the greatest
test of all.. to understand that morality/ethics don't need a religious
context to be excellent ideas to follow...

thou shall not kill... and our society, indeed all society/states would
be better off without this need to kill..... and that commandment stands
outside of a religious context and is an excellent idea to follow...for all of us...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

There are specific reasons why I don't converse with certain people..
and you are one of them.. and why?
Your ''answers" are so idiotic and simplistic, that an 8 year old would
be embarrassed to hold those ideas...let us look at one such answer

Kropotkin: ''how do we ''know'' that any certain action is actually ethical, moral? "

AGE: VERY EASILY and VERY SIMPLY, as I keep SAYING and REPEATING here.

ANY behavior that is AGREED WITH and ACCEPTED by ALL as being GOOD or Right, and which one would want done to 'them' as young children is what IS ACTUALLY ethical, and/or moral.

How MANY TIMES do I have to KEEP SAYING 'this' BEFORE 'it' IS HEARD, and UNDERSTOOD.

K: now, name me a "behavior" that is agreed with and accepted by all?
and I am not even talking about the second part of your statement,
about what we teach the children, but what behavior or value do
we know of, that is accepted by all..

simple enough question...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the questions of morality/ethics is this...

on what basis do we conceive of morality/ethics?

for example, if we accept the idea of a universal, overarching
morality, then do we fit, jam human beings into that universal,
overarching morality? or said another way, do we fit human beings
into a moral system, regardless of what they might individually
believe or do we create an ethical/moral system based on
what we know man/human beings to be... do we fit the ethical system
into the man or do we fit the human being into the ethical system?

the ethics/moral system today, fits the man, the human being into
the ethical system... it doesn't matter what the human being believes
in, because they have to adjust to the system, and in the other way,
the system fits into what human beings are/believe in...
if we believe human beings to be evil, then we create a system
that mirrors that belief...if we hold that human beings are naturally
good, then we create or build a system that reflects that belief...

if we don't believe in what human beings hold to be true, then
regardless of what they believe in, they must fit into the
moral/ethical theory of the day....

from a society's standpoint, it is far easier to fit people into
a system than adapt the system to the people...
no matter what we privately believe in, we get crammed
into a system that forces us to hold ''public'' values or
morals... I may privately disagree with abortion, but
the system couldn't care less about that... one view fits all...
and that is what morality and ethics mean today...
one ethical theory fits everyone...

but is that true?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Now we consider another aspect of ethics/morals...
that of needs...

we human beings have needs... of food, water, shelter, health care,
education.... and we have psychological needs of love, esteem,
safety/security, of a sense of belonging....

much of our morals/ethics clash is with our bodily needs....
I need to feed my family so I go out and steal food from Kropotkin's
store.. stealing is considered wrong and yet, I am stealing to feed my
family... which as I have stated before, I can understand.. I get that..
but most people don't steal food, they steal booze.....

I can at least create a justification for stealing food, but
at no point can I create a justification for stealing booze...

the question of morals comes down to, perhaps, the question of
morals vs our needs... I need money, so I steal it...
Now the question becomes, is your need for money outweigh ethical, moral
considerations? is our needs more compelling than being moral or ethical?
and for most people who steal for example, their own personal needs outweigh
the needs of the society or other individuals within that society....

and how can we justify that? on what ground/basis can we say that the
individual needs outweigh the needs of the society or a group within
that society/state?

the very basis of crime is on this very point...where my needs outweigh
the society needs....and then who is right? is the individual needs outweigh
the society or a group needs within the society?

I cannot see any religious basis in this discussion of needs.... who needs
are greater, the individual or the group/society?

so we remain on secular grounds in this discussion.... the Buddhist claim
that because of needs, we live a unhappy life... needs are what drive
discontentment in our life.... if we remove our needs (which we
have a hard time disconnecting from our wants, which is quite different
than our needs.. I want something is far different than I need something)

one might say, I am stealing that big screen TV because I "need" that
tv... nah, that is a want, not a need...and perhaps on that basis we
can begin to understand ethics/morals... the want vs the needs...
I want a new car, so I steal it.... but do I need a new car, is a new
car a bodily need, is wanting a new car even a psychological need?
I suspect much of what we consider to be wants/needs are
really just our ego acting up... my ego wants a new car to get respect...
vs I need a new car to get to work and make money to pay for my
family needs.....

in this question of needs and wants, much of it is driven by ego....
and now we are talking about psychology... the unconscious mind
acting on us...the ego driving us into taking actions that are immoral
or illegal...I am willing to bet that ego drive as much immorality
and unethical actions as anything else... to seem like a "big shot"
I commit crimes... against individuals, the state, groups within a state
(Corporations and the like)...... and therein lies the ego of
ethics/morality...

so to think about this... we have needs, we have wants
and we have ego, three aspects of morals and ethics...
a man who kills his wife for cheating on him, is ego at work,
pure and simple...no one cheats on me... that is an ego driven
statement...

and clearly thinking about this, ego driven beliefs drives as
much crime as needs and wants...so, if we become aware
of our ego, we can, in theory, reduce the crime rate in America...

but psychologically, we can be driven into committing other immoral
or unethical act... we can commit immoral acts of cheating on our
spouse because we were deprived of love as a child... that can be
one motivation of why we cheat on our spouse... as well as
cheating on our spouse by ego driven concerns... I can cheat
because I am above common concerns of the average person...
I am superior to the crowd and thus I am able to justify
cheating on my wife... that is an ego statement...
if it isn't about needs or want, it is about ego...
now one might ask, isn't wants about ego/
it seems to me that ego is a greater topic and wants
are a subtopic within ego....

so, we can think about ethics and morality as being a
question about needs, wants and ego....

Kropotkin

[Lacewing]

The capacity for (and quality of) ethics and morality seems to be built-into each person... perhaps from birth... to varying degrees, which may or may not be teachable or expandable.

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

[Skepdick]

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

Which isn't an entirely useful thing to say.

Some times flexible wiring helps adaptation.
Some times flexible wiring undermines fitness.

[Lacewing]

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

Which isn't an entirely useful thing to say.

Some times flexible wiring helps adaptation.
Some times flexible wiring undermines fitness.

Oh thank you for clarifying what is 'useful to say' as only you can do.

[Skepdick]

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

Which isn't an entirely useful thing to say.

Some times flexible wiring helps adaptation.
Some times flexible wiring undermines fitness.

Oh thank you for clarifying what is 'useful to say' as only you can do.

I didn't clarify what's useful.

I pointed out that being flexible at a time it would undermine evolutionary fitness is NOT useful.

[Lacewing]

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

Which isn't an entirely useful thing to say.

Some times flexible wiring helps adaptation.
Some times flexible wiring undermines fitness.

Oh thank you for clarifying what is 'useful to say' as only you can do.

I didn't clarify what's useful.
I pointed out that being flexible at a time it would undermine evolutionary fitness is NOT useful.

Got it!

[Age]

The capacity for (and quality of) ethics and morality seems to be built-into each person... perhaps from birth... to varying degrees, which may or may not be teachable or expandable.

People appear to see the world as they are wired to see it, and their ability to adapt or evolve depends on the flexibility of their wiring.

Here we have ANOTHER example of WHEN one is ASSUMING or BELIEVING some 'thing' is true, and HOW 'this' affects and DISTORTS what appears to to 'them' to be true.

[Age]

Which isn't an entirely useful thing to say.

Some times flexible wiring helps adaptation.
Some times flexible wiring undermines fitness.

Oh thank you for clarifying what is 'useful to say' as only you can do.

I didn't clarify what's useful.

I pointed out that being flexible at a time it would undermine evolutionary fitness is NOT useful.

But you NEVER 'pointed out' ANY such 'thing'. you just EXPRESSED a BELIEF of yours here.

WHEN would there be 'a time's that 'being flexible' would, supposedly and allegedly, 'undermine evolutionary fitness'?

[Skepdick]

WHEN would there be 'a time's that 'being flexible' would, supposedly and allegedly, 'undermine evolutionary fitness'?

Easy! Whenever (that means "any time") being flexible undermines evolutionary fitness!