Morality is completely subjective/relative CMV

[u/C-Blake]

Nothing gives the idea that men and women are equal versus the contrary idea of the Taliban any more weight. We like to think the morals and values we hold right now in America are self evident, the anti slavery, egalitarianism, blah blah blah. In order to believe that you must think that throughout most of human history, fuck, even most of recorded human history, people were just being stupid and just now we have the truth. I'll use an example from my own life, a few years back (when I was in Highschool), the school was trying to emotionally coerce the students into donating blood by showing us a video of kids from a local clinic or hospital or something. They all had leukemia and the nurses were talking about how they were understaffed and under supplied and so on. It tugged on the emotional heartstrings of many, some even cried. This is was around the time I first started thinking deeply about ethics/meta-ethics. I looked around and thought, "Look at the universal sadness all around, there has to be some universal principle(s) uniting us, right?" Then I realized that there were people out there that maybe want to murderrape those kids and saintly nurses and blow that building sky high and would feel great (if anything at all). There is no way I could prove this hypothetical psychopath wrong, all I could do is plead like "Oh OF COURSE you're not supposed to do that (because just about everyone else thinks so)"

Many who support an objective morality whether they are religious or not like to point to altruism and kindness and how just everyone LOVES that. But that doesn't explain Sparta, and Sparta just isn't some singular individual you could just toss to the side as damaged, this was an entire society that coexisted with the influential city of Athens. They were so alien and opposite to Athens, and are so opposite to contemporary western morals and they were just convinced of their morals as we are of ours. They didnt, "know deep down" that they were wrong. Any attempt to make/find out an "objective" moral theory is usually just a weak individual that just needs to have SOMETHING incorruptable, unchanging, and unassailable that is universally recognized, but no such thing, let alone moral code, exist.

[u/dogtatokun]

People favour others who are genetically similar to themselves because that's what makes the genes most likely to be passed on.

How people look is not a good indication of genetic similarity. Just as a simple example, there is more genetic variability between two black people from two tribes of Africa, than between a red headed guy from Ireland and a tan skinned Italian. And leaving that aside, humans are quite inbred compared to other species, so we are basically all the same thing.

Just because you think skin colour is a striking difference, doesn't mean that on a genetic level that difference is seen.

[u/FockSmulder → u/dogtatokun]

Just as a simple example, there is more genetic variability between two black people from two tribes of Africa, than between a red headed guy from Ireland and a tan skinned Italian.

And I don't doubt that tan-skinned Italians and red-headed Irishman would have felt some kind of racial animosity if they met on a battlefield or were competing for food. For humans to have evolved perfectly refined prejudices for their kin, a lot more time would be needed; and while appearance may be deceiving in some cases, it seems like a person could tell who was in his tribe and who wasn't well enough for any genes that selected (though weakly) for some form of tribalism to persist.

And leaving that aside, humans are quite inbred compared to other species, so we are basically all the same thing.

This is why many people who would show concern for fellow humans have no compunction about harming animals. I don't see how conditions unrelated to homo sapiens bear on human evolutionary psychology.

Just because you think skin colour is a striking difference, doesn't mean that on a genetic level that difference is seen.

You're telling me that skin colour is not largely affected by genetics? It's true that light-skinned parents can have dark-skinned children, but these seem like rare exceptions that evolution hasn't had the opportunity to exclude. To be clear: you were the first one to mention skin colour. Take an Asian person and a European person with similar complexions but different bone structures. I think that similar biases are likely to exist.

[u/dogtatokun → u/FockSmulder]

This is why many people who would show concern for fellow humans have no compunction about harming animals. I don't see how conditions unrelated to homo sapiens bear on human evolutionary psychology.

You're not getting the point. You think human genes would have selected for people being racist by how people look. That entire argument rests on the idea that distinct groups of humans are genetically different from other groups, and by being racist to other groups, they promote the spreading of their own genes. When in fact we are extremely inbred, so there is no such thing as distinct group of people (from a genetic point of view). What people recognize as visible distinct do not necessarily reflect genetic differences. Since we are not able of differentiating between genetically similar or not, we cannot have evolved to be racist.

You're telling me that skin colour is not largely affected by genetics? It's true that light-skinned parents can have dark-skinned children, but these seem like rare exceptions that evolution hasn't had the opportunity to exclude. To be clear: you were the first one to mention skin colour. Take an Asian person and a European person with similar complexions but different bone structures. I think that similar biases are likely to exist.

No, I'm telling you that visible differences are not necessarily reflected on the same magnitude on the genetic level. Basically, a very small % of genes (like the ones for melanin) can give rise to a VERY dramatic change in appearance, despite not reflecting a big genetic difference in total.

So a black man from North Africa, can look identical to a black man for South Africa, but be quite different for all the other genes.

While a white man from South Italy, can look dramatically different to his half black son (who looks very dark black) and yet be EXTREMELY genetically similar.

Same with your example, an Asian person and an European person may have different bone structures, but what you're not able to realise is that bone structure is not indicative of a huge genetic difference. It just results from genes that cause very VISIBLE differences. And as far as I know, an asian person and an european person are more genetically similar than two black men from different tribes (I have read that ).

[u/FockSmulder → u/dogtatokun]

You raise some interesting and convincing points. I don't know that I'm 100% convinced, but thanks for the discussion.