Sociopath Community

Hmm. Typically (and superficially) 'virtue' is thought to mean achieving moral excellence or 'good' but without an agreed upon starting point this can be answered from various perspectives. Are you asking about virtue from the personal, religious, community or philosophical ethics perspective?

I'll take the latter cos you like to roll around there, but I'm rusty. I essentially agree with the ancient Greeks (to some degree, although they don't (can't) account for evolutionary biology and it's role in this question, which I find more interesting). Eudaimonia, or well-being and happiness, is the ultimate goal of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite dispositions needed to attain it. But, eudaimonia is not the same as chasing joy, which is both subjective and fleeting. 

Eudaimonia is as an objective standard of contentment based on what it means to live life well. This matters because it leaves the question of whether living well is a choice based on an individual's action or reflective of an individual's innate character, or based on external rules. 

Suppose a person needs help. A consequentialist will point to the fact that the consequences of helping support well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, a person will be aligned with a shared moral rule such as “Do unto others” and a virtue ethicist would see that act as benevolent. I lean toward virtue being a mindset of overall benevolence.

 I like your response. 

MissCommunication said: 

I'll take the latter cos you like to roll around there, but I'm rusty. I essentially agree with the ancient Greeks (to some degree, although they don't (can't) account for evolutionary biology and it's role in this question, which I find more interesting).

I wanted to merely note that the Greeks starting with Anaximander in ~600BCE had theories of evolutionary biology and they were very common and some of them were not that different from our own in principal - this involved evolution of species beginning in the sea. Only Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Aristotle really deviated from this. The two former reject the idea of change in all respects, as such could not believe in a process of change such as biological evolution, and Aristotle focused on morphology reaching to become an idea, that is the ending is inherent to the beginning of any evolutionary process. The Greeks worked very hard on theories of change and were obsessed with cosmogony, much like ourselves, and evolutionary theories were really their bread and butter. 

AliceInWonderland said: 

 I like your response. 

MissCommunication said: 

I'll take the latter cos you like to roll around there, but I'm rusty. I essentially agree with the ancient Greeks (to some degree, although they don't (can't) account for evolutionary biology and it's role in this question, which I find more interesting).

I wanted to merely note that the Greeks starting with Anaximander in ~600BCE had theories of evolutionary biology and they were very common and some of them were not that different from our own in principal - this involved evolution of species beginning in the sea. Only Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Aristotle really deviated from this. The two former reject the idea of change in all respects, as such could not believe in a process of change such as biological evolution, and Aristotle focused on morphology reaching to become an idea, that is the ending is inherent to the beginning of any evolutionary process. The Greeks worked very hard on theories of change and were obsessed with cosmogony, much like ourselves, and evolutionary theories were really their bread and butter. 

 heraclitus believed in eternal becoming, not eternal being, heraclitus believed in eternal change

TPG said: 

AliceInWonderland said: 

 I like your response. 

MissCommunication said: 

I'll take the latter cos you like to roll around there, but I'm rusty. I essentially agree with the ancient Greeks (to some degree, although they don't (can't) account for evolutionary biology and it's role in this question, which I find more interesting).

I wanted to merely note that the Greeks starting with Anaximander in ~600BCE had theories of evolutionary biology and they were very common and some of them were not that different from our own in principal - this involved evolution of species beginning in the sea. Only Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Aristotle really deviated from this. The two former reject the idea of change in all respects, as such could not believe in a process of change such as biological evolution, and Aristotle focused on morphology reaching to become an idea, that is the ending is inherent to the beginning of any evolutionary process. The Greeks worked very hard on theories of change and were obsessed with cosmogony, much like ourselves, and evolutionary theories were really their bread and butter. 

 heraclitus believed in eternal becoming, not eternal being, heraclitus believed in eternal change

Yes, you are correct!  Heraclitus introduces eternal flux via opposition of primary opposites, as you say eternal becoming. 

Zeno is who I meant, Zenos paradox is a direct rejection of motion and thereby change. 

Thank you for the correction. 

AliceInWonderland said: 

 I like your response. 

Thanks. This is more your wheelhouse than mine so I'm interested in your thoughts. I admittedly have a rudimentary understanding - much of which I can't remember from my studies.

MissCommunication said: 

I'll take the latter cos you like to roll around there, but I'm rusty. I essentially agree with the ancient Greeks (to some degree, although they don't (can't) account for evolutionary biology and it's role in this question, which I find more interesting).

I wanted to merely note that the Greeks starting with Anaximander in ~600BCE had theories of evolutionary biology and they were very common and some of them were not that different from our own in principal - this involved evolution of species beginning in the sea. Only Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Aristotle really deviated from this. The two former reject the idea of change in all respects, as such could not believe in a process of change such as biological evolution, and Aristotle focused on morphology reaching to become an idea, that is the ending is inherent to the beginning of any evolutionary process. The Greeks worked very hard on theories of change and were obsessed with cosmogony, much like ourselves, and evolutionary theories were really their bread and butter. 

Where I was going with this is perhaps better related to 'recent' thinking about the effects of socio-biology or socio-psychology, than evolutionary biology per se. This is a bit of a ramble, but very little in the study of human life has been left untouched by developments in evolutionary or more recently socio-biology, and inquiry into the nature of morality is the same. Looking at other animals provides examples of adaptive psychological and behavioural traits—appetites for food or sex, fear responses, patterns of aggression, parental care and bonding, or patterns of cooperation and retribution. These traits are best described as biological adaptations or traits that evolved through natural selection due to their adaptive effects.

Humans as individuals are pretty average as a species and not equipped well to survive long in nature, but we are extremely advanced in our ability to cooperate. We cooperate on a level other animals can't, which may not be an intellectual or moral choice. In fact, our bodies are designed for it. For example, the whites in our eyes allows others to follow our gaze openly. Other primates have dark eyes like poker players, allowing them to veil their focus from predators and family. We let others know what we are looking at, which forces us to endear more trust and cooperation. 

Are we inherently designed to be the ultimate herd/cooperative animal? Are compassion (virtue) and empathy more adaptive behavioural traits than intellectual or moral choices? This ties into to the long-standing debate between Hobbes: The Leviathan and Rousseau's Social Contract but now there is a different modology weighing in on this classic argument. I was intrigued by an article in the economist which proposed:

“Biology Invades a Field Philosophers Thought was Safely Theirs”

Whence morality? That is a question which has troubled philosophers since their subject was invented. Two and a half millennia of debate have, however, failed to produce a satisfactory answer. So now it is time for someone else to have a go…Perhaps biologists can eventually do what philosophers have never managed, and explain moral behavior in an intellectually satisfying way.

“Ugh”