Noam Chomsky: Are We Programmed for Good? Exploring the Roots of Morality

[@sudarshanbadoni6643]

Thanks. Very very difficult topic with no clear cut answers due to cognitive unscientific nature of the subject in question. Thus only something called law of natural justice kind standing there as standard and neutral and impartial something as a guide line at INDIVIDUAL level. First nine years are important however for orienteering once do and dont tendencies. At later stages ACTIONS AND AWARDS are believed to be becoming OPERATORS. And then CHOICE becomes ours and only ours. Thanks again.

[@ChuNghiaKhacKy_ConDuongTriTue]

Noam Chomsky sparked a debate about innate morality proposing the idea of a universal moral grammar, akin to language acquisition.

[@tom-kz9pb]

Human beings are a mixed bag of instincts, for both cooperation and compassion, and for selfishness and aggression. Those instincts come from Darwinian evolution, not from God/Devil, not from any inherent moral ordering of the universe. Judging from the never-ending wars and oppression, Darwinian evolution left us lopsidedly heavy on the selfishness/aggression end of the spectrum, and short-changed on the compassion/cooperation side, as would be needed in order to maximize our long-term survival chances.

[@robreinhart4284]

This is an erroneous interpretation of Chomsky’s proposal and the so-called tension between the internalist proposal and evolution and the role of the environment is also misguided. They don’t compete. Chomsky is talking about a *capacity* for moral judgements that is species specific similar to language, math and music. He’s engaging on a deeper level than the level on which the author discusses the environmental/cultural influences that no one doubts dials on and steers within what is morally humanly possible (ie within the capacity). The critical mistake here is in conflating the levels of analysis or description between the “rivalrous” models.