Nikolas – how can biology possibly tell us “the very way in which we should live and the choices we must make about life”?

A study of biology can tell us how things live but it cannot tell us anything at all about how things ought to live.

In saying that humans “must be understood as biological”, are you saying that you believe humans are nothing more than biological, material entities? If that should be true then you can forget about ethics altogether.

*are you saying that you believe humans are nothing more than biological, material entities?*

Well JP, there are no "ghosts" in the machine, that we know of or
can prove. Ethics and morality can make perfect sense within
social species which mutually benefit from cooperation and harmonious
living.

Ignoring Scrooge McDuck humans are the greediest

Yabby - For sure people can choose to act in ways that suit their mutual self-interest – but it is a mistake to say that that is “moral behaviour”. Moral behaviour is about doing what is believed to be right.

It may benefit the majority of a community to enslave a sub-section of that community. Most of us though want to say that would be morally wrong. What however would be biologically wrong with such slavery?

Indeed JP, that is why we had the evolution of empathy.

We can show that other primates display empathy. So we are hardly
unique.

But lets say JP had an accident, part of his brain was damaged.
There are plenty of such cases around the world. JPs behaviour
changes dramatically, through no will of his own. Purely a
question of the mind is, what the brain does.

If the mind was more then biology, then clearly biology would not
matter, as it clearly does, with brain damage.

We are walking, talking primates, not fallen angels.

Yabby writes
'Indeed JP, that is why we had the evolution of empathy. '

You must be a comedian Yabby. We certainly have more empathy for the unborn don't we?
'