If evolution hardwired, in our species in general, with variations from individual to individual, elements of aggression and of lust for revenge and sadism, then we might ask, within the conceptual framework of Naturalism, how it is that we think aggression and hatred are bad and cooperation, empathy, and compassion are good?
I’ll keep an open mind, but so far my own answer is that the evolutionary hard wiring of our brains is such that we cannot live by the Christian idea of loving our enemies, nor can we actually love each and every being of each and every species of Earth, as some religions and philosophies claim.
But, within the evolutionary constraints of human psychological makeup, we can control what emotions occupy our minds. As such we can base our lives on maximal kindness, and thru a philosophical self-discipline, not allow hatred to motivate us.
It’s a matter of maximizing kindness, not a matter of universal or unconditional love or kindness, which probably doesn’t exist, even among mothers toward their children.
To me, it’s a philosophy of enlightened self-interest, not self-abnegation, with benefits to ‘survival efficiency’, politically and interpersonally. Philosophically, it’s Existential, not Platonic. Instead of being mystical, it’s pursued within rationalism, as, if you will, a science of morality, as John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte suggested.
Is not kindness dirived from the heart where unconditional love is derived also? Is it the mind that produces love or the heart first? My belief is one must unconditionally love first to produce true kindness.. When a baby is first born it’s mind not even a minute of this world and it has love so where doese love originate? Mind.. heart.. Spirit? Something learned or given? Sure we can unconditionally love at the same time give maximum kindness also to me one in the same..
Thanks Todd. Why can’t it all be part of the mind, where the ‘heart’ is what are emotional and intuitive faculties, and the ‘mind’ is the cognitive/rational faculty ?
Neuroscience locates regions of the brain that are involved with various emotions, whether it’s joy or sorrow, anger, fear, and so on.
Researchers have even located parts of the right temporal lobe that seem involved with a person’s sense of there being an otherworldly, nonphysical intelligence nearby.