Talk:Moral obligation

Working area on urges and restraints
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Traditional sources
Moral obligations in the religions consist of positive duties and prohibitions, both. The two sides of moral obligation might be called 1) urges and 2) restraints.


 * Religious organizations creating moral obligations. Churches, synagoges, and mosques creating laws based on "God said."
 * Legal organizations creating moral obligations. Legislatures and courts creating laws based on the estimated effect that the law will have.
 * Courts "at law" did not traditionally enforce mere moral obligations. But in some cases, equity enforced moral obligations, such as under an unjust enrichment or a promissory estoppel theory. [hppt://www.lectlaw.com/def2/m142.htm]
 * Work item. Expand Law of obligations page.  Create the unjust enrichment page.
 * Sometimes Religious overlaps with Legal.
 * Compare deontological ethics with teleological ethics. Britannica article.

Modern evidence for genetic triggers of moral obligation
Apparently, there are genetic triggers for both urges and restraints of moral obligations.

The Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham has summarized the behavioral similarities in the urges and restraints on action between men and chimpanzees in his 1996 book Demonic Males. According to Wrangham, "Very few animals live in patrilineal, male-bonded communities wherein females routinely reduce the risks of inbreeding by moving to neighboring groups to mate. And only two animal species are known to do so with a system of intense, male-initiated territorial aggression, including lethal raiding into neighboring communities in search of vulnerable enemies to attack and kill. Out of four thousand mammals and ten million or more other animal species, this suite of behaviors is known only among chimpanzees and humans." 

Restraint from sexual relations among close kin
The Bible says, ... (give the Biblical discouragement of incest).

Chimpanzee communities ...

That is, chimpanzee females are under a genetic restraint to refrain from sex with family members. At puberty, a female chimpanzee normally migrates to the next community of males to live and mate.

Restraint from killing individuals in the same community
The Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill." And that commandment meant don't kill men in your own community. Regularly, God condoned or ordered the killing of men who were not relatives.

In comparing the DNA of the various animals on the earth today, many anthropologists have concluded that

Female restraint from competing for the hierarchy of governance
The Bible says, "Women be obedient to your husbands." And that moral obligation apparently has genetic origins from the ancestors of the chimpanzees.

Male urge to dominate females
Cite the low numbers of women in positions of authority, giving the National Legislature link. Though it is more common for a woman to rise to alpha of the community than for a female chimpanzee to rise to be alpha of the community, the common trends of gender bias against females rising to become alpha of the community suggests that human bias against women is genetic in origin.

The evolutionary forces that adapted the bonobos to the ecology on the south side of the Zaire River apparently removed gender bias against women from bonobo genes.

Among bonobos, females form their own hierarchy of females which effectively neutralizes the power of males in the community. Observationally, when a male and female chimpanzee fight over food, the male wins. When a male and female bonobo fight over food, the outcome is about fifty-fifty.

Genetic mutations in bonobos that produce female equality
The bonobo female urge to unite to neutralize the power of the males in the community. Cite the observed political power and fruits of labor division.

--- End working area container ---Rednblu 08:24, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nice! The only time the word "mutation" is used to describe an innate biological tendency is when that tendency is "female equality". Usually, I think "genotype" is the word, though I might be wrong. --RL

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The text User:Scndlbrkrttmc inserted and I reverted is released under the GDFL. I received a copy of this post by mail from the author's email address. --Zoz (t) 21:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)