Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
Morality at birth?
In response to the ideas of chimps and unborn children having components of morality, I believe that the idea of morality and what it means must be discussed. Does morality refer to a behavior or a specific mindset when in a specific situation? Is morality an innate motivational behavior that begins at birth or is it something that evolves from social interactions and communications? So much of how morality is viewed is through how other people influence our opinions of our own actions. Also I think different people view different situations/actions/feelings as moral. Everyone has an individual interpretation of what should be identified as being moral because each person has a moral spectrum for which they apply different situations that require a moral analysis. I think these moral spectrums start at birth and are developed, improved, and expanded upon throughout life based on social interactions. If morality begins in utero or at birth, then I think we are all born with the ability to conform to social rules that mold our views on morality. From these social interactions at birth and throughout life, our morality is every changing. If morality begins in utero then I do think that these gut intuitions, in response to the environment in utero, indicate a very important social connection starting between mother and baby, which then expands to include baby/child/adult and the universe. The connection between baby and mother, primes the baby, from the start, to respond to society, especially in terms of morality and gut feelings. These gut feelings and interactions throughout life add more to an individual’s moral spectrum. I think that chimps, like any other animal can develop morality that is based on the social and behavioral interactions among that given species. We use chimps to model our moral behaviors because they can more easily acclimate and understand our social cues as humans. This does not mean that other species do not have the ability to develop morality, the difference is that we cannot understand or relate to another species’ form of morality. In one of the readings, a chimp jumped into a moat to save his friend even though the chimp could not swim. This example shows a morality, a loyalty among the chimp family that involves self sacrifice. In the human opinion this seems ridiculous being that the chimp cannot swim and as a human we might think it more intelligent for the chimp to grab something that might help his chimp friend float or get out of the moat. This just highlights the differences in morality and the morality spectrum according to social interaction within a given species. Even if the chimp cannot swim he will attempt to save his friend because as his chimp friend, he has a moral obligation to save him. I think that morality is species specific and depends on social interactions within the given environment starting in utero.