Prabhupada, commenting on Immanuel Kant: So one man is thinking that animal killing is good, and another man is thinking animal killing is immorality. Then who is correct? Unless you know morality means this—it is coming from authority—that you have to follow it, otherwise you will be punished, then morality. Otherwise, if there is no background of forcing, that morality can be degraded into immorality at any moment.
Hayagriva: Well, this seems to be the weakness in Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. He says, “For a rational but finite being the only thing possible is an endless progress from the lower to the higher degrees of moral perfection.” So…
Prabhupada: That means endless struggle to understand real morality. But if he takes the order of God, that he must do it, that is final morality. More
ScienceDaily, Mar. 25, 2010: […] The finding offers a new piece to the puzzle of how the human brain constructs morality, says Liane Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the March 25 issue of the journal Neuron.
“We’re slowly chipping away at the structure of morality,” says Young. “We’re not the first to show that emotions matter for morality, but this is a more precise look at how emotions matter.” […]
This supports the idea that making moral judgments requires at least two processes — a logical assessment of the intention, and an emotional reaction to it. The study also supports the theory that the emotional component is seated in the VMPC.
Next steps: Young hopes to study patients who incurred damage to the VMPC when they were younger, to see if they have the same impaired judgment. She also plans to study patient reactions to situations where the harmful attempts may be directed at the patient and therefore are more personal.
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