[binarymax]

Humans are not born moral because morality is a human intellectual construct and is taught. Nature, without humanity, is neither moral nor amoral, it is just nature.

I agree with Girards postulation that sameness begets violence because there is always non-uniformity, and those who seek to control and organise want uniformity (sometimes violently). I do wonder if there would be less violence not with the abolishment of all religion, but with the abolishment of all but one.

[coldtea]

>umans are not born moral because morality is a human intellectual construct and is taught. Nature, without humanity, is neither moral nor amoral, it is just nature.

That's not exactly accurate. For one, animals are also capable of handling "intellectual constructs" (even if less complex) and teaching them to their offspring or herd.

Some starters: http://www.amazon.com/Can-Animals-Moral-Mark-Rowlands/dp/019...

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Lives-Animals-Dale-Peterson/dp/1...

[keane]

While both humans and animals may practice empathy, cooperation, or other behaviors that help them as individuals or groups to survive or thrive, this falls short of 'morality'.

Morality is positions about what one should do: eg "one should not murder humans for sport". Hume's observation of the Is-Ought problem shows us that we cannot reason "humans practice X therefore humans should practice X" as we similarly cannot reason "humans believe X therefore X is objectively the case".

Saying that animals or humans practice empathy is merely observing something they do, the "Is". We can't say "humans sometimes practice empathy therefore humans should practice empathy" like we can't say "humans sometimes practice violence therefore humans should practice violence".

You could add a condition, such as "If humans do not want to be put in jail by society, then they should not murder (or at least get caught having murdered)". But this is known as Hypothetical Morality, and with dependence on the conditions it becomes merely advice about cause and effect and is to be ignored by those who don't find the conditions compelling.

[agumonkey]

More a social construct then ?