The Fallibility of our Ethical Impulses

I do not think that human beings are true moral beings. To define morality in terms of our ethical impulses would be wrong.

I would argue that we are not true moral beings, we are only moral in so far that we have certain moral impulses that have arisen from evolution - and only exist because they allowed for the most sex and survivability. Our ethical impulses are fallible, just as our visual perception is.

An interesting metaphor used by Sam Harris to demonstrate this is the following: The moon appears to be larger when it is close to the horizon, where in fact it is exactly the same size. But our visual perception makes the moon appear larger when it is in proximity to other objects - trees, skyline, etc. It is not until we hold up a ruler and measure the size of the moon do we see that the moon is the same size. If we truly want to become moral beings - we need to hold a ruler up to our ethical impulses, we need to define ethics in a logical, systematic way. Relying on our fallible ethical impulses is simply, immoral.

Here are some moral dilemmas that help to illustrate my point.

Take for example, a situation where you have the option of saving a loved one, or saving more than one person. Our ethical impulses incline us to want to save the loved one, whether it be a son, husband, daughter, wife, friend, over saving numerous others. This may be because we have emotional commitments to this person, and we will experience more pain if we lose them, than if numerous unknown people die. The obvious "true" moral decision is to let your loved one die, and to save the numerous other people, simply because this decision results in the least amount of lost life.

So, I believe that for the human race to become true moral beings, and to reach a state of ethical maturity, we need to leave behind our ethical impulses. One might argue that this will dehumanize us, but maybe that is not such a bad thing. We are afterall, just products of evolution - we are not perfect beings, we are very fallable. Maybe we should strive for infallability, and maybe we can only get there through means of reason, not impulse.