The evolutionary "advantage" of moral behaviour

neologist wrote:

The social contract has one flaw: the eventual excesses of the powerful acting 'on behalf of' the weak.

Neologist,

I thought that your philosophy was Bible based. The powerful acting on behalf of the weak is one of the most consistant themes of Biblical ethics.

Sorry I didn't more noticeably highlight the words 'on behalf'. As Denis Diderot so aptly said. "Mankind will never truly be free until the last king has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

One of my main arguments has to do with the way in which God's word has been hijacked as an ambidexter implement for exploiting those it was meant to comfort.

Ambidextered implementatative exploitational hijacking?
I'm all for it.

ebrown_p wrote:

Neologist,

I thought that your philosophy was Bible based. The powerful acting on behalf of the weak is one of the most consistant themes of Biblical ethics.

Perhaps in parts of the New Testament. But the Old Testament certainly doesn't indulge this theme.

"If you lend money to My people-to the poor person among you, you must not be like a moneylender to him; you must not charge him interest.

"If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as collateral, return it to him before sunset. For it is his only covering; it is the clothing for his body. What will he sleep in?

And if he cries out to Me, I will listen because I am compassionate.

This is what the Lord says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Don't exploit or brutalize the alien, the fatherless, or the widow. Don't shed innocent blood in this place.

For if you conscientiously carry out this word, then kings sitting on David's throne will enter through the gates of this palace riding on chariots and horses-they, their officers, and their people.

But if you do not obey these words, then I swear by Myself"-[this is] the Lord's declaration-"that this house will become a ruin."

Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether one of your brothers or one of the foreigners residing within a town in your land. You are to pay him his wages each day before the sun sets, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be held guilty.

... Do not deny justice to a foreign resident [or] fatherless child, and do not take a widow's garment as security. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.