John Bruce Leonard wrote:2.) the particular cause of all human actions is DNA; and therefore 3.) what we have been calling “social morals” are in fact illusory or irrelevant, for such morals are incapable of influencing human behavior.
John Bruce, you had been following my reasoning pretty accurately up to this point, but you made an error (due to an incorrect assumption? I don't know why) when you state that the particular cause of all human actions is DNA. That I did not say at all. I said all human action is determined because although we make choices, our choices are guided by preceding events, which cause our choices. But DNA is NOT THE ONLY cause. So there is something you wrote which I never asserted.
You made another error in reference to what we have been calling "social morals". They are neither illusory nor irrelevant. They are real and relevant, and opposing your conclusion of what I said they are capable of influencing human behaviour.
For instance, the legal system (social morals) punishes people who steal cars. So very few people steal cars. Those who steal cars are either antisocial, or else they need the car more than they fear jail time.
For instance, you are supposed to marry a girl whom you make pregnant. Most men do, and only those don't who find this a sacrifice unproportionately bigger than the benefit they gain from following the commands of this social moral.
I think you would benefit in re-reading what I had written to you as one of my replies. However, I won't ask you to perform such a sacrified, instead, I shalt recoup what I had stated earlier, in a more concise fashion:
In a nutshell: our decisions are influenced by DNA, by social morals, and by many other things, and we do make choices considering (consciously or being affected by them without being conscious of it) all things that influence our decisions. The things that influence our decisions occur before we make the decision, and since they are all influencing it, we have no discourse, but shape our decision according how these things influence us in totality. Considering this, one can say our decisions we actively make, but they are determined by the things that influence them. (Which is not DNA alone, but social morals as well (as well as a myriad of other things) such as not spitting at someone you generally detest, because the social repercussions, you feel, will be more punitive to you than the satisfaction of expressing your loathing that person.)
I said that was a tough cookie, which you denied, but it actually proved to be a tough cookie, because you did not digest it (mentally, intellectually) well.
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