I was reading an interesting article yesterday on the psychology of "disgust." It was intriguing to hear the author's ideas of how our sense of disgust develops, and how it originated. The studies done however, I found to be more than a little faith shaking, as odd as it may seem for such a study to do so. The results were that most of what we consider disgusting is something that is taught. Those who were not taught to think something was disgusting did not feel that that particular something was disgusting. This was quite extraordinary to me, for I had always assumed that this feeling of disgust had nothing to do with what I was taught, but rather my feelings of revulsion were very natural and innate. This disturbed me mostly because I view how my stomach can turn at stepping barefoot on dog excrement is similar to how my innards twist at acts of immorality. They both are natural feelings and involuntary reactions to what I observe. Indeed, we consider many extreme immoral scenarios to be disgusting. They are linked to each other in an intimate way. Thus my fears began as I saw that if disgust is something that is taught, so could be the case for morality. If you do not yet understand why this frightened me, notice that if morality is nothing more than what we are taught, than there is no absolute morality, and thus no God to have given it to us.
However, still dwelling on it today, the light bulb lit brightly above my head. Compare the development of morality with the development of language. Are we born already knowing right from wrong? It is quite dubious, otherwise why do we see such a maturational development as one ages? And certainly we are not born already knowing our vernacular, but we are also just as certainly born with the ability and desire and need to learn a language. Similarly, we are born with the ability and desire and need to learn what is right and what is wrong. Language becomes such a natural process within us- it is how we respond and react to things (what happens when you stub your toe?) and indeed it is how we consciously think. Similarly, morality becomes so ingrained within us, we respond and react to things with our sense of morality, and we cannot engage a moral decision without our previous moral teachings affecting our cognitive processes.
The conclusion? Perhaps more than what we thought previously, morals are based more on what a person has been taught as opposed to what would naturally develop. This does not mean that we would have no sense of morality without any teaching. We would still feel disgust towards bad flavors and odors without anyone teaching us this, and we would still feel disgust at blatant immoral behavior without anyone teaching us this. Therefore, the question of where does any sense of morality come from is still valid, and the only valid answer still is GOD.
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the tabula rasa debate has been going on for a long time! are we born a blank slate that is written on by people and situations, or are we born knowing right from wrong? i think it's a bit of both. we are strongly impressed on by our parents and people we are close to as babies. children read other's faces much more clearly than they recognize language. a mom can tell a child "no, don't do that," and write the child's sense of wrong and right that way. or, the child can experiement and find out that an action can lead to something that they don't want. in that way innate logic plays a heavy role in teaching us what is wrong and right, even if we don't know wrong from the beginning.
one thing that i love about God's rules for our lives is that they make sense! it is logical to not lie to someone, cheat, steal or kill because in the long run, you will lose out. whether God puts that knowledge in our heads before we are born or not, His laws are logical and beneficial for us. they can be written through experience and are no less potent that way.
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