Fair point. I don’t quite know what I’m looking for - perhaps a conceptual flaw that makes it easier to approach the matter and be critical?
But it seems that it’s the usual suspects, then. Relativism and discord between theory and reality.
As a concept, studying human behavior and understanding how people think is useful. I just believe the paradigm from which you approach the topic is all-important.
In your opinion, what ought the approach then be?
That there is an external, higher authority to mankind, i.e. God; that God has set rules that we are commanded not to break; and that all our mental and behavioral conflicts we see in ourselves and each other are the result of our rebellion against those commands.
That's in contrast to the purely humanist paradigm in which man is the supreme moral agent and his morals are simply the product of evolution, brain chemistry, and the environment.
(post is archived)