ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 1, January 2015
Across the Bridge to the Other Side
Okay, so we have an objective basis for morality. Now what? Is the way forward
clear? Are the answers to all of our moral dilemmas suddenly obvious? Hardly. But
that’s okay, because any framework for morality that does not account for the friction
that has continually accompanied our difficult moral choices is a framework that does
not account for reality. We would not have such a long history of questions in this
sphere if we did not have an extremely complicated set of competing wants that we all
feel and must try to make sense of. But at least now we can see the locations of all
those sticking points. All moral dilemmas can be understood as conflicts somewhere
along the consilient spectrum of biology.31
Our intuitive moral feelings are often in conflict because of the debates that rage within us regarding the self vs. society, or society vs. the environment, or the short-term
vs. the long-term, or just the fundamental choices between competition and coope Ʌѥ