(Crossposted from Metamagician and the Hellfire Club)  This post is meant to sketch very quickly how I ''do'' moral philosophy. To adapt a phrase from Daniel Dennett, I aspire to do work in moral philosophy, and related areas of inquiry, with no reliance on skyhooks. I am committed to philosophical, or metaphysical, naturalism. Putting it ...

The brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, similar to the neural machinery for learning language, according to Harvard evolutionary biologis Marc Hauser. Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others...

further reading on roots of morality... Hardwired Behavior : Neuroscience Reveals Morality Primates & Philosophers : How Morality Evolved Good Natured-Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans & Animals Moral Minds

But is religion the best way to reinforce these behaviors? And if it is bundled with other fundamental problems related to itself (possible false assumption that god exists, encouragement of outdated social norms, resistence to science/technological progress not because of the science, but because of conflicts with dogma and religious ideas, ...