Originally posted by Archaic
In the time when Adam Smith wrote his book, the world was *more* globalized than it is today.
In the time when Adam Smith wrote his book, the world was *more* globalized than it is today.
![yeah right!](https://apolyton.net/core/images/smilies/hm.gif)
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. Already did this with Drouge. I'm not saying that human nature can't change, but it is NOT a change that can happen overnight as Pan seems to think. It is a gradual change over many, many generations. And even then, you're not changing instinct, only the "base morals".
And you are contradicting yourself again by the way. As you say, you can only change base morals, not instinct. And base morals are not part of human nature... Unless of course when you have moral absolutistic beliefs instead of the moral relativism I consider most likely to be true. To quote myself from my last large unanswered post:
I'm amazed. Do you really believe that? Christianity did not change human nature. It created a culture which was succesful in determining people's actions due to the processes of socialization and internalization. So no Archaic, you can't make people über-rational or more aware of the consequences of their actions on a global and longterm level. At the most you might teach them the value to care more about themselves or society as a whole, but that does not mean they will know what's best for themselves or the entire society out of themselves... You have to educate them on the subject, for example the environment. But as said before, they cannot be educated on every subject => laws are needed.
I consider it more likely that human nature can't be changed except through genetic manipulation in some decades/centuries. You can however seriously affect the morals of a child through its upbringing. Theoretically, if society, its culture and its economy, changed completely over one generation, this would also mean the morals of new generations could be completely different of those of the previous generations.
So in my view both you and Pandemoniak are partially correct, partially wrong.
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