Post #13, 5-5-09, World Peace?

With the world in its current state- wars erupting left and right, economies steadily declining downhill- the individual's moral decision making is extremely important. The decisions that people of authority make- the president, other members of government- effect all of us. In the latest Newsweek, an article by Sharon Begley was titled "Adventures in Good and Evil". The subheading read, "What makes some of us saints and some of us sinners? The evolutionary roots of morality." Earlier this year, during first semester religion, I took a Christian morality course. During that time, I developed a strong interest in the reasoning behind choices people make and the effects each choice has. This particular article brought up many interesting points through summaries of past and present experimentation on psychology. Some studies show that when placed in control of a situation in which a person is rewarded for inflicting pain on another person, or is made to believe that the situation is beneficial on the larger scale of things, the moral judgement of the person in authority diminishes. In another study, "if people are asked whether they would be willing to throw a switch to redirect deadly fumes from a room with five children to a room with one, most say yes, and neuroimaging shows that their brain's rational, analytical regions had swung into action to make the requisite calculation. But few people say they would kill a healthy man in order to distribute his organs to five patients who will otherwise die, even though the logic- kill one, save five- is identical: a region in our emotional brain rebels at the act of directly and actively taking a man's life, something that feels immesaurably worse than the impersonal act of throwing a switch in an air duct. We have gut feelings of what is right and wrong." I found this incredibly interesting. I would have never realized the connection in the two circumstances if it had not been pointed out to me. It's unbelievable to me how the brain functions- that it can place identical situations in different moral categories, and convince you that one is a more righteous act than the other.
The article goes on to say that important principles instilled during childhood, life-altering experiences, observing qualities like compassion and forgiveness in others, and feeling secure in multiple aspects of life are also characteristics of those with high moral character. A different study shows that, "if only people could feel safer and less threatened, they would have more psychological resources to devote to noticing other people's suffering and doing something to alleviate it." After reading this, I began to wonder what the world would be like if everyone felt safe and secure, assuming that this theory is correct. I think that further testing and developing this idea could be extremely beneficial. It could be a start at world peace, something we all can only dream about. We could potentially eliminate poverty and war. It's almost too much to think about how we can create a more perfect world by simply studying the why's and how's behind our response to critical situations. I don't know, do you think this is attainable?