among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any love or affection .’ Therefore, close relations are not needed in order for a society to function; it can function, for example, only because of trade. Trade is based on trust, and trust is a concept that will be discussed later. In a society trade is inevitable to occur, therefore it is accepted for people to build relationships outside of their closest kin and family. However, what Hume says that, if there is no society, people would not communicate outside of their own circles. However, it is widely agreed upon that, humans are social animals. Arnhart, L. (1998) understands this as ‘human beings are by nature social and political animals, because the species-specific behavioural repertoire of Homo Sapiens includes inborn desires and cognitive capacities that are fulfilled in social and political life .’ Thus, for the purpose of this paper, we need to distinguish between being part of a society and being social. The reason for that is, that the statement given by Hume, is supposing a situation where there is no society, however people are still cooperating with each other, and therefore the social aspect of them is present nonetheless. From there, we need to define what cooperation is and how is it possible. First, however, more about morality will be explained.
This paper began with a quote by the infamous Albert Einstein, who firmly stood behind the idea of morality as a crucial part of our lives. What then is so special about morality? How do we even gain access to it? Morality in the most general sense is the sum of values and norms of an individual or a group. Values are things regarded as important and worth aiming for. Norms are the things that make morality possible, because it is the rules that constitute our behaviour. Without the combination of norms and values we cannot have morality. Morality in its essence is what we ought to do in certain situations. And what we ought to do is derived by the norms and values one has. Research on the subject of morality has been done by Turiel, E. (1998), in which it has been concluded that morality is ’embedded in cultural contexts and in social relationships; it is neither biologically predetermined nor entirely socialized. ‘ The connection between morality and social life is that, morality is part of social life. Based on one’s morality he/she interacts with others in the social group. According to David Hume, our morals influence our actions and affections, from which he concludes that morals are not derivative of reason. Hume saw morals as something that excite passions, and then either produce or prevent actions . This idea of Hume was later proven to be somewhat correct. Overall, morality is all about asking what is right and what is wrong. In order to answer from where do we derive this sense of right or wrong we need to go from philosophy into neuro-ethics.
