One problem How would we know there's no moral blank slate?

I thought I just explained it... ._. My reasoning is that everyone's brains work differently, and have different thought processes. Everyone has a different personality, right after birth. So since everyone starts out differently, how could we tell which one was the correct brain state? How could we tell what the moral 'blank slate' is if everyone starts out different?

Everyone starts out differently because everyone is influenced differently from the very start and they continue to be influenced until death Also, everyone is inertly different but that is just simple genetics It influences where we go, not where we start

I have to disagree with your stance on the individual agreeing with what they've been taught or not, but it's purely because I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say. If you did understand it, I'm simply disagreeing with you, if you misunderstood it, which is very possibly because it was worded awkwardly, then I'll try to explain it better: [spoiler] Perspective is altered subconsciously for the most part when growing up. What I mean by this is that every experience in your life, and every thought, affects your perspective on a subject, whether or not you and your personality agrees with it, the information is still there, and has gone one path or another in your opinion. Your personality is grown from this perspective, which changes throughout your life. You don't exactly have choice in this, unless you isolate yourself. The best example I can give is prejudice. Say the members of your family have had a long existing mentality against black people because of a perceive injustice or social difference that occurred generations ago, which is very possible considering some families have ties that go back to slavery, where slave owners were made to be superior to their slaves, and felt unjust being stripped of them. Everything concerning your families values upon black people has been negative for your entire life. Now say that you have never spoken to anyone outside your family, so no other opinions on black people have ever been approached to you. The only possible opinion about black people you can have is the negative one, because that is the only one that has been made an option in your mind. Now say that you, as a child, still growing into this racist mentality, meet another child who thinks differently. This would be the first time you are experiencing this new mentality, and as such it is the first time it has been made a possible option within your mind. However, your interpretation of this other person decides the validation of their perspective in your mind. If this child is black, because of your pre-conceived notion of black people, you will most likely not agree with their mentality, which is technically a decision made because of your only perspective being of black people being bad This is much harder to see in modern society, where young children are in social groups, and freedom of thought is encouraged, but still applies. A child who rebels is a child who has perceived that there is an option to rebel before actually doing so. This could either be from media, or interactions. Basically speaking, a child does not know the concept of disagreement if he is never taught it. Likewise, this child cannot form opinions out of the blue, because they have to be influenced in someway by an outside source to invalidate the original information given to the child. Another example would be; If we had never thought of the possibility of a god, the opinion "god doesn't exist" would itself not exist. We (humans) thought of this possibility only because things that we could not control would happen to us (floods, weather), and we could not explain it, therefor something must have caused it. The opinion "god doesn't exist" can only be made after the opinion "god does exist" is made, and something has influenced the opinion maker to doubt the original claim. And the original claim can only be made if something has influenced the opinion maker to doubt their perception of nature just being nature. [/spoiler] My bad if that was really long, it was hard to put my thinking into words

I understood, and that statement of yours helps the understanding greatly Where is the disagreement with my statement, though?

I think the reason he disagrees is because you gave an example saying people turn out different than their parents therefor they have their own personality? What i assume hes saying is that they must have gotten the opposing idea from another place, like an uncle. [spoiler]fail on my use of therefor. lawls[/spoiler]

I'm disagreeing with your statement about how everyone has the ability to agree with what's been taught, and everyone has their own opinions and thoughts. While, yes everyone does have there own opinions and thoughts, and can agree or disagree with things, it's only because they've been given some influence into thinking that what. It's sort of like how if from the very beginning 2+2= 5 was written instead of 2+2=4. There would be no one to say 2+2=4 because it just doesn't make sense, even though the equation is just made of symbols that we interpret as values. If our interpretation of |||| units was called "five" and "five" remained to be the symbol 5, then 2+2=5 makes sense and 2+2=4 is illogical to say. This is only true, because 2+2=5 is the only interpretation that has been made available to say || units put with || units makes |||| total units. This is a much more rigorous example, but I used it because there is no disagreement with simple math, effectively isolating the interpretation of it.

That is very true. At the same time, though, if someone told a person who just got amnesia something, the amnesiac has every opportunity to accept or reject that fact. Of course, the amnesiac may accept the fact, as they trust that person to give them correct information. I may accidentally be using circular logic. I apologize, since my brain is fried from college work

Well the difference between an infant and an amnesiac, is that the amnesiac has a base of knowledge, that is not tied to memory, this is why many people for suffer from amnesia can still talk, and socialize with people. An infant is starting at the most 0 point possible in this situation, because information is retained through perspective, which is possible to be influenced by something