Biological Basis for Morality « The Postnational Monitor

Biological Basis for Morality | Mar 22nd 2007

Nothing really new here. I have been arguing this for about 3 years since I read E.O. Wilson’s “The Biological Basis for Humanity”. Humans are altruistic because that is conducive to a highly cohesive society. This is one of our greatest advantages over all other animals (no one else has been proven 100% altruistic), to my knowledge. We are group oriented but to live in a group there has to be certain rules, some you can even observe in Chimps… Basically you can not kill at will or rape, sleep with whoever you want whenever…anyone you want, steal anything you want and form a civilization. There must be rules to regulate behavior or their will be chaos in society for obvious reasons. This is not conducive to civilization or working as a group. This is true, this is innate. However that does not mean that rape, murder, stealing are not acceptable under various circumstance. This is not a human failing it is just a way to moderate or control behaviors. To put it simply, morality is a biological construct that has evolved so that we can live and work in groups for our collective betterment and survival. There have to be a evolutionary traits that reinforce this. It is too bad it these alleles, are obviously still spreading through the human population at varying frequencies (as we still have plenty sociopaths, which one can argue are genetic throwbacks). Religion just serves as a way to reinforce the biology and elaborate on it, also to reign in individuals who are not as naturally altruistic as others. It is a manifestation of what is internal, in that way I agree with Ayn Rand.

Biologist sees human morality evolving from the sociality of primates

By Nicholas Wade

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are.Moral philosophers do not take very seriously the biologists’ bid to annex their subject, but they find much of interest in what the biologists say and have started an academic conversation with them.

The original call to battle was sounded by the biologist Edward Wilson more than 30 years ago, when he suggested in his 1975 book “Sociobiology” that “the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized.” He may have jumped the gun about the time having come, but in the intervening decades biologists have made considerable progress.Last year Marc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, proposed in his book “Moral Minds” that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules, a universal moral grammar similar to the neural machinery for learning language. In another recent book, “Primates and Philosophers,” the primatologist Frans de Waal defends against philosopher critics his view that the roots of morality can be seen in the social behavior of monkeys and apes.De Waal, who is director of the Living Links Center at Emory University in Atlanta, argues that all social animals have had to constrain or alter their behavior in various ways for group living to be worthwhile. These constraints, evident in monkeys and even more so in chimpanzees, are part of human inheritance, too, and in his view form the set of behaviors from which human morality has been shaped.

Many philosophers find it hard to think of animals as moral beings, and indeed de Waal does not contend that even chimpanzees possess morality. But he argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.De Waal’s views are based on years of observing nonhuman primates, starting with work on aggression in the 1960s. He noticed then that after fights between two combatants, other chimpanzees would console the loser. But he was waylaid in battles with psychologists over imputing emotional states to animals, and it took him 20 years to come back to the subject.He found that consolation was universal among the great apes but generally absent from monkeys. To console another, de Waal argues, requires empathy and a level of self-awareness that only apes and humans seem to possess. Consideration of empathy quickly led him to explore the conditions for morality.Though human morality may end in notions of rights and justice and fine ethical distinctions, it begins, de Waal says, in concern for others and the understanding of social rules as to how they should be treated.

At this lower level, primatologists have shown, there is what they consider to be a sizable overlap between the behavior of people and other social primates.Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands. De Waal believes these actions are undertaken for the greater good of the community, as distinct from person-to-person relationships.Macaques and chimpanzees have a sense of social order and rules of expected behavior, mostly to do with the hierarchical natures of their societies, in which each member knows its own place. Other primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. They remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them.These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality.De Waal sees human morality as having grown out of primate sociality, but with two extra levels of sophistication.

People enforce their society’s moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. They also apply a degree of judgment and reason, for which there are no parallels in animals.De Waal has faced down many critics in evolutionary biology and psychology in developing his views. The evolutionary biologist George Williams dismissed morality as merely an accidental byproduct of evolution, and psychologists objected to attributing any emotional state to animals. De Waal convinced his colleagues over many years that the ban on inferring emotional states was an unreasonable restriction, given the expected evolutionary continuity between humans and other primates.His latest audience is moral philosophers, many of whom are interested in his work and that of other biologists. “In departments of philosophy, an increasing number of people are influenced by what they have to say,” said Gilbert Harman, a philosopher at
Princeton.

“Morality is as firmly grounded in neurobiology as anything else we do or are,” de Waal wrote in his 1996 book “Good Natured.” Biologists ignored this possibility for many years, believing that because natural selection was cruel and pitiless it could only produce people with the same qualities. But this is a fallacy, in de Waal’s view. Natural selection favors organisms that survive and reproduce, by whatever means. And it has provided people, he writes in “Primates and Philosophers,” with “a compass for life’s choices that takes the interests of the entire community into account, which is the essence of human morality.

Posted in Evolution/Genetics, Philosophy & Religion

8 Comments »

Thinking about this a little further, it relates to my ideas about consciousness. We often say that humans are “aware” of themselves and able to think introspectively. We have found that Chimps and Dolphins also recognize themselves in mirrors, but dogs do not. I would argue that there are levels of “awareness” and even in humans some are more aware than others, I believe this correlates to altruism. I have nothing to back this up…just my musing…

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 23, 2007 @ 10:17 AM

Reply
One of the great areas of inconsitency for evolutionists; Natural alturism. I believe this study is setting out to explain this problem critics of evolution put forth.

“Although the modern Darwinian theory is sometimes said to provide an explanation of “altruism”, altruism goes beyond helpfulness to kin. It seems clear that there is in human beings a disposition to treat every human being, even strangers and foreigners, with consideration for their welfare even when they cannot reciprocate or retaliate–otherwise we wouldn’t have such concepts as nepotism, favouritism, prejudice, racism, chauvinism, as things to be avoided. How is it possible, on Darwin’s “tribal” theory or on the “kin” theory of modern Darwinians, that some people object when their own nation or tribe or group are being unfair to outsiders?”

The idea that animals can be nice and therefore this must be where morality originated is a leap. The argument the evolutionist promotes is: morality came from animals therefore man created God to enforce morality. The creationist believes God created all creatures and was the originator of morality.

I read the New York Times science article I think that is being referenced and something else peeked my interest.

“Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are. ”

Also from the article:

“Religion can be seen as another special ingredient of human societies, though one that emerged thousands of years after morality, in Dr. de Waal’s view. There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion. “I look at religions as recent additions,” he said. “Their function may have to do with social life, and enforcement of rules and giving a narrative to them, which is what religions really do.”

I guess one could say religions came after morality, but this still is not the same as saying God was invented after morality. But the idea that this was proven because animals possessed some type of morality, but did not practice a religion doesn’t really prove anything. It is possible the Creator instilled morality in all beings.

To the athiest the idea of looking to animals for ideas on morality and how a society should be molded seems only natural in light of the theory of how we evolved from the animals; but the creationist believes man was created in the image of God and we are to seek to to know him and his likeness and strive to be like God. Two conflicting unproven theories that are not compatible and will unlikely ever find agreement.

Here’s a link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&en=3aa8caacde344310&ex=1174708800&pagewanted=print

Comment by ken — March 25, 2007 @ 1:45 AM

Reply
Ken…my take there is a process of development…

1) Certain animals (primates, dolphins) due to environmental pressures had to cooperate in groups to survive. That causes selective pressure. The animals who were more likely to cooperate and share (have empathy) for others were going to survive to reproduce. The ones who were anti-social, selfish, etc would be more likely to die off before reproducing because they would be ostracized from the group. Nothing in nature is perfect, there are always those freaks who appear that are anti-social or some who are just social enough to get by, but by and large the group mean moved (over a long period) to be more groupist than solitary.
2) Proto-humans inherited this innate group culture from earlier forbearers, as we can see our cousins the Chimps and Gorillas are highly group oriented, Chimp society looks the most like ours, and they are also the closest to us genetically, that I think is not coincidence.
3) Humans developed higher cognitive functions in order to survive due to environmental conditions in Africa (not going to go into detail right now) due to that our society (at this point a hunter/gather extended family group) became much more complex in division of labor, which requires more sharing. Basically, you agree that some people will hunt and others will gather, but all will share. The hunting also requires working together to hunt large game animals that are dangerous. Property was not a big issue at this time, as it is not in the Amazon rain forest or with the Bushmen in the Kalahari. There is very little theft, because they do not have much “stuff” because no one wants to carry a lot of “stuff” all the time. They are also all related and live a small group, so stealing whatever someone holds as “personal” is stupid, because it is obvious who took it. There was likely fighting between different groups (as Chimps fight between different Clans) but it usually resulted in someone being run out of a territory, a show of dominance, rarely death, because their was nothing to fight to the death over, unless it was water supply during a drought or something.
4) People might have always had oral myths of Gods, Goddesses, spirit, etc but these things were mainly to explain what people did not understand in nature (which was most things at that time). Humans are curious and want to “know” they do not feel comfortable not knowing, so they needed to understand why the sun rose every single day or the wind blew and seemed invisible, etc. So they say “the god’s did it”.
5) As human society became more complex so did their beliefs in the supernatural. If you know why the sun appears to rise, you don’t need a myth to explain that you need something more complex to explain what you don’t know, as human intelligence increases you need “deeper answers” like “why am I here”. I think these questions became greatest when people discovered and consistently used agriculture (about 10-15K years ago). People started settling in one place and due to division of labor had more “free time” to think. Something else occurred. For the first time large group of people, maybe hundreds, lived together and were not directly related. Their was crime, likely serious crime and retaliation.
6) Obviously killing, raping, and stealing at will is not conducive to civilization. You might be able to do that in the neighbors kingdoms, but not in yours. The elders or elites of the society had to come up with a way (over time) to deal with this. I’m sure they quickly found out that making ‘rules’ that say “you must not kill your neighbor”. People are not stupid, they know you can not watch them 24 hours a day. Most people will follow the rules, but a significant number of the more anti-social and violent will not. It is not surprise that a new “priestly” class evolved in all the early civilizations that were or directly involved with the ruling political class. If I tell people I will kill them if they get caught for raping, murdering, and stealing, that is one thing. To say “God” is watching you always and if you die and you have done bad things you will suffer eternally in a horrible place is quite another. If people believe this that is quite powerful. It is also a way to rally people and control them in general. So the temple is forced, a public place to spread the excepted religious dogma, which is now written and controlled by the elites (being most people were illiterate).
7) What you see is quite clear. Morality and altruism evolved out a need to cooperate to survive, as human populations because more diverse and larger the social rules had to also become more complicated, these rules needed to be reinforced with religion because that is much more powerful than secular laws. I think that morals preceded religion, but I don’t think religion was “created” to reinforce morals, but religion ended up serving that purpose (as well as giving people a psychological crutch and explaining what we don’t understand).

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 25, 2007 @ 11:07 AM

Reply
Ken:

I would also argue that for these reasons there is a “lower limit” to human morality. Such as murder, stealing, rape are all wrong. I would also say the Golden Rule, but the problem is the details.

Treating someone how you want to be treated is problematic in that you don’t know how the other person expects to be treated.

For instance in parts of Pakistan and much of Afghanistan if you dishonored my family in some way it might be perfectly acceptable for me to “rape” a female member of your family to make us “even”, “an eye for and eye”. Now I would argue that this type of morality limits the growth of a civillization because of the potential to “blood fudes” however there are millions of people in this world that believe this type of things to be perfectly moral and have for a very very long time.

Almost everyone in the world agrees murder is wrong, but from country to country and even state to state (in our own country) the definition of murder varies quite a bit.

These reasons are why I argue that multiculturalism is bad. It is quite clear to me that morals and values vary according to society because they are the rules (formal and informal) that promote the continued existance of that society.

If you move 50 million Muslims from the Middle East to the United States and give them voting rights I will argue that will be the end of the United States as we know it because their values and moral norms are not condusive to creating a nation as we have here.

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 25, 2007 @ 12:15 PM

Reply
We do agree that morality came before religion. Biblically, there was no religious law for Abraham. And as a sidetrack note, the Bible teaches all would be judged according to their conscience. Since no one honestly make claim they have done everything correct according to their conscience all would be guilty in a Biblical sense. The creationist believe this conscience came from God and is developed through more knowledge about the law. (I may be injecting my own interpretation a little.) It would be interesting for me to hear the evolutionist view of conscience.

Back to the discussion:

“I would also say the Golden Rule, but the problem is the details.”

Treating someone how you want to be treated is problematic in that you don’t know how the other person expects to be treated.”

I think this morality works very well, the example you used about the dishonoring and rape. The idea of acceptable and if you would wanted to be treated a certain way are two different things. The question with the Golden rule is: Would you want to be raped? Maybe there is someone out there who would, but likely we would find nobody want to be raped, so if you didn’t want to be raped you shouldn’t rape.

But the golden rule is only moral it really can’t be law. For instance, I shouldn’t have to act on how I wish I would like to be treated. I would like everything to be free for me. Does this mean the law should be I can’t charge for my merchandise or services? So laws that govern society cannot be considered the same as morality. Although many laws are also moral; morals are not laws.

Your quote:

“These reasons are why I argue that multiculturalism is bad. It is quite clear to me that morals and values vary according to society because they are the rules (formal and informal) that promote the continued existance of that society.

If you move 50 million Muslims from the Middle East to the United States and give them voting rights I will argue that will be the end of the United States as we know it because their values and moral norms are not condusive to creating a nation as we have here.”

I would agree with this. Looking at Europe from an evolutionist perspective it is clear the earlier culture of Europe is by natural selection on its way out. The white Eurpeans are reproducing at less than 1.4 per female. Meanwhile the Muslims are immigrating and reproducing far ahead of this and soon will be the majority. If this continues, the evolutionist would have to conclude the Muslim culture was superior to the former Eurpoean culture and therefore moral?

Or have the Europeans lost there moral compass, and therefore are being selected out. This is interesting, because from a Christian standpoint, the European community generally has almost taken God out of their society. You know I might have to rethink the compatibility thing in reference to determining what will be successful to maintain a society and calling it moral. It might be secular man is going to find out the truth about morality by looking at God’s creation.

The other side to this discovery by man according to Christianity is he may discover this morality, but he won’t have the power to be moral.

Hopefully, I am not breaking the rules, you can delete this part if I am, I was just going to put the scripture that is relevant:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Maybe through the creation of the animals we are figuring out the creator’s morality.

Comment by ken — March 26, 2007 @ 1:39 AM

Reply
Ken:

Haha you have broken no rules whatsoever, your posts are quite welcome on this site. The only thing I do not want is racist coming on this site and posting racism trying to pass it off as fact. I also do not want people cursing and ranting in a negative way as I find this degrades the site and attracts the wrong kind of folks. That is about it, everything else I’m fairly cool with.

“evolutionist view of conscience.”

Well I can’t go into that much, because my reading on that is limited. My basic understanding is that it is defined as the ability to be self reflective. To recognize oneself in the mirror, to think of one’s self in the future or in various situations, to reflect on behavior. To my knowledge there is no scientific consensus on if “animals” are “aware” in this sense, however I would argue that this type of “awareness” is not an “on or off”. It is a question of degree.

For instance I believe chimps have some form of limited consciousness, but it pales in comparison to a human, probably the average human would surpass a chimp by age 3. That seems to also be the limit of a chimps cognitive function…basically that of a 2-3 year old human. This would also mean that humans are not equal in their level of consciousness. I would guess that our ability to self reflect and think abstractly is tied to our overall intelligence, but also “training”. Some people are intelligent but have no ability to think abstractly because they have never been taught or practiced.

On Blackprof.com for instance there are many intelligent people on there but I would argue that there is a major problem with some people’s ability to use reason and logic in regard to abstract ideas, therefore I would say they are at a lower level of consciousness then some other folks I know.

As far as Muslims in Europe. Evolution does not care how smart you are, how great your culture is, how strong you are. There is only one person who wins the race. Those who can survive to reproduce and who have offspring who survive and reproduce.

I would argue that something is “broken” in the Western world if people do not want to or feel they can not reproduce.

I think with Islam…I believe (SOMEONE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG) that the Qu’ran directly states Muslims should “multiply”. I also think that in most less developed countries (including the vast majority of Muslim ones) their fertility rate is higher, therefore when they immigrate to another country, at least the first and maybe the second generation have higher fertility. As people “acculturate” to Western norms their fertility drops. So I am not sure this is about religion as much as culture in poor nations. The only countries I can think of that are developing and have low fertility is China and Eastern Europe. China due to law. Eastern Europe…I’m not sure, maybe pessimisms.

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 26, 2007 @ 9:04 AM

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Update:

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9898270

Comment by Dragon Horse — November 22, 2007 @ 8:48 PM

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[...] in a given society vary. Evolution | Patience, fairness and the human condition | Economist.com Biological Basis for Morality � The Postnational Monitor Still, there is no society were you can rape, kill at will, and steal among members in your own [...]

Pingback by The Purpose of Religion and Why Its Important - Political Forum - US & World Political Discussion Forums — November 22, 2007 @ 9:02 PM

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Thinking about this a little further, it relates to my ideas about consciousness. We often say that humans are “aware” of themselves and able to think introspectively. We have found that Chimps and Dolphins also recognize themselves in mirrors, but dogs do not. I would argue that there are levels of “awareness” and even in humans some are more aware than others, I believe this correlates to altruism. I have nothing to back this up…just my musing…

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 23, 2007 @ 10:17 AM

One of the great areas of inconsitency for evolutionists; Natural alturism. I believe this study is setting out to explain this problem critics of evolution put forth.

“Although the modern Darwinian theory is sometimes said to provide an explanation of “altruism”, altruism goes beyond helpfulness to kin. It seems clear that there is in human beings a disposition to treat every human being, even strangers and foreigners, with consideration for their welfare even when they cannot reciprocate or retaliate–otherwise we wouldn’t have such concepts as nepotism, favouritism, prejudice, racism, chauvinism, as things to be avoided. How is it possible, on Darwin’s “tribal” theory or on the “kin” theory of modern Darwinians, that some people object when their own nation or tribe or group are being unfair to outsiders?”

The idea that animals can be nice and therefore this must be where morality originated is a leap. The argument the evolutionist promotes is: morality came from animals therefore man created God to enforce morality. The creationist believes God created all creatures and was the originator of morality.

I read the New York Times science article I think that is being referenced and something else peeked my interest.

“Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are. ”

Also from the article:

“Religion can be seen as another special ingredient of human societies, though one that emerged thousands of years after morality, in Dr. de Waal’s view. There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion. “I look at religions as recent additions,” he said. “Their function may have to do with social life, and enforcement of rules and giving a narrative to them, which is what religions really do.”

I guess one could say religions came after morality, but this still is not the same as saying God was invented after morality. But the idea that this was proven because animals possessed some type of morality, but did not practice a religion doesn’t really prove anything. It is possible the Creator instilled morality in all beings.

To the athiest the idea of looking to animals for ideas on morality and how a society should be molded seems only natural in light of the theory of how we evolved from the animals; but the creationist believes man was created in the image of God and we are to seek to to know him and his likeness and strive to be like God. Two conflicting unproven theories that are not compatible and will unlikely ever find agreement.

Here’s a link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&en=3aa8caacde344310&ex=1174708800&pagewanted=print

Comment by ken — March 25, 2007 @ 1:45 AM

Ken…my take there is a process of development…

1) Certain animals (primates, dolphins) due to environmental pressures had to cooperate in groups to survive. That causes selective pressure. The animals who were more likely to cooperate and share (have empathy) for others were going to survive to reproduce. The ones who were anti-social, selfish, etc would be more likely to die off before reproducing because they would be ostracized from the group. Nothing in nature is perfect, there are always those freaks who appear that are anti-social or some who are just social enough to get by, but by and large the group mean moved (over a long period) to be more groupist than solitary.
2) Proto-humans inherited this innate group culture from earlier forbearers, as we can see our cousins the Chimps and Gorillas are highly group oriented, Chimp society looks the most like ours, and they are also the closest to us genetically, that I think is not coincidence.
3) Humans developed higher cognitive functions in order to survive due to environmental conditions in Africa (not going to go into detail right now) due to that our society (at this point a hunter/gather extended family group) became much more complex in division of labor, which requires more sharing. Basically, you agree that some people will hunt and others will gather, but all will share. The hunting also requires working together to hunt large game animals that are dangerous. Property was not a big issue at this time, as it is not in the Amazon rain forest or with the Bushmen in the Kalahari. There is very little theft, because they do not have much “stuff” because no one wants to carry a lot of “stuff” all the time. They are also all related and live a small group, so stealing whatever someone holds as “personal” is stupid, because it is obvious who took it. There was likely fighting between different groups (as Chimps fight between different Clans) but it usually resulted in someone being run out of a territory, a show of dominance, rarely death, because their was nothing to fight to the death over, unless it was water supply during a drought or something.
4) People might have always had oral myths of Gods, Goddesses, spirit, etc but these things were mainly to explain what people did not understand in nature (which was most things at that time). Humans are curious and want to “know” they do not feel comfortable not knowing, so they needed to understand why the sun rose every single day or the wind blew and seemed invisible, etc. So they say “the god’s did it”.
5) As human society became more complex so did their beliefs in the supernatural. If you know why the sun appears to rise, you don’t need a myth to explain that you need something more complex to explain what you don’t know, as human intelligence increases you need “deeper answers” like “why am I here”. I think these questions became greatest when people discovered and consistently used agriculture (about 10-15K years ago). People started settling in one place and due to division of labor had more “free time” to think. Something else occurred. For the first time large group of people, maybe hundreds, lived together and were not directly related. Their was crime, likely serious crime and retaliation.
6) Obviously killing, raping, and stealing at will is not conducive to civilization. You might be able to do that in the neighbors kingdoms, but not in yours. The elders or elites of the society had to come up with a way (over time) to deal with this. I’m sure they quickly found out that making ‘rules’ that say “you must not kill your neighbor”. People are not stupid, they know you can not watch them 24 hours a day. Most people will follow the rules, but a significant number of the more anti-social and violent will not. It is not surprise that a new “priestly” class evolved in all the early civilizations that were or directly involved with the ruling political class. If I tell people I will kill them if they get caught for raping, murdering, and stealing, that is one thing. To say “God” is watching you always and if you die and you have done bad things you will suffer eternally in a horrible place is quite another. If people believe this that is quite powerful. It is also a way to rally people and control them in general. So the temple is forced, a public place to spread the excepted religious dogma, which is now written and controlled by the elites (being most people were illiterate).
7) What you see is quite clear. Morality and altruism evolved out a need to cooperate to survive, as human populations because more diverse and larger the social rules had to also become more complicated, these rules needed to be reinforced with religion because that is much more powerful than secular laws. I think that morals preceded religion, but I don’t think religion was “created” to reinforce morals, but religion ended up serving that purpose (as well as giving people a psychological crutch and explaining what we don’t understand).

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 25, 2007 @ 11:07 AM

Ken:

I would also argue that for these reasons there is a “lower limit” to human morality. Such as murder, stealing, rape are all wrong. I would also say the Golden Rule, but the problem is the details.

Treating someone how you want to be treated is problematic in that you don’t know how the other person expects to be treated.

For instance in parts of Pakistan and much of Afghanistan if you dishonored my family in some way it might be perfectly acceptable for me to “rape” a female member of your family to make us “even”, “an eye for and eye”. Now I would argue that this type of morality limits the growth of a civillization because of the potential to “blood fudes” however there are millions of people in this world that believe this type of things to be perfectly moral and have for a very very long time.

Almost everyone in the world agrees murder is wrong, but from country to country and even state to state (in our own country) the definition of murder varies quite a bit.

These reasons are why I argue that multiculturalism is bad. It is quite clear to me that morals and values vary according to society because they are the rules (formal and informal) that promote the continued existance of that society.

If you move 50 million Muslims from the Middle East to the United States and give them voting rights I will argue that will be the end of the United States as we know it because their values and moral norms are not condusive to creating a nation as we have here.

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 25, 2007 @ 12:15 PM

We do agree that morality came before religion. Biblically, there was no religious law for Abraham. And as a sidetrack note, the Bible teaches all would be judged according to their conscience. Since no one honestly make claim they have done everything correct according to their conscience all would be guilty in a Biblical sense. The creationist believe this conscience came from God and is developed through more knowledge about the law. (I may be injecting my own interpretation a little.) It would be interesting for me to hear the evolutionist view of conscience.

Back to the discussion:

“I would also say the Golden Rule, but the problem is the details.”

Treating someone how you want to be treated is problematic in that you don’t know how the other person expects to be treated.”

I think this morality works very well, the example you used about the dishonoring and rape. The idea of acceptable and if you would wanted to be treated a certain way are two different things. The question with the Golden rule is: Would you want to be raped? Maybe there is someone out there who would, but likely we would find nobody want to be raped, so if you didn’t want to be raped you shouldn’t rape.

But the golden rule is only moral it really can’t be law. For instance, I shouldn’t have to act on how I wish I would like to be treated. I would like everything to be free for me. Does this mean the law should be I can’t charge for my merchandise or services? So laws that govern society cannot be considered the same as morality. Although many laws are also moral; morals are not laws.

Your quote:

“These reasons are why I argue that multiculturalism is bad. It is quite clear to me that morals and values vary according to society because they are the rules (formal and informal) that promote the continued existance of that society.

I would agree with this. Looking at Europe from an evolutionist perspective it is clear the earlier culture of Europe is by natural selection on its way out. The white Eurpeans are reproducing at less than 1.4 per female. Meanwhile the Muslims are immigrating and reproducing far ahead of this and soon will be the majority. If this continues, the evolutionist would have to conclude the Muslim culture was superior to the former Eurpoean culture and therefore moral?

Or have the Europeans lost there moral compass, and therefore are being selected out. This is interesting, because from a Christian standpoint, the European community generally has almost taken God out of their society. You know I might have to rethink the compatibility thing in reference to determining what will be successful to maintain a society and calling it moral. It might be secular man is going to find out the truth about morality by looking at God’s creation.

The other side to this discovery by man according to Christianity is he may discover this morality, but he won’t have the power to be moral.

Hopefully, I am not breaking the rules, you can delete this part if I am, I was just going to put the scripture that is relevant:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Maybe through the creation of the animals we are figuring out the creator’s morality.

Comment by ken — March 26, 2007 @ 1:39 AM

Haha you have broken no rules whatsoever, your posts are quite welcome on this site. The only thing I do not want is racist coming on this site and posting racism trying to pass it off as fact. I also do not want people cursing and ranting in a negative way as I find this degrades the site and attracts the wrong kind of folks. That is about it, everything else I’m fairly cool with.

“evolutionist view of conscience.”

Well I can’t go into that much, because my reading on that is limited. My basic understanding is that it is defined as the ability to be self reflective. To recognize oneself in the mirror, to think of one’s self in the future or in various situations, to reflect on behavior. To my knowledge there is no scientific consensus on if “animals” are “aware” in this sense, however I would argue that this type of “awareness” is not an “on or off”. It is a question of degree.

For instance I believe chimps have some form of limited consciousness, but it pales in comparison to a human, probably the average human would surpass a chimp by age 3. That seems to also be the limit of a chimps cognitive function…basically that of a 2-3 year old human. This would also mean that humans are not equal in their level of consciousness. I would guess that our ability to self reflect and think abstractly is tied to our overall intelligence, but also “training”. Some people are intelligent but have no ability to think abstractly because they have never been taught or practiced.

On Blackprof.com for instance there are many intelligent people on there but I would argue that there is a major problem with some people’s ability to use reason and logic in regard to abstract ideas, therefore I would say they are at a lower level of consciousness then some other folks I know.

As far as Muslims in Europe. Evolution does not care how smart you are, how great your culture is, how strong you are. There is only one person who wins the race. Those who can survive to reproduce and who have offspring who survive and reproduce.

I would argue that something is “broken” in the Western world if people do not want to or feel they can not reproduce.

I think with Islam…I believe (SOMEONE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG) that the Qu’ran directly states Muslims should “multiply”. I also think that in most less developed countries (including the vast majority of Muslim ones) their fertility rate is higher, therefore when they immigrate to another country, at least the first and maybe the second generation have higher fertility. As people “acculturate” to Western norms their fertility drops. So I am not sure this is about religion as much as culture in poor nations. The only countries I can think of that are developing and have low fertility is China and Eastern Europe. China due to law. Eastern Europe…I’m not sure, maybe pessimisms.

Comment by Dragon Horse — March 26, 2007 @ 9:04 AM

Update:

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9898270

Comment by Dragon Horse — November 22, 2007 @ 8:48 PM

[...] in a given society vary. Evolution | Patience, fairness and the human condition | Economist.com Biological Basis for Morality � The Postnational Monitor Still, there is no society were you can rape, kill at will, and steal among members in your own [...]

Pingback by The Purpose of Religion and Why Its Important - Political Forum - US & World Political Discussion Forums — November 22, 2007 @ 9:02 PM

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Biological Basis for Morality | Mar 22nd 2007

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