In my last post (http://www.progressiveu.org/123102-atheism-and-morality-the-euthyphro-dialogues), the third in this series, I presented an argument that God cannot be the basis of morality. But if that is so, then what IS the basis for morality? Or, as my protagonist asked me in the title of one of his responses, “If not from God, then where?”
The surprising answer is evolution. Ironically, it is the very thing that fundamentalist theists rail against as promoting a might-makes-right, dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed world that is responsible for our most tender feelings of love and respect, mercy, and forgiveness.
But how can this be so? Isn’t evolution survival of the fittest? To answer that is going to require a bit of explaining.
The phrase, “survival of the fittest” was first used by Herbert Spencer BEFORE
Darwin published his first edition of On the Origin of Species in 1859.
Darwin adopted the phrase in a later edition of his book as a simple but vivid description of his proposed mechanism of evolution, NATURAL SELECTION. Perhaps that was a mistake BECAUSE of the vividness of the phrase. It DOES cause people to envision a might-makes-right, dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed world. But it doesn’t have to. Let’s take a close look and see how it REALLY works in nature.
Survival of the fittest. The first question to ask is what determines fitness? It is here that most people immediately think of might, aggressiveness, skill in combat, etc. But to find correct answer we need to go back to
Darwin’s original term … natural selection.
Natural selection … nature selects! In other words, it is NATURE that determines fitness. It is not necessarily might, aggressiveness, skill in combat, etc. that determines fitness, it is the ENVIRONMENT that the organisms lives in that determines fitness. Characteristics like might, aggressiveness, skill in combat will only be selected for in environments that such characteristics help the organism survive and reproduce. In environments that such characteristics are not helpful, these characteristics will not be selected for and may be selected against.
So to determine what characteristics are actually beneficial requires a close look at the organism’s environment. What is the most important component of our environment that determines our reproductive success? I suppose that if you asked different evolutionary biologists that question you would get several different answers. Here is my answer … other people.
We are STRONGLY social animals. We live with other people about us all the time. We depend on other people all the time. Our ability to survive depends on us getting along with other people. And it has been this way over evolutionary time. Our early ancestors lived in social groups going back millions of years. They too counted on each other to survive. Cooperation was a necessity or they wouldn’t survive. This environment sets the stage such that any inheritable trait that promotes cooperation is a prime candidate for positive selection.
So contrary to the fundamentalist doctrine of “original sin”, we are not born with a predisposition to be selfish and do bad things, we are born with a genetic predisposition to cooperate and do good! If that is the case, then why do we ever do bad?
The reason we do bad is because our behaviors are not fully controlled by genetic factors. Our behaviors are also learned. Learning is a very adaptive trait. It allows us to discover things about novel situations. Overall it is BIG PLUS for us. So it too is selected for. We have genes that affect our ability to learn, but I do not think we have genes that affect our ability as to WHAT we learn. Without some type of inheritable trait, natural selection will have nothing to work on. In that case we will always be able to learn bad things as well as good things.
Some people are bound to learn that taking unfair advantage of others gives them a short term reward. So then, why doesn’t THIS behavior dominate our society? Because our society IS our environment. It can’t exist that way and without society those behaviors do not produce those rewards.
To see this, let’s look at a hypothetical society. I’m going to use my protagonist’s question, “Is it OK to murder people?”, as an inspiration here. Let’s suppose in our hypothetical society is perfectly fine to do just that. If you have something I want it is perfectly expected and acceptable to everyone for me to try and kill you to take it. What kind of society would that be?
Well, the first thing I would have to note is that if it is OK for me to do that to you, it must also be OK for you to do that to me. I don’t think either of us would trust the other. In fact, NOBODY could trust anyone else. Why would I do anything for anyone else? At best, I might get something in return from them that would motivate someone else to kill me to get it. In that case, there would be no goods and services in that society.
So what could I do? The best I could do in such a society is to carve out as much land that might have enough resources on it to keep me alive and if lucky attract a mate. I would try my best to protect this territory from others. It would turn out that killing them probably would require more of my resources than running them off, so in most cases there wouldn’t necessarily be killing.
Are there any “societies” like this? Well, sort of. Grizzly Bears. But we normally call them “solitary” animals.
It turns out that the only society in which a person is likely to be rewarded for killing someone else is a society in which such behavior is rare. It also turns out that the only societies that are stable are societies in which such behaviors are rare.
So, our societies and behaviors have a feedback relationship to them. The structure of societies affects behaviors and behaviors affect the structure of societies. Stable societies tend to be societies in which the vast majority of people practice acceptable behaviors. That is … good morals.
So where does that leave us? We evolved as social animals. That required us to cooperate. Genes predisposing us to cooperate were selected for. Thus, we have a genetic predisposition for such cooperative behaviors allowing a strengthening and stabilization of society. Societies and behavior reinforce each other ensuring a majority of people practice good morals. Or at least that is my view on the subject.
Regards,
Darwin’s Beagle
So would you say that there are any behaviors that are, or could become, taboo? Or would you say that while behaviors such as pedophila are not socially constructive they cannot be restrained because there is really nothing wrong with them?
Hamalas
Any behavior that has the potential to destroy the society if practiced by a large percentage of the people is likely to become taboo.
In our society I think pedophilia is one of those. I think it is a bad thing. However, it seems like in some historical societies some forms of pedophilia do not seem to have been a significant threat to them. In ancient Greece and Rome it was almost expected that successful older males would take youths under their care. Included in this was what we would, from our perspective, call acts of pedophilia.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
That children need to be taught to do wrong, since I've been and seen plenty of mis-behaviors, that aren't "learned", they are simply done. Who teaches a child to lie? At what point did you sit down with your parents and they said: "Today, you will learn to lie. What is two plus two?" "four" you reply. "Wrong, two plus two is five." they retort. "But two and two isn't five!" is your natrual response. "Exactly. I told you a lie."
I don't personally remember that conversation, but perhaps your recollection of childhood is more vivid than mine. Or, more likely, some people just fucking suck. I know plenty of kids with amazing parents, who are prime examples of Future Federal Prisoners of America. While I personally regard the idea of "original sin" as a more metaphorical explanation of why some humans are assholes, I do not think that evolutionary theory will ever fully explain the concepts of "good" and "evil".
I would also like to offer you a simple example: A fit young man, un-married and childless, in his mid-twenties, is walking down a busy chicago street. He observes an older woman with a cane crossing the street during heavy traffic. An impulse tells this virile young man to push that old woman out of the way, even though she is clearly beyond the child-bearing age, and likely retired, and therefore, no longer a productive addition to society. He proceeds to push her out of the way of a cement truck, thus preserving her life, and ending his. Such a scenario is not uncommon, and I would stake my reputation (which, admittedly, is rather dismal) on the statistical probability that such an occurance takes place nearly every day in the continental united states. Where is the evolutionary explanation for that? There are simply too many altruistic behaviors that defy the evolutionary argument for "good" people.
And on the topic of monks, and other theological persons, where do they figure into this? I agree that evolution is an observable biological process, and anyone who disagrees is deluding themselves, but I fail to see how evolution could possibly negate the existance of divinity.
-His Royal Dude-ness
(1) You seem to be under the impression that in order to learn something somebody else must sit down with you and teach it. While that is one way to learn things it is not the only or even the most important way. We learn most things on our own. And we learn from the moment we are born. Furthermore, we are VERY VERY GOOD at learning things. Better than any other organism we know of at it, in fact.
I doubt seriously if you have seen ANY misbehaviors that aren't learned. Kids can have great parents and still learn from other sources. They often do. It is the totality of the environment, not just one aspect of it that determines what a person will learn.
"(F)ully explaining the concepts of 'good' and 'evil'" is certainly beyond the scope of evolutionary theory so no one should expect it too. But to my mind, it does an effective job of explaining the origin of it and why it will always be around.
(2) One field of evolutionary biology that has been outstandingly successful in fact, has been the behavior of altruism. It has shown us that there are two separate forms of altruism, kin altruism (altruism directed toward a genetically related individual) and reciprocal altruism (altruism directed toward an unrelated individual). It has mathematically shown that kin altruism is expected to be stronger which has been experimentally confirmed. Mathematically it has shown exactly where reciprocal altruism is beneficial. It occurs when the sacrifice on the part of the individual performing the act is perceived to be relatively small, the reward on part of the individual receiving the act is seen to be relatively large, and the performer can have a reasonable expectation that if he were in the same situation as the receiver then he could expect someone to do the same thing for him.
Thus, contrary to your assertion above, I would expect that acts like the one you describe ... a person giving up his life for a stranger ... to occur but they should be rare. We would expect it to occur when the person miscalculates the risk, or believes that he is going to die anyway and attempting to save others at the cost of his life will result in no net loss.
I do not know of anyone who would save a person whom one knows nothing about KNOWING it would cost him his life. I may very well push a person out of the way of cement truck, but only if I am pretty sure it wont get me killed. If I thought pushing a person out of the way of the cement truck would get me killed I would probably elect another option like screaming a warning to the little old lady.
(3) I'm not sure what you mean when you ask how "monks and other theological persons" figure into this. What is the problem as you see it?
(4) There are MANY theistic evolutionists out there. Worldwide, they outnumber theistic creationists. These people find ways of harmonizing evolutionary theory with their theism, so obviously evolutionary theory does not rule out "the existence of divinity".
While evolutionary theory ALLOWS some forms of theism, it doesn't REQUIRE any. As an atheist I will tell you this, anyone who rules out the existence of God based SOLELY on evolutionary theory has not put enough thought into it. Evolutionary theory plays a minor role in my atheism. I see it as ruling out the argument from biological design as conclusively proving that God exists. And that is about it.
Other fields of science do the same for other aspects of nature. In other words, I think science convincingly shows that God is not needed to explain ANYTHING in the natural world. But the BIGGEST reason I am an atheist is that the whole idea of God doesn't make any sense with regard to ANYTHING when one puts the idea to close logical scrutiny. If God made the universe why did he do it THIS way and not some other way? If God made us, for what purpose? Is this whole life REALLY some cruel entrance test to get into heaven? I see that as demeaning my life here, NOT giving it meaning. If it is not some cruel entrance test then why were we created here and not there?
Why is this book that is supposed to have been ghost authored by this super-intelligent, all-powerful, technologically-advanced being look for all the world that it was written by people with no more knowledge of the universe and how it works than we would expect from what we know of its NATURAL origins. It is questions like these in which one TRULY subjects the most popular God hypotheses to a real logical test that show the unsatisfactoriness of divinity.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle
Your commentary is interesting, and I can see your point. I'd like to pose a question to you though. How is it that different societies come to have different sets of morals? For example, in Saudi Arabia, it's a perfectly common practice to cut off the hand of a thief. In the US, that's incredibly barbaric, and if it were enacted, would be punished more than the thief. Certainly, the thieving itself is immoral in both cultures, but the punishment in one country is immoral in the other.
~C
Visit my blog.
mvenus,
If we test people from different societies about different things what we find is that there is VERY good agreement between them as to what is "the right thing to do". People generally have the same morals. But you are correct ... on some things there is a cultural difference.
Let's look at them. First, it is NOT common practice in Saudi Arabia to cut off the hand of a theif. The most common practice is to put the theif in prison the same as we do. But they do cut of the hand of a theif at a significantly higher rate than we do. Why? Because of religion.
It should be noted that we have reliigious instruction in our society to kill homosexuals, but we don't. In muslim societies there are religious instructions to cut off the hands of theifs, but they don't GENERALLY. Sometimes they do. I see the reason for the difference is that Islam has yet to go through its period of "enlightenment", like Christianity has.
In the 1700 and 1800's Christianity underwent a period in which secularism had a profound influence. Scientific views replaced many reliigious views. There was a BIG rise in deism; the belief that God may have made the universe but that he generally kept out of interferring in its everyday activities in any way. When one realizes this, then religious commands to do truly barbaric things becomes logically unsound. People either quit believing, come up with some circuitous explanation for why it is that the bible doesn't REALLY mean what it OBVIOUSLY says, or ignores the offending passages altogether.
I do not think Islam has done that yet. ... One of the things that truly scares me about the rise of fundamentalism in Christianity is that it seems to me that they are trying their best to move us BACK to a pre-enlightenment society.
Regards,
Darwin's Beagle