Fred Flintstonensis

It seems to me (being neither a biologist nor a philosopher, but being familiar with the major principles of both disciplines) that morals evolved.

In order to survive as a species, social behavior was selected for. The individuals who were not able to be 'civil' were less effective at passing there genetic code on down to the next generation.

It seems to me that what we call morals were nothing more than a evolutionary mechanism that had the positive result of creating social groups.

I suggested this (admittedly not well thought out) idea to a person I sort of know and he thought I was out of my mind (he is an atheist, too). He suggested that the existence of entire societies bent one destroying one another disprove my idea. He said that Germany's treatment of the Jews during the 30s and 40s also disprove it.

I retorted by saying that perhaps xenophobia was also selected for. I also went out on a limb and said that, like the evolution of speech, thinking and walking, the majority view is that morals evolved (I think I am right about that). He said "Majority view among whom? Certainly not philosphers of ethics!"

In the end, he said that my position (the entire time, he acted as if this idea was original with me) was absurd.

I usually do very well in casual, water-cooler debate, but I was wholly unprepared for this one and got creamed. But typical of debate, the loser isn't always the guy who was wrong.

This guy is a real prick by the way, so there is no love lost here, but I want to get armed and ready for round two. I still think that I am right. I might not be, but I think I am.

Any ideas?

Camaban

I'd say not the morals themselves, but the capacity for morals evolved and the morals themselves were learnt.

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: Camaban ]</p>

Nataraja

I'd say there are definite advantages to not being a dick, yes, like not getting your butt kicked by me if you piss me off or kill my pet snake.

Nataraja

Why screw with your neighbor? Round up the community and wipe out that little shit village across the river, it'll make you a hero and get you good sex. If you screw with your neighbor, the whole freaking town's gonna (wisely) see you as a menace and kill your ass.

Nataraja

Excuse me, I'm not sober, which might be why I'm making a bunch of little posts instead of one big one with good formatting, excuse me.

lpetrich

Actually, there is some good reason to suspect that a "moral sense" is a result of evolution. This is related to the question of the evolution of altruism; how can self-sacrifice be a result of natural selection when doing so impairs one's reproduction? There are numerous examples of that:

Cells of multicellular organisms. Most of them will ultimately die with the organism, and many of them will die before that -- often under "normal" circumstances. A tree is mostly dead material; its wood and bark are the corpses of dead cambium cells. And cells even have a hara-kiri mechanism called apoptosis or Programmed Cell Death. This mechanism can be activated by such things as genetic defects; this can keep them from becoming the ancestors of cancer cells.

Non-reproducing worker insects and Naked Mole Rats.

Parental care.

Aging (senescence).

There are two favorite answers, non-exclusive ones of course: kin selection and reciprocal altruism.

Kin selection is the hypothesis that self-sacrifice enables other possessors of one's genes to survive. This explains most of the examples I'd given -- nonreproducing cells and organisms help reproducing ones, parental care assists transmitters of one's genes, and aging may be a way of getting out of the way of one's offspring.

Reciprocal altruism is mutual assistance -- I'll help you in return for your helping me in the future

[ October 20, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

Camaban

I'd thought about that before.

and put it down to that survival of the fittest started working on a race-per-race basis (with us) long ago.

IE, races look after their own. (Looking after the gene patterns as a whole rather than individually)

and then there's that a suicidal father can often save his family by not carign about what happens to him

Coragyps

Take a wolf pack or a pride of lions - either has a pretty elaborate "morality:" take care of your kinfolk, and defend against outsiders. That second part seems to be the bit we can't outgrow real well. Lots of recent work with various "monogamous" birds shows that they are as adulterous as a country-and-western song, and that they sneak around to do their foolin' around, as well. And that sounds vaguely human-like, no?
So I'm with you, Fred - I don't think lions or plovers have any sacred texts from which they got their moral codes. I'm willing to bet our codes precede our documents, and our languages both.

lpetrich

One book I read about the subject referred to birds as having "extra-pair copulations" or EPC's -- evidently, "adultery" is too loaded a term.

And there is a certain conflict of interest about adultery -- it's nice if one does it, but not if one's partner does it. Which that sneaky behavior reflects.

Gregg

I think it's more likely that some morals evolved and others have been learned. It's not as easy as saying they either evolved or they didn't.

For most of human history we lived in small, relatively isolated tribal groups. Probably if you observe the behavior of a chimpanzee troop, you'll have a good idea of how these tribes functioned. Being the leader required more than strength, it also required good social skills. Killing or driving off all the other males probably wasn't selected for because a single male couldn't protect the tribe all by himself. Another tribe would wipe out his little band, him along with it...so completely elminating the competition WITHIN the tribe wasn't in his own self-interest. Better to simply establish his dominance through a variety of means (showing that he was the strongest and better than anyone else at protecting the tribe from outside threats, etc.) and ensure he would have first pick of the females.

It doesn't get TOO much more complicated when you start getting into larger societies, because these larger societies were still basically big tribes (that may have assimilated other tribes by wiping out the males and mating with the females). But somewhere along the line you get to the point where there are just too many people and killing all the males of a conquered "tribe" is too time/energy consuming a chore, so you LEARN more sophisticated, less bloody strategies of assimilation. Now you're on the road to creating empires and cosmopolitan societies, where people can live and work together more or less peacefully even while maintaining distinct ethnic or tribal identities.

But, I don't think we've been living in these cosmopolitan societies for nearly enough time to have evolved an instinctive moral aversion to killing people from different "tribes." Nazi Germany (Jew vs. Gentile, Nazi vs. Communist, Aryans vs. "lesser races," etc.), Northern Ireland, the Bosnian civil war, and the bloody tribal conflicts in Africa would argue against this. Civil behavior in a mixed society has to be learned--preferably ingrained from childhood. And even then it can be overcome, given the right conditions.

Gregg