A. Milos

I wonder, how can our genes talk to our brain!

K

bd-from-kg:

That goes a long way toward illustrating my point. How could something be socially desirable if there had been no evolutionary development toward social behavior? Why are humans and animals social at all? You seem to assume that things that make a smoothly functioning society are good. Why are functioning societies even something to be considered? I believe the genetic basis of morality goes a long way toward explaining this.

Would you also agree that we can't find anything useful about the English language by looking at its roots?

Why consider evolution at all? After all, the animals on this planet currently make up a complete biological system.

I also believe that observing the morality displayed by other social animals can give us insights into our own morality.

This is more evidence to support the evolutionary nature of morality. It is only relatively recently (genetically speaking) that humanity has reached a stage where treating other societies in a hostile manner could be considered a possible hinderance to survivability. For ages, this type of behavior would allow the aggressor groups that were powerful (or internally socially functioning well) enough to overtake other groups access to the natural resources that would allow them to flourish.

K

Helmling:

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here, but I think the pair-bond can easily be attributed to natural selection. Marriage is just a human ceremonial invention that seeks to capture the essence of the drive for a pair-bond.

Human children take a very long time to mature. They require the care of at least one adult for an incredibly long period of time. Since females can only produce a relatively small number of offspring, there would be a gene survivability advantage to them having a drive to care for their children. Males can produce a much larger number of offspring, but given the huge window in which those children are vulnerable, a drive to help care for the young would certainly aid in the liklihood the offspring growing to an age at which they could reproduce. The extraordinary amount of work involved in raising a human child to be a functioning member of human society would be shared among two. Also the male would reduce the odds that another male would kill his offspring in order to reproduce with the female who had given birth to their children (this happens with some animals).

bd-from-kg

K:

OK, I’m not interested in discussing whether society would be possible if there were no innate tendencies to act in socially desirable ways, so I’ll concede the point. Let’s just say that any particular socially desirable behavior would be moral whether it had been selected for or not.

Well, what I mean by “socially desirable” is not merely "making for a smoothly functioning society”. An absolute tyranny might function very smoothly, but creating one would not be socially desirable. On the other hand, creating the conditions for a dynamic, rapidly growing economy might tend to be destabilizing whereas an economically static society might function more smoothly. What I mean by “socially desirable” (as I thought I made clear on a number of occasions) is beneficial, on the whole, to the members of the society. And I don’t “assume” that behaviors that are beneficial to the members of society (or more broadly, to all individuals) on the whole are “moral”; I consider this to be true by virtue of the meaning of “moral”. When we say that an action or type of behavior is “immoral”, we mean that it disregards the interests of other people. That was the whole point of the paragraph in question.

Since I just spent thousands of words demonstrating that the notion that morality has a genetic basis is not only false but logically incoherent, you cannot just continue to talk as though it is a given that morality has a genetic basis. If you’re going to ignore my arguments there is no point in trying to have a discussion with you.

I honestly don’t know what supposed point you’re referring to.

I wasn’t saying that we can’t learn anything at all that might be of interest to anyone by studying the biological roots of human behavior; I was saying that one can gain little or no insight into the questions of concern to moral philosophy by doing so. In the same way, if you wanted to know whether the shipping charge for a mail order was excessive, a knowledge of the history of the word “ship” would not be particularly helpful.

What you mean, I presume, is that by observing how some other animals behave we can learn something about the biological roots of some of our own behavior. This is quite true.

No, it’s more evidence to support the genetic basis of some human behavior.

Very true. In fact, that was my point. But does that imply that it was right to rape, plunder, and pillage neighboring villages? Or to annihilate entire hostile tribes? These behaviors might well have been very effective in spreading the genes of the peoples who engaged in them, but does that mean that they were morally right? Or, is attacking other societies wrong today only because it risks a nuclear holocaust? For that matter, suppose that attacking other societies is still (in spite of the possible consequences) in accordance with our genetic predispositions. Would it then be wrong to attack because of the possible consequences, or right to attack because it is in accord with our innate dispositions? If the former, why all this harping on evolved traits in the context of morality? If consequences are what really decide the matter, what we are naturally disposed to do is relevant only insofar as it affects those consequences. And of course I agree that consideration of our evolutionary history is relevant in analyzing the possible consequences of a proposed course of action. What is not morally relevant is whether the action is in accord with predispositions produced by natural selection.

______________________________

Again and again you make it clear that (like several other posters here) you equate “morals” with “behaviors” and “morality” with “psychology”. Surely I don’t have to point out that this is not standard usage. By way of analogy, if what you mean by “civil engineering” is how people have actually gone about constructing the buildings and bridges that they do, and why, then the history of architecture and bridge building is very relevant. But if you mean (as most people do) the study of how to efficiently construct safe and functional buildings, bridges, etc., a knowledge of how the Etruscans and Aztecs did these things, or of how Navahos make adobe huts today, is of very little interest.

In the same way, if by morality you mean the study of how people actually behave toward one another, much of what you say makes sense: human behavior has certainly evolved under the influence of natural selection. But this is not what “morality” means in the context of moral philosophy. As long as you continue to treat morality as a branch of psychology or sociology, you are not doing moral philosophy, or any other kind of philosophy for that matter.

As I pointed out before, people who pretend to be discussing moral philosophy when they are really talking about psychology almost always do so because they don’t believe there is really such a subject as morality – that the question of what people ought to do, as opposed to what they actually do, is essentially meaningless. Since they think that there is nothing of interest to say about morality (since the subject doesn’t exist) they talk instead about why people behave the way they do, or how so many people have come to suffer from the delusion that moral questions actually mean something. Now the position that moral questions are meaningless is defensible. But the point is that it needs to be defended. It cannot simply be taken for granted as if it were a generally accepted fact.

One more point. If, when you say that “morals evolved”, you really mean that many aspects of human behavior are strongly influenced by genetic factors that were produced by natural selection, your thesis is scientific, not philosophical. There is a forum devoted to scientific questions; if it’s this scientific thesis that you want to discuss, it should be discussed there. Perhaps the whole problem here is that Longbow and I have been assuming that since it's in the “Philosophy” forum, this thread is about philosophy.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

K

bd-from-kg:

This is exactly the problem. I and others are talking about behaviors that we would call morals. You are speaking about philosphy. I would contend that a scientific basis could indeed be the foundation of a philosopy of morality, but that's a different subject.

In my defense, I didn't start this topic in this forum. And I'll remove myself from this thread unless it becomes a discussion whose subject is appropriate for this forum.

Fred Flintstonensis

Physics exists whether people do or not. The same cannot be said for morals.

Kharakov

bd-

Thanks for clearing some things up. I thought the OP of this discussion was about the evolutionary (natural) origin of morals (moral practices) which presupposes a general knowledge of morality among the people discussing the subject.

It seems to me that (the best) morality would lead to the greatest possible benefit for individuals and society. This means that the rules of morality cannot be set in stone for the society. In China, mothers are required to have an abortion if they get pregnant after already having a child. This is in the best interests of that society and its individuals. If a plague kills 99% of the population, the rule that mothers should only have 1 child would no longer be valid.

Any type of stagnant morality* (islam- don't eat pork, catholicism - birth control evil, no abortion) is immoral because it does not respond to the needs of the society and/or individuals.

*as in a doctrine or system of moral conduct

I still see a resemblance between genes and morals.

Kharakov

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Kharakov ]</p>

Longbow

Why do you say this? Because you have read Kant's books and don't find his arguments compelling? Or are you just making the assertion that there is no way to justify a moral world view from nonmoral assumptions? This latter position is almost surely false, in my opinion. It is certainly not something you can just take for granted.

Something else you cannot just take for granted is that you can always meaningfully question assumptions. In fact, this is a big part of Kantian philosophy in general, but I'll save that for later discussion if it comes up...

The phenomenon is moral discourse. And any explanation of a phenomenon is going to occur after the phenomenon. Kantian moral philosophy is not an ad hoc "rationalization" designed merely to arrive at a preconceived view. Or, it is much less so than the evolutionary approach seems to be.

You are missing the point. NO behavior constitutes something like "a moral". This is at best a very strained metaphorical way of thinking about morals. As a perfect example, the very idea of marriage is much more than anything like "a moral". It is also a custom, a personal value, and so on. What seems to be happening over and over again is that someone will bring something up like marriage. They will observe all these other aspects of the general behavioral trait and try to associate these aspects with the moral aspects of marriage.

Or more generally, there is some idea X that we are talking about. X appears in many contexts often combined with the independent ideas of Y or Z. Now everyone is trying to act like a discussion of X is a discussion of Y and Z. It isn't -- it has nothing to do with Y or Z. Without an explicit and particular connection, what people tend to do, what happens in other cultures, what are instinctive behavioral traits that all humans share, and so on are all completely irrelevant to the entire subject of moral philosophy.

You have to make this connection before you start bringing these things up.

Longbow

I don't think it is just that. I would say that if you don't want to talk about morality, then don't use ethical terms at all. Whether you are discussing it in the context of philosophy or in some other context, there is a subject matter underneath all the discussion that you are implicitly and necessarily referring to. (Of course, we both think that is a philosophical subject matter.) The only way you could possibly be not referring to it is if you explicitly create a private code from which you could decrypt your statements into some other discussion. In some sense I guess this very thing could happen just naturally by people with likeminded philosophical views simply discussing the matter among themselves. So, I do think there is a meaningful dispute over what is really meaningfully entailed in making moral statements which perhaps goes part and parcel with a discussion like this.

I guess what I also object to is the pretense that would go along with such a discussion even if everyone "understands" they are moral subjectivists (say). I think if you really are a moral subjectivist, then you should abandon any pretense and perhaps even labor to eliminate any possibility of your statements as being construed as assertions relating to a subject that they are supposed to specifically not relate to. Otherwise, they very well may warrant the "moral philosopher's" response and attention

Longbow

Well if we want to get serious about what forums we discuss things in, this discussion clearly doesn't belong in this forum. Perhaps it belongs in the sicence forum, but if not it clearly belongs in the moral philosophy forum.

Or perhaps its not so clear. The fact is that any good discussion substantially overlaps all sorts of topics. So, I don't really have a problem discussing it here. And one thing I would contend is...

...no matter where this discussion happens it is goign to have to be a philosophical one. You cannot support philosophy with science. It can only go in the other direction, I would contend. In other words, you might be able to make a philosophical argument that establishes a scientific basis for morality. But at that point it is no longer a philosophical subject. But, I don't think you can do even that.

What I think is going on here is that you guys are trying to piggy back off of scientific subject matter that is in close proximity to genuinely moral subject matter. So, for instance, you are picking up on regularity in behavior that is often evaluated morally and trying to impose it on the moral evaluations. It seems like such a small step to make, but they might as well be worlds apart even if both subjects -- the anthropology of human conduct and the moral philosophy surrounding it -- often happen at the same time.