Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution, not Creation

I agree. I disagree. And this goes back to what I said in my first message. We have an emotional attachment to things we consider good and things we consider bad. We don’t consider them dispassionately. Why? However much we may apply our rational, objective intelligence to a problem, we still make the final decision based on what makes us happiest. If your instincts did not affect you when making an objective decision, it would mean you did not care what decision you took! It’s true that our intelligent rational minds give us much more variety of options to consider than our much earlier ancestors. Hence our different cultures and different opinions on what is the best way to do things. But our instincts are still there. The fact that we are here today with both instincts and rational intelligence means that, so far, they have worked together successfully. It's logical that our intelligence must have evolved to work alongside and not in oppostion to or in spite of our instincts. I absolutely disagree. Our instincts evolved and our intelligent minds evolved. Just as our dextrous hands, our eyes, our upright stance evolved. They all evolved for the same reason — as a result of natural selection. Intelligence didn’t drop in from somewhere else. It evolved and is working for us for the same reason as all the other major traits we inherited. No! No (other) animals make moral decisions through motivation for species survival. They make decisions as individuals due to what they are (their genetic makeup) and where they are (their environment). Humans are the only animals that can even contemplate the concept of species survival, and most of our everyday decisions to not consider species survival. Again, there’s a misunderstanding. Even amongst humans today, virtually nobody thinks in terms of promoting the species’ survival. Certainly not in everything they do. We’re all making decisions to help others and ourselves. In effect, that will help determine the survival of the species, one way or the other, and our evolutionary path, but that is not the aim. Why do you have a desire to help others? Sounds emotional and therefore instinctive to me.I still maintain that we are ultimately driven by our emotions and it makes us predisposed to feel happy when we are helping others. Why is that? Why are you driven to help a blind man? Why does it make you feel good to help him? I can’t think of any explanation other than because our instincts are telling us through the release of positive emotions that if we help others it is good for us too.We walk a fine knife-edge between helping others and helping ourselves. If we did things purely selflessly, we would not be taking care of ourselves, would have less chance of surviving than those who were at least a bit more selfish, and so would not pass on our traits. If we are too selfish, we will not be valued by others, would receive less help from them, be less likely to survive, etc, etc.So our willingness to help others is ultimately selfish. But don’t feel bad, because our selfishness ultimately helps others!

Hi StileThanks for your reply. I'll take a few days to consider the points we've both raised and get back to you. I know you'll appreciate that.I say that for your benefit and for mine.

Hi StileWe are largely in agreement on most things. I'd like to just concentrate on one important detail. In a sense, yes, that’s what I’m saying. I think this is where the disagreement or confusion is between us.When we talk about an objective decision, we are generally describing one where we give careful consideration to an issue and we apply our rational logical minds as much as possible to work out the different options that we have. This is where you are correct in saying that humans have intelligent minds that give us many more options than other animals or our more primitive ancestors. We have the ability to put (some of) our reactive instincts to one side. I agree with you to that extent.But I believe that our survival instincts are still behind any rational considerations and are at the core of any subsequent decision. Our intelligent, rational minds can give us the options, and can persuade us which are the better options, but it is still the core instincts that make us want to take those actions. Wanting to do something is an instinct. That is what I mean about caring about the decisions we make. Our rational minds are just a tool to enable us to select the best course of action to satisfy our instincts.That’s why when you say that you make an intelligent decision to help people just for the sake of being good, it is your instincts that determine what good is. A purely objective mind can think of the consequences of either helping or not helping other people. It can determine, for example, that helping people in one circumstance will create peace and harmony. But a purely, truly objective mind would not care what the consequences are, it just knows what they are. So there has to be a reason why peace and harmony is considered good. It’s "good" because you recognise that it will lead to a safer world, increasing your chances of survival, and this releases instinctive positive emotions that make you choose that decision - that make you care about making that decision.This is critical to the point I made in my OP about what we actually mean by good and bad, and why we have an emotional attachment to morality.

Hi StileThanks for your reply. If nothing else, you have highlighted how much of an amateur I am on this subject, and I want to read up more on it so that I can express my ideas with better clinical definition (assuming I'll still hold the same ideas having furthered my education).Anyway, I think we're getting close to clarifying our respective opinions. I would consider having a "desire" or a "want" to be instincts, and I would amateurishly call them "core survival instincts". I don't think we can choose not to have any desire. Feeling hungry is also what I would call a "core survival instinct" to not being nourished, so I don't think we can turn that off, although, as you say, we can sometimes turn of the instinct to eat to satisfy that hunger.There are all kinds of instincts working on all sorts of levels.Some of these instincts can undoubtedly, as you say, be influenced by culture, our intelligent rational minds, etc. That's why different people can have different ideas of what is "good" and what is "bad".But I'm saying that the notion of "good" and "bad" is a core instinct, as it describes what particular behaviour we want/desire. "Good" is behaviour that we want, "bad" is behaviour that we don't want.We both agree that, generally speaking, our instincts and intelligence evolved so that they aided our survival. They had to, otherwise we wouldn't be here.But our minds are so complex that this core instinct for "good" and "bad" that evolved for simple survival "purposes" can be corrupted for other purposes by individuals, religions, political ideologies, etc. Hence your example of religious cults thinking it's a "good" idea to commit mass suicide.And, like anything else that has evolved to live in one environment, we could become seriously threatened by a sudden change to a new environment. This could include your other example of suddenly discovering aliens on another planet and having to make a decision to destroy life on Earth so that these more populous aliens can survive. That scenario clearly wasn't in the training ground of our genes, if it had been then, again, we obviously wouldn't be here to talk about it. So, in that example, I would say it is ironic but not nonsensical that our "core survival instinct" to want to make a particular decision could actually destroy us.I hope that makes some kind of sense!

I'll accept that definition and agree with everything else you say. I'm glad we hammered that out in the end!

Hi slevesqueBoy, these are long posts! I’m not certain what you mean here. Are you saying we can’t prove that pigs, crows and fish do not have an empathetic ability because they don’t have the intelligence to prove it to us? This topic was not really meant to be about providing empirical proof (there’s plenty of other topics for that) but to discuss the logic of morality within the generally understood concepts of Evolution and Creation. I don’t know if there is any firm evidence one way or the other as to whether pigs, crows or fish have empathetic ability similar to our own. I think it is generally accepted by most people that they don’t. However, if you disagree or know of any evidence, by all means let me know. I’m not qualified to give a precise account of the extent to which a psychopath lacks the ability to contemplate another person’s thoughts and to empathise with them. All I can say is that they do not have the normal ability in this area that most humans have. They are abnormal. We could have all evolved like that, but we didn’t. And for good reasons; particularly due to the advantage of mutual cooperation that I have already explained. Yes, that’s correct. Who knows what the future holds. Although, at the moment, we still have core instincts to love our fellow human beings and cooperate with them. Our genes are an historical record of our past. And they still seem to be working for us pretty well. Just look at the population expansion over the past few decades. Maybe they are working too well, but that’s for the future to determine. It would be considered good by anyone who happily agreed to it. The holocaust was considered good by those who happily agreed with it. Good and bad are simply the opinions of individuals or society, not entities within themselves. However, we are able to take care of the sick and the old better than we ever were before and, hard as it may be to accept it, we do place a direct value on them. The amount we spend on the sick and the old via taxes and charity, and the amount of personal time we give, is exactly how much we consider they’re worth. We could do even more for them, at the expense of our own wealth, leisure time, etc. But we don't. Some of us do more than others, but in the end we have to balance everything. Life is very tough, there's no getting away from that. I’m pretty certain the cases of euthanasia done without request were switching off life support systems for terminally ill people in a coma. This is done in many countries. I’ve no problem at all with euthanasia in this respect. But killing otherwise healthy old people, or sick people who don’t want to die, I still consider bad. Just for one thing, as I’ve said before, who would want to live in and contribute to a society where you knew you were going to be killed at a certain age?Killing unwanted newborns is bad in my opinion, not least because even if they are unwanted by their parents, they are not unwanted by society. Society still wants to give them a good life for all sorts of reasons. Killing defective newborns is a very difficult subject. If a child were born so ill or deformed that it had no possibility to endure anything other than a very painful life, I would not condemn any parent who had to make that most difficult decision. In my opinion, I would say the decision ought to lie somewhere between society (i.e. democratic law) and the parents, and each case should be considered independently. That’s just my opinion, I can’t really say any more than that. Having a sense of morality does not mean some decisions aren’t incredibly difficult.Anyway, let’s put the ball in your court. Why would Christians or Creationists insist that the very sick must be kept alive at all costs, including the cost of suffering horribly against their will (if, as you imply, that is what they insist)? I’ve no doubt that the very old, the very young, and the very sick have been left to die in the past, and this is also still happening in places today. But it is not our general instinct to do so. It is the exception (usually due to very difficult circumstances), rather than the rule. In any case, Evolution, by definition, should not be expected to give a consistent picture of anything about us. Our morality could change, just as our eyes, legs, fingers, etc could change. But as long as we benefit by being a socially cooperative species, it will be an advantage to care for each other. If caring for each other became a disadvantage, then you would expect over a very long period for our sense of morality to change too.

Hi StileBeing a real nerd, I recently purchased the DVD of the AAI 2009 conference. It features a talk by the evolutionary psychiatrist, Andy Thomson, titled: "Morality: From the Heavens or From Nature?"It was very interesting to see this professional make exactly the same conclusions as we amateurs.The only difference was he had empirical evidence to demonstrate how different areas of the brain made different moral decisions. But that's just showing off!It's worth getting the DVD because it also features very interesting talks from:PZ Myers — Design vs. Chance
Lawrence Krauss — A Universe from Nothing
Jerry Coyne — Why Evolution Is True
Daniel Dennett — The Evolution of Confusion
Richard Dawkins — There is grandeur in this view of life
and others.

Hi MRDo you have any view on why we attach emotion to what we consider to be "right and wrong"?Regardless of whether or not morality is objective or subjective, why do we care what is "right and wrong"?That was the question I raised at the start and was the basis of my whole argument.If we only applied a purely objective view as to whether or not something was "right" or "wrong", then those words would have no meaning. What would it mean that something was "right" or "wrong", and why would we worry about which option we took?It would be like arriving at a fork in a road, and deciding that one way was the "right" way and the other way was the "wrong" way, but having no idea or concern as to what difference it made which way you chose to go.Perhaps you could use that analogy of a fork in the road to explain your Christian view of morality. What does it actually mean to you to take the "right" way or the "wrong" way?

Hi MRThanks for your reply. To me, it appears that your view of "right" and "wrong" is essentially exactly the same as mine. It's ultimately all about what is beneficial to survival and comfort. The only difference is that you extend this to include your survival and comfort in Eternity, but it's the same instinct.I believe I have logically explained how, if we accept evolution as fact, a moral code must inevitably have evolved to produce the right decisions that are beneficial for our survival. In the case of humans, that is a moral code based on mutual cooperation. It's easy to see how this evolved moral code has been seized upon by religious doctrine such as "do not murder", "do not steal", "treat others as you would have them treat you", etc. That's just stating what must have already been obvious and natural to us. Again, this is not fundamentally different to an atheist or evolutionary view of morality. It's all about what is beneficial to us.However, you imply that there are specific regulations from God from which deviation always cause problems. Can you list what these are? And if they weren't naturally obvious to us, do we feel emotionally attached to these regulations, or do we just blindly and automatically follow them like robots following their programming?

Hi MR Power.Someone who wanted to exert power over a community could, let's say, wander off alone into the desert, or up a mountain, and then come back to their community and say they'd met their god and been given a list of instructions that everyone had to obey. Anyone refusing to obey those rules might be cast out of the community, or maybe even killed by...I don't know...maybe the throwing of stones.In the case of lust, we have a natural instinct to procreate in order to spread our DNA. To do this, we have to be competitive to get ahead of others. So that is a very simple and easy evolutionary explanation for why someone would tell everyone else that God says they mustn't look at other women.You haven't explained why God would make you with emotions such as lust, but then command you to ignore this emotion. There's just no logic to that. Why didn't God make us in such a way that we would only have eyes for one person?And you haven't explained why God has his rules. You've only explained that breaking his rules may harm our relationship with God. Why? Why does he care and why do we care that he cares? What ultimately is the point of anyone (God and ourselves) caring about anything?The evolutionary explanation for caring is simple. It is an emotion that drives our behaviour to that which is beneficial to our survival.

You asked why man would come up with the idea of objective morality. I gave a perfectly logical explanation that someone could just have made up things like God's 10 Commandments in order to gain some sort of control over their community. Yes, it is speculative, but it is still perfectly logical. I'm just speculating that people told lies for selfish reasons - have you never heard of such a thing?I've no idea whether Hitler or Stalin cared or knew anything about evolution. In any case, I never claimed that only religious people told lies. I'm sure every human being has told a lie at some point to gain some kind of advantage.In previous messages, I have already given a logical explanation for how morality is a product of evolution. In fact, not just a logical product, but an essential one. If you have any specific queries about any of the points I made on that I would be happy to consider them.(As I've said before, this topic was not about providing evidence for the theory of evolution, there's enough topics on that, but on how morality logically fits in with the theory of evolution through natural selection. A decision making process that drives us to make decisions that are to our advantage is logically necessary for our survival. Maybe the reason why not many people seem to be interested in this topic is because that is so obvious!) I'd be interested to hear when Dawkins said this and in what context. I can't believe he did say it, because he clearly considers evolution to be a fact and presumably doesn't think we generally live in anarchy. Do you think we live in anarchy? If so, then presumably you think God caused the anarchy. Sounds like you're the one making wild speculations! You are certain things are the way they are for a reason, but you don't know what that reason is. How do you know they're that way for a reason then? I love that line. I've often thought how much more enjoyable life would be in so many ways if we could just throw out our sexual desire!I look forward to your response on why we (and/or God) care about the decisions we make.

Hi MRFirstly, I did genuinely like your line about throwing away our sexual desire, even if it wasn't quite what you meant. I'm not being sarcastic when I say what a relief it would be to get rid of those constant nagging thoughts!I still see a lot of inconsistencies and lack of logic in your explanation of morality from God. Assuming God was around before we came along, how or why would he have developed (or always had) a caring nature? What did he have to care about? Are you really saying that what seems right in your eyes is to hurt other people? That it's only because of things like the 10 commandments that you don't go around killing and raping people? This is getting very close to the essence of my argument. If God is perfect, he would not have made humans imperfect in his eyes. Or if he did, it could only have been deliberately. If he had done it deliberately, he would not have any reason to be angry at our imperfections - he would delight in them. It just doesn't make any sense to claim that God is perfect but that he inadvertantly made an imperfect world. It's a contradiction in terms. He's either perfect and made us exactly how he wanted us, in which case he will be absolutely happy with us all the time, or he is imperfect and therefore does not automatically deserve respect. Whatever happened to the idea given by Jesus that we shouldn't be so judgemental and that we should regard everyone as equal and forgive them for wrong-doings? Has Christianity thrown all that out? The God you describe sounds like an elitist snob.

Hi MRThanks for your reply. I've heard Dawkins say some of the quotes you provide, or similar things. This is the one area where I disagree with his views, and I think he may even disagree with himself.I'm busy now but will get back to you ASAP with my full response.

Hi MR Obviously I can’t be too certain about exactly what Dawkins meant by his statements. I would first point out, though, that he has said he regrets the title The Selfish Gene because it has mislead many people.Genes are not really selfish. They do not have a brain. They are what they are, and it’s because of what they are and what their environment is that determines whether or not they survive. They do not have any more feeling or consciousness or will to survive than a rock does.The Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection is not an ideology. It is a natural phenomenon that has no more intention behind it than other natural processes such as erosion or plate tectonics. It is truly mindless; not in the sense that it is cruel, but in the sense that it is neither cruel nor benign. It is neither caring nor uncaring. There is no more intention behind the evolution of species than there is an intention of 2 asteroids colliding, or of a rock being eroded by the wind.Evolution is a scientific fact. I think one of the main points Dawkins was making is that it is a fact whether you like it or not. It is a fact that rainfall erodes a mountain, whether you like it or not. It is a fact that the moon’s gravity pulls the tides, whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter what you like, it doesn’t change the facts.My argument that morality is a logical consequence of evolution does not mean that I think our basic sense of morality is some kind of ideological system based upon the same mechanisms that brought about evolution. I was making the point that our simple instinctive feeling that a decision is either good or bad was arrived at through the process of evolution. There are clearly innumerable different cultures and ideologies that could be based upon all kinds of mechanisms. However, I don’t think that an ideology can be truly based upon the mechanism of evolution through natural selection. Ideologies require a will to make decisions, and an objective. The mechanism of evolution through natural selection does not have any will or objective.

Indeed, it will be very interesting. My own feeling based on what I have previously stated, and on the points you made, is that we do have free will.I think we are freely capable of determining what we want to do via our rational objective minds, but the "wanting" itself is an instinct that evolved and the related emotions are what give us the concept of "good" and "bad".I'm probably just repeating myself again and stating the obvious but hey-ho.