Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution, not Creation

I agree with everything you've mentioned about evolutionary development of our emotions and empathy.I would just like to make a minor point that sometimes gets lost with all the historical devlopment explanations.The stuff your talking about... evolutionary reasons for emotions and empathy and such... I think it was the main focal point (almost instinctual) in our ancestors... sometime around 50,000 to maybe even 100,000 years ago. Maybe even further back than that... whenever it was that our brain started getting larger and first developing these "instincts". (I'm horrible with dates and time-frames).Ever since then... ever since intelligence starting taking a larger and larger role... I think we have began to develop an additional level of morality that does not necessarily have to rely on those evolutionary reasons. That is, our intelligence allows us to choose to go against our instincts if we so desire. In the same way that I can choose to stop eating, I can also choose to take care of the sick for some other reason than the ones initially pushed through evolutionary instincts (or even not to take care of the sick at all).My point is to strongly agree with everything you've stated as the historical development of our morals but not necessarily as the current motivation for our morals. Although some certainly may continue to use (some even by choice) those same historical, evolutionary instincts as their moral compass.I agree that our emotions and empathy, even our intelligence, comes from evolution. I just want to make sure that saying "here is the evolutionary development and reasoning behind everything" doesn't get taken as "therefore, this is the reason why we all really do these things". Because it's not, it is only the reason why we're all capable of doing these things.Minor point, likely trivial, but I wanted to post so nyah, nyah Edited by Stile, : The new post is so wildly different and changed from the previous that I should probably be charged with fraud. Does anyong actually read these reasons? Heh... what a nice off-topic trap-question...

Me too. Work's been busy. Which is a good thing, I suppose. Any moral action would do.Let's take Taking Care of The Sick.Evolutionary reasoning - Everything you've been saying so far (things like it helps our society and they can help take care of the young, and all that other stuff too).But, this isn't "why we all really do these things". That is, I'm sure this is why we all started doing these things... during the evolutionary development of our intelligence. And I'm also sure that many people still do these things for these very reasons. But it's not necessary.I can take care of the sick because I want to get paid for it, or because it makes me feel happy, or because I want to rub-elbows with them so they might put me in their will so I'll get some inheritance.Evolution is why I'm capable of making these decisions. But the reason behind why I do it doesn't have to be driven by our past evolutionary development.My main, but minor, point is this: An example a bit more on topic:
(Going back to your first post where beneficial = right/good and harmful = wrong/bad).We feel morally obligated to not kill each other because of the wrong/bad feelings and harm it will cause.However, I do not necessarily have to refrain from killing for these reasons. I can choose to refrain from killing out of fear from God destroying my mortal soul.It's very possible for me to choose to ignore the evolutionary reasoning of morality (even though it is a part of my human development) and use my intelligence (also given to me by evolution) to create my own reasoning.At the base level... I agree it all comes down to evolution at some point. After all, humans evolved. But, when we get into morality we start to get into higher-level things like intelligence and decision making and motivations. The reasonings from these higher areas are not necessarily forced to coincide with their base level evolutionary origins.I also like to point out that I do not find evolutionary reasons for a moral system to be "the best" or "the most righteous" kind of moral system. I think it's better than a fear-based system, but I still think it's below a system focused on doing good "just for the sake of doing good".Some religions -> "fear" based morality system
Evolution -> "species survival" based morality system
Best (includes some other religions) -> "want to help others as much as possible" based morality system

I am not so much focusing on the individual, as I am focusing on the current situation as opposed to how we came to be. Which is why my point is minor and almost off-topic, even.I'm not trying to argue against the main idea of this thread. I certainly agree that "Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution". I'm just adding a bit of information to identify a small nuance.I'm more talking about after the population has already evolved such features, those features themselves do not necessarily have to be the reasons why people do moral things.That is, I agree that "taking care of society" (and all the other evolution-related reasons given so far in this thread) is likely why our population has evolved to take care of the sick or elderly.However, I do not agree that, here and now, people (even most of our population) take care of the sick or elderly in order to have them around to "take care of society" or any other evolution-related reason given so far. It may be, and certainly can be for many people... but it's not required. The entire population could shift to taking care of the sick and elderly in order to get their money and inheritance. That has nothing to do with the instinctual evolution of why our population evolved to be this way in the first place. It is a reason created by our intelligence in the here and now.

I agree. But this isn't the separation I was trying to make. I was attempting to contrast the difference between instinctual decisions and intelligent decisions. One is done almost automatically, the other is done with some amount of forethought.At some point, we had ancestors that acted almost entirely instinctually. Now we have a significant dose of intelligence added into our decision making. I can make reasoned moral decisions without my instinctive feelings and emotions affecting the outcome. They are "involved" to the point that I recognize them and I may either intelligently agree or disagree with them. But that doesn't affect me when making an objective decision. Yes. But not all of our ancestors did this in the same way.Do you agree that at some point in our history we had ancestors that acted mostly-instincually?
These ancestors would almost unanimously have the same instincts and therefore consider the same things to be "beneficial" and therefore act in the same manner. This is what I'm talking about by saying evolution-related reasoning. It's all very similar across the board of the species and therefore is directly connected to evolution.Do you agree that today we have a significant level of intelligence within our decision making abilities such that we can choose to go against our instincts towards a large variety of options?
With such abilities, we no longer have a large majority of the population acting in the same way. "Benefical" now means many different things to many different people. Evolution is no longer directly connected to our decision making process. It is now an indirect connection. A subtle difference. Exactly. Which is why I agree that "Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution".However, we cannot make a jump and say that evolution-related reasons are why we all do things. To say "we all do what we consider to be beneficial" is a meaningless tautology. Of course we do what we choose to do. The point is that our instinctually-based ancestors had a vast majority that all acted the same way as their instincts drove what was "beneficial". And now, with intelligence added into the mix, we have a much smaller percentage that acts the same way because everyone has a different subjective (intelligent) choice for what "beneficial" actually is to them.Evolution is certainly still at work. Evolution is certainly still behind all of it. But evolution has a direct link to instinctual decisions, and only an indirect link to intelligent decisions. That's all I'm saying. Well, this is easily shown to be false.If I make all my moral decisions through motivation for species survival (exactly what most animals do through their instincts), than I certainly do have an "Evolution/Species Survival" based morality system. No? I agree that having a desire to help others is generally advantageous to ourselves. But so what?It doesn't change the fact that the motivation for my actions is a desire to help others and not a desire to promote the species' survival.And there are many situation where having a desire to help others would not be generally advantageous to ourselves or our own species. Granted, a lot of these won't come up in our life-times unless we make contact with another intelligent species. But why should we base our motivations on something that breeds descrimination when we have identified a better alternative?What's better?
Doing something good because you fear the consequences of not doing it?
Doing something good because you want to promote the survival of the species?
Doing something good because you have a desire to help others? Good is a subjective term. It's different for all people. You seem to agree with your term "beneficial behaviour". Every different person you talk to is going to have slightly different ideas of what they consider to be "beneficial behaviour". Therefore, the only way to "do good" is to find out from the people you're effecting if you're actually helping them or not (actually being beneficial for them or not).Therefore, my definition of "good" changes depending on who I'm trying to do something "good" for.Example:Opening a door for a blind man.
-Generally, this is a good thing.
-However, if the blind man thinks people are taking pity on him and wants to start doing things himself and now hates it when people open a door for him... then it's a bad thing. And it would be a good thing for me to not open the door for him.How do we know?
We don't.
Striving to be good is an ongoing process of attempting to learn about the people you interact with.

Yes, I complete agree. I'm just saying that our intelligence allows us to choose what it is that makes us happiest apart from simply following basic instincts. I do not understand this. If a decision is affected by your instincts, then that decision is subjective. Are you saying that objective decisions do not exist? I agree that it's logical. My point is only that it isn't necessary. And, the more intelligence we have the easier it is to identify and ignore our instinctual reactions. The point I'm making is that without intelligence, we rely on instincts which results in "decision making" that is extremely common across the entire species. With intelligence, we gain more options. Now the decision making across the species is no longer so uniform. When it's no longer uniform, you can't say "we all do what makes us happy" and expect it to mean something. Of course we all do what we all do. The point is that "what makes us happy" is extremely uniform in instinctual species but "what makes us happy" is extremely varied across species with greater intelligence. Yes, they do. A moral decision is basically defined as "a decision on how we interact with others". Do animals interact with others? Of course they do. Therefore, animals make moral decisions. How do they make their decisions? Exactly how you said... due to their genetic makeup and depending on their environment. The next step is... what is their genetic makup programmed to do in their environment? And the answer is... evolution has geared their genetic makeup in such a way so that they survive in their environment. Put it all together and we have: "Animals make moral decisions (through their instincts) in order to promote their species' survival (through their genetic makeup that evolution has helped form for survial within their environment)". I've bolded the misunderstanding.We are not all making decisions to help others and ourselves.
We all make decisions based on whatever motivation we feel like at the time.This is the confusing jump that I'm trying to point out to you. You cannot make this jump.Even if we're making beneficial decisions... you can only say that we all make decisions that eventually have side-effects that will help others and ourselves. Once you jump to "we all make decision to help others and ourselves" you are telling people their "true motivation" for whatever decisions they're making. This is something you are not capable of. You cannot read my mind, you cannot claim to tell me (or anyone else) what their motivation is for taking their actions. Only they know that. I've already agreed with you on this. But I will agree again, if it's what you're looking for. I agree that "Morality is a Logical Consequence of Evolution". I agree that our desires are emotional and instinctive. I'm just saying that we have the intelligence to go against our emotional and instinctive desires if we so choose. Because of the proof of that ability, we also have the ability to choose to agree with our desires and instincts.Therefore, the active, intelligent decision to do something that happens to coincide with evolutionary emotions and instincts does not necessarily have to have the same motivation as the evolutionary reasoning it simply agrees with.In order to refute this point (if you want to refute it), you'll have to show that we are unable to use our intelligence to go against our instincts and emotions. Who said I was driven to help a blind man? I think you're creating your own idea to argue against here.I said I choose to help a blind man. Are you not capable of using your intelligence to ignore your instincts? Must you eat as soon as you find food whenever you become hungry? Not necessarily it isn't.I fully admit that you can always think up a selfish reason for why somebody did something. But just because you can think of a possibility doesn't mean that it was actually used in reality.My willingness to help others is done out of an intelligent decision based upon wanting to help others. Not because I want to help myself.I admit that I cannot show you this idea in my head and you'll have to take my word for it.
However, you equally cannot claim that I am "ultimately selfish". Why can't I do things for people because I want to help others?I have intelligence, I get to use that intelligence in order to decide my own actions based upon my own motivations. I agree that it's quite possible that alternative, selfish motivations may coincide with the actions I choose to take. But that doesn't mean that those selfish motivations therefore must be the ones I used. Such reasoning doesn't make any sense.It's like me saying 12-8=4, but then you say that 2+2=4 so therefore 12-8 doesn't exist. It just doesn't work that way. Just because the resulting action is the same doesn't mean that the motivational pathway to get there is definitively one specific possibility.Willingness to help others can be selfish. But it doesn't have to be. As long as you're intelligent enough to choose to ignore your instincts, anyway.

Yes, I think so. Perhaps we are visuallizing slightly different definitions of key words. This will be confusing because it will limit communication. Okay, let's call what you're talking about here "survival instincts".
I do not think it's quite the same as what I'm talking about when I say "evolutionary instincts".That is, is it your claim that... at the end of things... we will always do whatever our survival instincts tell us? We may think about the positives and negatives of this and that possible consequence... but after all is said and done we end up "choosing" whatever it is that our survival instincts are pulling for?That's what I think you're claiming. And that's what I am not convinced is true. If I am incorrect about your claim, you can likely disregard the rest of this post and correct me on what it is I should be discussing.If I'm right... then you're saying that we do not, ever, go against what our survival instincts are telling us?My trouble in accepting this is that I cannot think of a survival instinct that some people have not chosen to ignore and go against:Eating to stay alive (individual survival)? Lots of people have chosen to not eat and consequently perished as a result.Pushing for the survival of society (group survival)? There have been many groups (cults) that get together to form their own society and then use their intelligence to convince themselves that a mass suicide is for the better and go ahead and do such.Can you give me an example, perhaps, of something specific you think is a "survival instinct" that you do not believe people can decide to go against?If not.. perhaps you think that survival instincts are different for different people? And that we may all have different survival instincts and therefore just because some people do something... it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how others do the same?If this is the case, then I propose that "survival instincts" is not a very good term. As "instinct" is generally a term used to describe something that is vastly uniform across a species. Perhaps you mean something more closer to "what we want". Desires and such that come from experience, memory and our intelligence.This comes into the sort of thing I'm talking about... that our intelligence creates another group of decisions... "what we want" that are so different from "instincts" that it is confusing to call them such.Keeping such definitions in mind: I would say that how vastly different "good" is perceived by so many different people indicates that "good" is determined by our intelligence, not our instincts. Not quite. A purely objective mind can think of possible consequences. Objectiveness does not give the powers of reading the minds of others or seeing the future. Yes, our subjective intelligence. Which is determined by our evolutionary instinctual heritage combined with our experiences and memory. But this isn't true. Certainly not for all people, and certainly not for me. I do not do "good" (helping others) because I recognize that it will lead to a safer world or increase my chances of survival. In fact, I can think up a few situations in which I would still do "good things" (help others) in the face of the entire destruction of our planet and species as an immediate consequence.Like, say, if I was put in the situation where I had to decide between saving our planet/species (7 billion people). Or saving another planet/species of equivalent or perhaps greater intelligence (500 trillion people).I fully admit that I may choose to destroy our species due to my intelligence, which is derived from evolution and has some portion of instincts invovled. But to call this decision as sticking to my basic "survival instincts" just doesn't make much sense.

Oh... don't take my definitions as anything clinical or professional. I'm just an amateur as well. I was only trying to make sure we are discussing the same thing, that's all. I have no formal background in such studies. My academic background would only go as deep as a single Philosohpy of Science course in University. Likely a 101 level... can't remember...On the amateur level, I have been interested in such subjects for the past 10 years or so. My "training" would most accurately be described as "having my ass handed to me" throughout these forums... This sentence... I completely agree with Within the above context... I see what you're saying and I agree. I just think it gets confusing when "what we want" is best described as "what we think other people may want"... in which case "what we want" becomes an... easily misunderstood... thing to discuss. Again, within your clarified context, I see what you're saying and I agree.When I look towards morality, I like to describe my own as "an objective system based upon a subjective framework". That is, my decision to see "that which helps others, as defined by those others" as good and "that which hurts others, as defined by those others" as bad is subjective. However, once that framework is in place, I can make objective evaluations regarding moral decisions.That is, if we accept the above subjective framework, then it becomes objective fact that opening the door for someone who is thankful that you opened the door for them is "good".I like my definition because it even works for the sticky situations where some people like things that most people don't... For instance, under my system it is an objective fact that having masochistic sex is a "good thing" as long as the "victim" is willing and having a good time.An action is good only if the person being affected by that action thinks the result was good.
-the action itself is irrelevant
-the opinions of those not being affected by the action are irrelevant
-even your own motivation for the action itself is irrelevant (irrelevant in defining if the action was morally good or bad... very much relevant in defining if your intentions were honourable or not...)IF (the internet may not be big enough for this size of "if") the entire world could adopt such a notion... much confusion over whether such-and-such a thing is good or bad would be averted. Want to know if what you're doing is good or bad? Go and find out from the people you're affecting. Of course, the huge problem from here is trying to get people to understand such concepts after thousands of years of following moral systems best described as "Thou Shalt Not" lists which they think can and should be universally applied throughout the world regardless of what other people think.

Thanks for the heads-up. Cool One day, perhaps, technology and the great minds of this world will be able to identify whether or not we actually have free will. That will be an interesting time.If everything turns out to be exactly deterministic in some way or another... does this resolve us of all responsibility? Or do we just have to slightly re-define "responsibility" in order to incorporate this new information?If we can actually (somehow) prove that we do indeed have freewill... does this mean that some level of our decisions are random? In which case, how do we control that randomness? (I would hate to think that my decision to spend my life with my wife was, at some fundamentally basic level, random )Time, time... if only I had more time. How come when I don't have time... there seems to be lots of posts I would like to make. But then when I have lots of free time, all the interesting posts are gone?