An Evolutionary Basis for Ethics?

If the suggestion is that only humans can exhibit ethical behavior, then I find this questionable.Of course, it's a tricky question. If we just measure morality in terms of outcomes, then the average ant is more ethical than we --- a tireless, selfless worker for the good of the community. But we hardly think of ants as being moral, because we don't think of them as having the capacity to make moral choices.To attribute ethics to animals in the sense that would have interested, say, St Thomas Aquinas, we'd have to think that their ethical actions were the product of ethical preferences. In the case of ants we may doubt this. But what about chimpanzees and other primates?Now, the problem here is the difficulty of questioning them about their motives. Nonetheless, I think that by default our assumption should be that when they behave morally, they are in fact being moral. For, after all, we can objectively ascertain that they have certain mental powers --- they can solve problems, they can think about the future, they pass tests for self-awareness, and, crucially, they are capable of constructing models of the mental states of other individuals. So if we also see them behaving in ways that we would find ethically admirable --- such as a large male protecting an orphaned female from bullying and sexual abuse by the other members of the troupe, as has been observed --- then it is hard to think that there isn't some sort of ethical feeling behind it.Here's an interesting study I read about lately. Monkeys were trained to find pebbles, being rewarded with a slice of cucumber, which they learned to do easily. After they'd learned to do that, the experimenters continued to reward some of the monkeys with cucumber, while rewarding other monkeys with some more desirable treat (grapes, IIRC). What happened? The monkeys that were still being rewarded with cucumber refused to collect any more pebbles. There is something peculiarly human about this reaction and the concept of justice it suggests. Mere conditioning, as with Skinner's pigeons, comes nowhere near explaining this. This is not clear. If we accept that ethics depends on being able to decide whether or not to care for other people, then arguably it would be better for our species if, like the ants, we couldn't choose not to.

You seem to be declaring this by fiat rather than supporting it with biological observation.Now, as I said, it is not possible to query them in detail about their motives for ethical behavior. However, tests of chimpanzee intelligence show that that is way more than instinctual.Here's a recent experiment that interested me. Experimenters showed chimpanzees a box with some food in, and showed them how to extract the food. The box had perspex sides, and it was possible to see that some of the moves made by the experimenters served no actual purpose.Now, a rat can't learn to solve a puzzle by being shown how. Indeed, it can't learn to solve a puzzle even if you guide its paws through the appropriate motions.A human child of about three (as the experimenters ascertained) will copy the experimenters exactly. Monkey see, monkey do ...And a chimpanzee will copy the experimenters but omitting the useless actions.That's not instinctual, that's intelligence.So why should we dismiss their morality and self-sacrifice as merely instinctual? But it isn't predictable, 'cos people can't actually predict it. For example, the chimp I mentioned in my previous post, who adopted an orphan, had previously been pegged by researchers as a sullen grouchy misanthrope. No-one predicted that given such a chance to show his softer side, he'd take it.I don't think anyone who's studied chimp behavior could agree with you that they're ant-like automata --- nor want to know anyone who suggested it. Again, this seems to be decreed by fiat, rather than supported by observation. If you're looking for a qualitative gap in intelligence, it lies somewhere between rats and chimpanzees. With the sole exception of grammar, the truly distinctive trait of our species, humans do appear to be just like chimps only smarter.

That we can choose to be immoral? If this is transcendence, then we could do with a bit less of it. This is, of course, still true of humans. Even vegetarians subsist on the blood of innocent carrots. You have chosen some singularly inopportune examples. Horses, in the wild, live in herds. Wolves, of which dogs are the domestic version, live in packs --- they are dependent on cooperation for food. And feral dogs are also pack animals.You seem to take a rather cynical view of natural history. Yes, there is, in the biological sense, always competition between members of the same species. But in social species, this involves a competition to be the best at co-operation. That statement is sweeping and, unless greatly qualified, inaccurate. I think you are oversimplifying their theses. But that's by-the-by. But is not acting for the good of the group a form of self-interest? The man who makes no effort to fit into society will be kicked out of it, by ostracism, exile, imprisonment, or execution. His life would be, to quote Hobbes, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".---Edited to add: I wrote this post before reading your latest. By all means talk to your professors.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

My pleasure.

I don't think I'll be alone if I say that I find the morality of the rhesus monkeys superior to that of the experimenters.

Well, that's very philosophical of them. Wow, it's almost like I'm talking to Socrates. But this is a non sequitur. It is in a sense true that evolution has no "goals", but that proposition doesn't mean that evolution can't have formed the eye of a vertebrate or the tail of a peacock. Evolution does stuff, and I presume that since you're at Notre Dame your professors will admit that.Very well then --- if evolution can form the eye of an aardvark, why can it not be similarly responsible for the morality of a monkey?---And again, it seems that your professors are simply declaring what they want to be true to be true: it is true, not as a matter of observation, but by philosophical fiat. They have simply declared that monkeys have no morals, no matter how monkeys actually behave. Real-world observations of what monkeys actually do are, it seems, irrelevant to their conclusion.Now to speak for myself, I treat observation as the most convincing source of knowledge. I observe that the other primates behave as though they have some concept of morality, and conclude that therefore they probably do. Whereas your professors reply that even though monkeys behave exactly as though they have some concept of morality, nonetheless they don't.Well, really, one hardly knows how to argue with someone who undertakes this sort of retreat from reality. If I said: "The sky is blue", then it appears that your professors could say: "No, the sky isn't blue. It just looks exactly like it's blue."I shall have more to say about this in my next post. Watch this space.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I think it's more subtle than the question of evolution. I think you'll find that professors at Notre Dame who don't believe in evolution are fairly thin on the ground --- it's not Liberty University, after all.No, the problem a doctrinally Catholic professor is going to have is with the suggestion that chimps and other non-humans have knowledge of good and evil and are capable of choosing between the two. So long as their behavior was merely instinctual, then the professors would have no worries in admitting that it existed and admitting that it's a product of evolution. But if we say that the behavior is a product of moral choice, then they wouldn't like to admit that even if they were thoroughgoing evolutionists.It's essentially a theological problem. Even if the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a metaphor, as your professors will believe almost without exception, then they would still say that the meaning of the metaphor was that it was humans that metaphorically ate of the metaphorical fruit, and not also some motley bunch of monkeys and dolphins and elephants.

No, not really. How would you interpret the theory of gravity as meaning that planets should have triangular orbits? How would you interpret evolution + common descent as meaning that intermediate forms shouldn't exist?I would question your assertion that gravity is "a much stronger theory", but that's another story ... I don't see how philosophy would make much difference, really. In fact, we observe that it doesn't --- when scientists divide into warring camps, it's not Platonist physicists versus Hegelian physicists, or naive realist biochemists versus solipsist biochemists. It's over some actual question in their field. The ultimate nature of reality doesn't enter into it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Or it could have evolved. You seem to be confusing "academia" with the Discovery Channel.