Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?

Religion doesn't explain the human condition, and never did. They can give excuses, but we don't have to buy them.Well, that was easy.

'Cos of having no relevance.I am not sure that this concept can be made any simpler. I assumed that you would read a post before replying to it. On thinking it over, maybe I was giving you more credit than you deserve.

Evolution is a singular term, "religion" is a generic term, that could even include atheism.That was easy.If you need clarification - I mean that when you say, "religion", you are referring to a wide and diverse spectrum of differing beliefs, but when I refer to evolution, I am referring to one specific theory.Therefore, in a way I agree - because I don't have, "religion" nor did the post I created ever refer to anything, "religion".I'll take you through the baby-steps.1. Freewill isn't "religion".
2. Intelligent design isn't "religion", and eye being constructed to see has nothing to do with Buddha.You should know by now, you are not going to get me, "easy" but I must admit the kudos for your post was truly amusing. lolEdited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Since responding to me you have made several claims, but I haven't seen even 1% content thus far, to prove any of them. I haven't seen you quote anything I have said, and I haven't heard any type of argument to go along with your claims.Surely a world-record in stupidity.Example:Claim 1: Claim 2: You might have well just have said, "mike, I hate you because of what you said about evolution."To which I could have said; "I know." The we could have said, "good day." to each other.

Not if you are going to have an objective standard. If it is subjective then it involves the people with the subjective opinions.Now you can look at other species of apes and see some behavior that we recognize as morally based and this would expand the {group subject to our moral view} from tribe to species to genus to family ... but I still would not expect tigers for instance to consider themselves subject to it.If you want to define moral behavior as beneficial to the species then we could consider natural selected behavior - memes - as moral behavior for each species and then compare what is similar and what is not. And I would be astounded to find much in common with all species. But this is still a human perception of the behavior being moral - most animals would not even think about it.Even if you want to define moral behavior as beneficial to life in general it would still be a human perception.Enjoy

It makes no difference. No religion "explains the human condition" more so than science does. Giving gods the credit for everything good and blaming humans for everything bad is not an explanation. "God moves in mysterious ways" is not an explamation. If anything, trusting God is incompatible with explanation.

Logically? I shouldn't confuse informal debate with science. We can show how selfless organisms are consistent with selfish genes, despite some critics claiming selfish genes necessitate selfish organisms. Those may or may not be consistent and explainable in terms of selfish genes. That wouldn't be an answer I would give as to why I speak English. Though it would be an answer I would give if I was explaining why language is universal among humans. Except evolution is something you know happens, how can you conclude that it is insanely improbable that selfless acts by an organism might be able to propagate selfish genes better than selfish acts? Not true. Not really. Reciprocal altruism is a strategy that can work in a number of situations and can be modelled to fun effect (see the iterated prisoner's dilemma as a classic example). Or 3. Dispute that the facts favour theism. Freewill is either incoherent, undesirable or it exists. That's my view. It does not favour theism. I'm happy to call it design if it makes you feel better. Evolution is a designer. The designs have peculiarities that are almost obvious in light of evolution that make no sense as a pre-planned design. It does not favour theism. Nope, both relative and absolute. See? You don't seem to understand your opponents very well at all! Absolute morality does not favour theism. Morality is only subjective, and is not objective. If this is not true, we have no way of accessing the objective morality in such a way as we can agree upon it, so it ends up being de facto subjective any way. This does not favour theism. Humans are as unique as the platypus and Yersinia pestis. The main unique feature of humans vs other great apes is the nature of our brain. Everything else is stupendously similar. This does not favour theism. DNA is information that has been copied from the environment. A lot of that copying is noise. The environment exerts a selection bias in the kinds of information that get copied more regularly than others. In this way, the environment can impress upon the DNA information regarding those selection biases. For instance, if the DNA contains information that can develop into a wing, we can infer information about the atmosphere in the environment the wing seems suited to. It must be remembered that the information that is in the DNA however, is not really all that intrinsically meaningful. It will only lead to the development of an organism in a highly specific environment (eg., a fertilized egg at the right temperature and adequate resources to grow etc). It's not really possible to study DNA and infer the intended design without recourse to the environment the DNA was evolved to be expressed in meaning it isn't so much a recipe book as a string of ingredients that fall off a shelf and bounce around through some insanely incomprehensibly arranged Pachinko game so as to fall into a pot in the right order and with the right timings to make a meal. Evolution is tinkering with the ingredients and their order of expression which in turn leads to a change in the Pachinko games pins and if the food can't make a meal, that Pachinko arrangement stops being a chef. There is no intelligent chef tinkering with pins or putting a finger to block an ingredient for a second needed as far as I can see.After that strange trip, I come back to how information in DNA does not favour theism. Who knows if it does or does not? We don't know what the explanation is yet. We have some pretty decent ideas about it, but we are a long way of having a full explanation.But science has given us a more detailed view of the human condition than anything else has to date, so I say we should be confident it will continue to enlighten us. No excuses, just pointing out that 'survival of the fittest' does not in fact come down to 'the strong kills the weak' and thus fails to explain morality. On the contrary, the argument is a little more complex and at times subtle than that, but absolutely leads to the conclusion that a moral sense of sorts can in principle evolve.

I agree that there is no external point of reference but the environment itself is a reference point. By that I mean that good can be measured by an entities success within any given environment.I wouldn't say that we invented the concept of good. Our notions of good are driven completely by our nature and we certainly didn't invent our nature. A full stomach is good. Ah but the truly healthy and prosperous person would never find themselves in the position of wanting or needing to commit Seppuku. The concept of morality requires the self aware actor. Without this we only have amoral behaviour. Can we say objectively that amoral behaviour is good or bad?

Yes it would but who could possibly disagree?

I completely agree. In fact, it's what I base my own morality on.
The wording you've used here is very important, though, so I'd just like to stress it a little:Good can be measured by an entities success within any given environment.
It doesn't have to be measured that way.
If we are going to measure good that way, then we have to agree upon such a thing.IF we do agree... then we now have a basis for morality. From this agreed-upon-basis, we can objectively judge things against it.
This is how we can create a meaningful, objective moral system.
We just need to remember that the agreed-upon-basis is not itself objective, but simply based upon some common subjective agreement. I can agree with this. It's quite possible that our basic good/bad concept evolved within us before we were "humans."
But, it doesn't really matter. This, I cannot agree with
A full stomach is only "good" if we agree upon a standard basis in the first place.Some people think that hunger strikes are good. These people would not agree that a full stomach is "good." The problem here is your qualification of "truly healthy and prosperous..."
These are subjective terms that have no objective basis either.
Again... we're left with starting from a subjective basis that needs to be agreed upon initially.IF we agree that heath and prosperity are things we should morally aim for... THEN Seppuku or other rational methods of suicide can be seen as immoral.I, however, do not agree that "health and prosperity" are things we should morally aim for My entire point is: "No, I don't know of a method where we can objectively identify amoral (or any other kind of) behavior as good or bad."
Which is why we need to agree upon a basis initially.
Then we can objectively judge things against that agreed-upon-standard.
Because of this I say: There is no such thing as objective morality, all morality is relative.
We can, however, agree to a basis and objectively judge things against that.Some people agree upon the commandments in the Bible.
They can then objectively judge things against the commandments in the Bible.
But, we know that there is no objective basis for the Bible or it's commandments.My initial standard has a few things involved:1. I think it is good to help people and bad to hurt people. (Fairly basic).
2. I think that the only person who can be the ultimate judge on whether or not they were helped or hurt is the person who is affected by the action. (Because people are different and like/dislike different things).
3. Therefore, what is "good" and "bad" is different for each and every person you run into. (Evidenced by the confusion of morality that differs completely between cultures and time and even friends)This results in a counter-intuitive system for morality.
That is, according to my method, it's simply impossible to know (100% sure, anyway) if something is good or bad before you do it. You can only know after it's done by getting the feedback from the person you affected.
Most people don't like that part and simply throw the entire method out at this point because it's not 'easy.'But, really, I don't see a way around it. If you're really interested in step 1 (helping others and not hurting them).
I'm certainly open to ideas for "better" morality systems... but that term is obviously subjective in itself as it refers to the agreement for the initial-standard.

Pol Pot, Jeffery Dahmer, Christopher Columbus, David Koch to name a few. I think there is a wide variety of thought on what is beneficial to life in general.

Success within the environment is the most objective standard that we can employ given that there are no external or more universal reference points. In fact there can never be any external reference points because if there were then they would be either supernatural or, more likely, they would be immediately recognized as part of the environment.The environment and laws of nature are like the board and the rules of the game. They are entirely objective and universally applicable. Success within this paradigm is objectively good and I would challenge anyone to produce a more objective standard. I say that it does matter because the evolution of our nature preloaded us with our behaviour patterns that are all selected based on their tendency to help us survive and procreate. So these characteristics all come from an amoral environment where good characteristics are retained and bad ones are not. When we become self aware and enter the realm of morality we then recognize good characteristics as ones that need to be promoted. The good characteristics being recognizable by their tendency to help us survive and prosper. Oh yes they would. The hunger strike uses the goodness of a full stomach to contrast the badness of an empty stomach. A hunger strike wouldn't mean anything if a full stomach wasn't universally and objectively good. Health and prosperity are not really subjective terms. Health can be measured against sickness and prosperity against poverty. The scales may not be strictly linear and have subjective reference points but they are still scales. So a monk who has eschewed wealth may be considered as successful as a rich man who has sought wealth. Both of these disparate goals lead the subject to happiness and if they don't then they were the wrong choice. What is good is different for each subject but the assessment of good/bad is the same for each subject.(edit) I meant to ask you why not.Edited by ProtoTypical, : No reason given.

Sure there is a wide variety of thought but the proof is in the pudding. We can see if life benefits from our actions or not. Short term gains are short and sustainable prosperity is greater.

The idea that has been coalescing for me is that certain behaviour for any given entity is more beneficial to that entity than some other behaviour. Whether or not the behaviour is beneficial to that entity is determined by the environment in a completely objective manner. It is this objectivity that we can use as a reference point.For example, the universe has shown us that cooperation is a successful tactic and therefore cooperation is both objectively and morally good.

Natural selection is 'good' ...?
Selfish greed is 'good' ... ?
Person A stealing from person B means person A is 'good' and person B is 'bad' ... ? A logical structure based on a priori assumptions doesn't make it objective. Our nature is derived from being a social animal. We see behavior we recognize as similar to what we feel is moral behavior in other social animals. I see it as more of a relationship between the individual and the social group. This allows an act to be 'good' even if the particular recipient doesn't like it, when the group approves. The relative 'good' is measured by the relative approval of the group.A kind of "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time" - a mellowing from an absolute standard to a relativistic one: you can try to please most of the people most of the time.You do this because if everybody behaves this way then you benefit.Enjoy