That whole morality thing...

wretcheddomain

I think we're all too familiar with the objective/subjective debate concerning morality that we seem to get distracted from the bigger picture.

Instead of arguing whether or not an objective morality exists (something we can never prove), we should argue about the evolutionary utility of morality (something for which there is ample evidence).

When analysing morality from this latter perspective we can appreciate its role as a convenient social lubricant for a social species - particularly when other sentient creatures exhibit versions of this morality. This should be evidential enough to dismiss its significance to religion and is therefore, to me, a more potent argument when debating with the religious.

After all, if a social species operated on the principal of kill everything that moved, even siblings and parents, then we'd have no society left and that's profoundly anti-evolutionary. The fact we have a more refined version of morality than other animals should be expected given our capacity for self-reflection.

This, to me, solves the problem neatly and conveniently while dispensing with the laborious and unnecessary task of trying to prove or disprove the existence of objective morality.

Your views?

recedite

Whatabout anti-social behaviour within a social species? If morality has evolved (which I agree with) then it should be predicted that certain behaviours will develop, to fill the niche of the social parasite. The rapist, the thief and the psychopath can all benefit by boosting their wealth/food stores/ number of progeny by their immoral acts. These people, or the occurrence of the tendency, should theoretically exist as a minority in the host population, just as cuckoos or predators are always outnumbered by their host or prey species.
In that case, the urge to kill them must be a highly evolved defence mechanism. And a willingness to forgive them must be the weakness that allows the behaviour to evolve.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

wretcheddomain wrote: »

<...>
This, to me, solves the problem neatly and conveniently while dispensing with the laborious and unnecessary task of trying to prove or disprove the existence of objective morality.

Your views?

I'd have thought that, without a deity, it's pretty clear there isn't an objective morality.

In handling this issue, I think you also need to be careful about problems of equivocation. I think part of the reason these kind of discussions generate so much talk and so little benefit is because the word "morality" is applied to some quite different things.

We can apply the word "morality" to mean the set of behaviours that are most likely to support successful propagation, but I think we've actually changed the nature of the word by doing so. Because, if that's the case, we've basically said altruism doesn't exist. (And maybe it doesn't.)

wretcheddomain

recedite wrote: »

Whatabout anti-social behaviour within a social species? If morality has evolved (which I agree with) then it should be predicted that certain behaviours will develop, to fill the niche of the social parasite. The rapist, the thief and the psychopath can all benefit by boosting their wealth/food stores/ number of progeny by their immoral acts. These people, or the occurrence of the tendency, should theoretically exist as a minority in the host population, just as cuckoos or predators are always outnumbered by their host or prey species.
In that case, the urge to kill them must be a highly evolved defence mechanism. And a willingness to forgive them must be the weakness that allows the behaviour to evolve.

I don't think you can cleanly "predict that certain behaviours will develop", but what you can do is infer that the social organisation of any system will have anomalies. After all, individually the best way to behave would be selfishly - to ensure your own survival - but that's contrary to what it means to be a social species which involves an investment into the society at the loss of that selfish behaviour. This investment ensures the survival of the society for the critical mass of individuals; and therefore more evolutionarily likely.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I'd have thought that, without a deity, it's pretty clear there isn't an objective morality.

In handling this issue, I think you also need to be careful about problems of equivocation. I think part of the reason these kind of discussions generate so much talk and so little benefit is because the word "morality" is applied to some quite different things.

We can apply the word "morality" to mean the set of behaviours that are most likely to support successful propagation, but I think we've actually changed the nature of the word by doing so. Because, if that's the case, we've basically said altruism doesn't exist. (And maybe it doesn't.)

Yes - it is pretty clear but that's only if you presuppose a position of atheism. In a debate, the theist will presuppose an objective morality and therein lies a potential fault line of antagonism. I'm suggesting that getting sucked into that antagonism is probably less fruitful than going for the evolutionary and anthropological evidence that harbour more explanatory scope.

Equivocation should, of course, be avoided. Morality couldn't, for example, be defined equally for animal models and modern human societies. However, what you can do is find some common evolutionary denominators and use this as the basis for an argument in favour of a morality deficient of religion and one that doesn't even require an objective foundation.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

wretcheddomain wrote: »

However, what you can do is find some common evolutionary denominators and use this as the basis for an argument in favour of a morality deficient of religion and one that doesn't even require an objective foundation.

I'm not sure this works, and not only if we want morality to be something that includes altruism.

If we're arguing that morality has an evolutionary basis, then surely we are arguing that it has an objective foundation.

And, if we have an atheist outlook, presumably we'd argue that evolution generally favours religion as the mechanism for propagating that objective morality. How else do we account for religion?

wretcheddomain

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I'm not sure this works, and not only if we want morality to be something that includes altruism.

If we're arguing that morality has an evolutionary basis, then surely we are arguing that it has an objective foundation.

And, if we have an atheist outlook, presumably we'd argue that evolution generally favours religion as the mechanism for propagating that objective morality. How else do we account for religion?

Well, that's accounting for religion and not as evidence of religious claims - two entirely different things, the former reasonable and the latter otherwise.

As for the objectivity of morality in evolution, well, what I'm trying to say is that the process of evolution has led to the product of a structured system of morality. After all, if this structure were not in place, then humans or any other social species could not describe themselves as such. Thus, there's nothing objective about the moral principles i.e. the belief that if all humans were to die, the universe would still be infused with moral values.

Altruism actually bolsters this view. Despite having no apparent benefit to the actor of the action, the altruistic behaviour does confer some benefit to the actor. For example, a social species that engaged in altruism would be able to benefit from reciprocity; something they would otherwise not enjoy. Indeed, those who practice more reciprocity in society are more likely to receive this benefit should the time come.

magicbastarder

wretcheddomain wrote: »

As for the objectivity of morality in evolution, well, what I'm trying to say is that the process of evolution has led to the product of a structured system of morality. After all, if this structure were not in place, then humans or any other social species could not describe themselves as such. Thus, there's nothing objective about the moral principles i.e. the belief that if all humans were to die, the universe would still be infused with moral values.

you're falling into the naturalistic fallacy in a sense here. what happens if 'morality' evolves in a certain way in one species, but in a contradictory way in a second (or even to stretch it further, in an alien civilisation at the same level of development as ours).
which morality is the more moral?

Akrasia

Natural selection will produce creatures with behaviours and physical attributes within the 'viable spectrum'

The viable spectrum includes behaviours that are advantagous under certain circumstances, but may be disadvantagous under other circumstances.

Some animals seem to have very low variation within the species. One worker bee is almost the same as another worker bee of the same species right?

However, Bees have preferences, some bees are content to go for the easy low hanging nectar from close to the hive, others like to hunt for the more desirable but harder to find flowers. Having a mixture of different personalities allows the hive to thrive, they will be able to flourish in times of abundance, and will also avoid wasting energy in a time when resources are scarce.

Similarly in humans, we exist within the viable specturm of personality types except the way we evolved our social structures, we are capable of a wider and more exaggerated viable spectrum of behaviour.

Morality is just natures way of limiting our behaviour to within a certain range. This is why moral feelings are physical reactions and not just intellectual concepts. Our brain alters the state of our body when faced with a difficult moral situation. Some people become paralysed and are physically incapable of committing a heinous moral act. Others have no such physical debility and could murder babies all day long.

The act of Lying is something that causes many of us physical reactions. Our heart rate goes up, we become flushed, our pupils dilate. My wife, for example, can not lie to me convincingly, physically, she is incapable of it. Others can lie about any topic and it doesn't cause any physical reaction at all.

Psychopaths exist because psychopaths are better at surviving under certain conditions than non psychopaths. The reason why we aren't all psychopaths, is because having too many psychopaths in one group would lead to problems that have a negative survival impact on the group.

Altruists exist because having altruists in your group who are ready to sacrifice everything they have for the benefit of others helps groups to survive and flourish under varying conditions.

Shy and intoroverted people exist because there are situations where being shy and introverted helps the group to survive and flourish.

A group that has the right mxture of all the various personalities, body sizes, shapes, ages, athletic abilities, intellectual prowess etc will be much better able to survive long term and flourish than a group that was dominated by a less varied set of individuals who could do very well under optimum conditions, but die out when those conditions change.

The theory of natural selection perfectly explains the origin of morality and there is absolutely no need to add in any supernatural explanation for why people have an innate feeling of what is right and what is wrong (most of the time, shared for extreme examples, but not universally shared)

Philosophy is required for us to get past the natural causes of morality, and to move beyond this to develop optimal theories for how best we should live moral lives in order to create the best possible world for us and for future generations.

This will entail actively going against our own evolved moral urges where they conflict with what we can intellectually agree is morally justified behaviour.

(what I mean by that last bit is that the feeling of disgust is an evolved trait that has it's uses but when it goes wrong, it can facilitate behaviours that would be classed as inhumane according to our post enlightenment moral values)

GCU Flexible Demeanour

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Well, that's accounting for religion and not as evidence of religious claims - two entirely different things, the former reasonable and the latter otherwise.

Absolutely. It just leaves us with the possibility that delusion is favoured by evolution. And, indeed, there's no particular reason why delusion would not be favoured.

wretcheddomain wrote: »

<...>Thus, there's nothing objective about the moral principles i.e. the belief that if all humans were to die, the universe would still be infused with moral values.

Very good point.

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Despite having no apparent benefit to the actor of the action, the altruistic behaviour does confer some benefit to the actor.

But I think that's quite a significant jump, because if it confers a benefit it ain't altruism. And I don't think that's just a pedantic point. If morality is just the set of behaviours that best supports propagation, then its quite a different thing to the morality that religious folk would speak of - or the commonsense meaning of the term.

Akrasia

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Yes - it is pretty clear but that's only if you presuppose a position of atheism. In a debate, the theist will presuppose an objective morality and therein lies a potential fault line of antagonism. I'm suggesting that getting sucked into that antagonism is probably less fruitful than going for the evolutionary and anthropological evidence that harbour more explanatory scope.

An atheist doesn't have to pre-suppose atheism at all. All the atheist has to do is start with the position that natural selection is the mechanism behind the origin of species (and we don't need to pre-suppose this, this can be demonstrated by reference to the enormous weight of evidence that is accepted by the entire scientific community and everyone who has half a brain and is willing to look at the evidence and accept where it goes (as opposed to the creationists who are often on the record saying that they don't care what the scientific evidence is, they'll always believe the bible)

After natural selection has been established, the atheist can argue that animal behaviours are evolved characteristics just the same as physical attributes, and 'morality' is just a description we give to a class of animal behaviour that describes how sentient beings interact with one another

Most humans have an aversion to harming other humans, just as most humans have an aversion to jumping from high cliffs

recedite

Akrasia wrote: »

Psychopaths exist because psychopaths are better at surviving under certain conditions than non psychopaths. The reason why we aren't all psychopaths, is because having too many psychopaths in one group would lead to problems that have a negative survival impact on the group.

Altruists exist because having altruists in your group who are ready to sacrifice everything they have for the benefit of others helps groups to survive and flourish under varying conditions.

A society entirely composed of altruists would prosper more than one that had its share of parasitic psychopaths, for a while. But sooner or later a war party of psychopaths from another tribe would discover them and wipe them out. You can see this behaviour happening in chimpanzees. Also there have been islands in the Pacific and elsewhere that were discovered by Europeans, which had very peaceful, welcoming and "naive" populations, which are generally extinct now. Most of us whether of European, Asian or African descent have at least some ancestors who were psycopathic and genocidal, that is why we are here, and the victim's decendants are not.

So ultimately those psycopathic genes are like guns or nuclear weapons; we acknowledge that to deploy them is "bad" but without them our tribe would be vulnerable. On the other hand, they may eventually cause the entire human race to self-destruct in a nuclear armageddon unless we can control or eliminate them. And in the meantime, we have to endure crime and other socially parasitic behaviour.

wretcheddomain

magicbastarder wrote: »

you're falling into the naturalistic fallacy in a sense here. what happens if 'morality' evolves in a certain way in one species, but in a contradictory way in a second (or even to stretch it further, in an alien civilisation at the same level of development as ours).
which morality is the more moral?

There is no surplus reason for anyone to commit a heinous act except if it's influenced by a system of dogma. It's usually the dogma that separates what would otherwise be morally equivalent societies. This doesn't detract from the natural moral direction nor does it commit a fallacy in this regard either.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

But I think that's quite a significant jump, because if it confers a benefit it ain't altruism. And I don't think that's just a pedantic point. If morality is just the set of behaviours that best supports propagation, then its quite a different thing to the morality that religious folk would speak of - or the commonsense meaning of the term.

You would agree though that something could confer a benefit without the actor being aware of this benefit?

Akrasia wrote: »

An atheist doesn't have to pre-suppose atheism at all. All the atheist has to do is start with the position that natural selection is the mechanism behind the origin of species (and we don't need to pre-suppose this, this can be demonstrated by reference to the enormous weight of evidence that is accepted by the entire scientific community and everyone who has half a brain and is willing to look at the evidence and accept where it goes (as opposed to the creationists who are often on the record saying that they don't care what the scientific evidence is, they'll always believe the bible)

After natural selection has been established, the atheist can argue that animal behaviours are evolved characteristics just the same as physical attributes, and 'morality' is just a description we give to a class of animal behaviour that describes how sentient beings interact with one another

Most humans have an aversion to harming other humans, just as most humans have an aversion to jumping from high cliffs

I agree.

Akrasia

recedite wrote: »

A society entirely composed of altruists would prosper more than one that had its share of parasitic psychopaths, for a while. But sooner or later a war party of psychopaths from another tribe would discover them and wipe them out. You can see this behaviour happening in chimpanzees. Also there have been islands in the Pacific and elsewhere that were discovered by Europeans, which had very peaceful, welcoming and "naive" populations, which are generally extinct now. Most of us whether of European, Asian or African descent have at least some ancestors who were psycopathic and genocidal, that is why we are here, and the victim's decendants are not.

So ultimately those psycopathic genes are like guns or nuclear weapons; we acknowledge that to deploy them is "bad" but without them our tribe would be vulnerable. On the other hand, they may eventually cause the entire human race to self-destruct in a nuclear armageddon unless we can control or eliminate them. And in the meantime, we have to endure crime and other socially parasitic behaviour.

Exactly

GCU Flexible Demeanour

wretcheddomain wrote: »

You would agree though that something could confer a benefit without the actor being aware of this benefit?

Very much so, but that still means it isn't altruism.

IIRC, one of the attempts to reconcile altruism with evolution is the suggestion that the most effective liars are the ones who delude themselves.

Brian Shanahan

magicbastarder wrote: »

you're falling into the naturalistic fallacy in a sense here. what happens if 'morality' evolves in a certain way in one species, but in a contradictory way in a second (or even to stretch it further, in an alien civilisation at the same level of development as ours).
which morality is the more moral?

You're thinking in the wrong terms here, essentially presupposing that there is right and wrong. Both concepts are essentially privatives (like for example justice) which have no existence in real or absolute terms, but that are handy for humans to have invented in order to apply the social mores which have become "morality".

And to answer your question, the morality which will be seen as the "more moral", to use your term, will simply be the one which is best fit for the environment the two competing systmes find themselves in, i.e. it will be the one which gives the species (whether singular or plural) the best chance of survival (given all other things are equal, for example, christian morality wasn't better than quezatlcoatlian morality, the Spanish just had better weapons, ships, horses and disease immunity than the Aztecs).

Akrasia

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Very much so, but that still means it isn't altruism.

IIRC, one of the attempts to reconcile altruism with evolution is the suggestion that the most effective liars are the ones who delude themselves.

We're getting into a situation where you're now defining altruism in such a way that the criteria can never be possibly be met.

In the way that altruism has any practical meaning, altruistic behaviour is simply the act of sacrificing personal gain or suffering personal cost so that a third party can benefit.

There are different levels of altruism, ie, it's on a scale, not a dichotomy. Giving up my entire net worth to a charity that exclusively helps people I have no personal or even ideological connection with is one extreme example of altruism, or donating all of my organs (thereby ending my own life) to save multiple sick people is another, possibly the ultimate act of altruism, yet even these can be discounted by someone who insists that if the donor gets even the slightest sense of self satisfaction, or if it relieves a guilty conscience or has any other benefit, then this is counted as selfish behaviour and not 'truly altruistic.

Altruistic behaviour is explainable by evolution because the social group benefits if some of it's members are prepared to self sacrifice for the greater good. Recriprocal altruistic behaviour is demonstrated in game theory to be one of the very best mechanisms for resource allocation in groups

Akrasia

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

You're thinking in the wrong terms here, essentially presupposing that there is right and wrong. Both concepts are essentially privatives (like for example justice) which have no existence in real or absolute terms, but that are handy for humans to have invented in order to apply the social mores which have become "morality".

And to answer your question, the morality which will be seen as the "more moral", to use your term, will simply be the one which is best fit for the environment the two competing systmes find themselves in, i.e. it will be the one which gives the species (whether singular or plural) the best chance of survival (given all other things are equal, for example, christian morality wasn't better than quezatlcoatlian morality, the Spanish just had better weapons, ships, horses and disease immunity than the Aztecs).

Exactly.
Those who say human morality is universal need to explain why
1. 99% of people will agree instinctively that it is wrong to kill
2. 90% of people will agree that it is morally wrong for a soldier to run away from a battle where he is defending his community from attack (even if this means the soldier will have to kill other people

Our moral sense is relative and often our moral sense is in conflict with itself.

Is it morally wrong to torture animals?
Yes, unless we are conducting legitimate scientific experiments that could one day develop a cure for childhood leukemia
(if you're anti vivisection, you might disagree and think that no animals should suffer even if this means ultimately, more children will die from leukemia)

Morality is subject to so much disagreement that it seems to be utterly ludicrous to suggest that it is in any way truly objective. Life is about choices and trade offs.
Individuals and groups value different things differently, and it is non sensical to say that there can be an objective 'value' given that value is purely subjective by definition. We all value 'life' but I value the lives of my children higher than I value the lives of your children. Others might value the health of the biosphere higher than he/she values either of our children and none of us are objectively morallly more 'right' than any of the others

Piliger

magicbastarder wrote: »

you're falling into the naturalistic fallacy in a sense here. what happens if 'morality' evolves in a certain way in one species, but in a contradictory way in a second (or even to stretch it further, in an alien civilisation at the same level of development as ours).
which morality is the more moral?

It's a meaningless question. It's meaningless because 'morality' is what we decide it is. We as a society, or we as a nation, or we as a culture. Words only have the meaning that the group of people using that word assign to it.

This is why what is 'moral' in Europe' is not what is 'moral' in Pakistan. And similarly what is 'moral' on the planet Zog may be completely different to what we chose to define it as.

Piliger

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

You're thinking in the wrong terms here, essentially presupposing that there is right and wrong. Both concepts are essentially privatives (like for example justice) which have no existence in real or absolute terms, but that are handy for humans to have invented in order to apply the social mores which have become "morality".

I believe what you are intending to say is that there is no such thing as 'absolute justice' or 'absolute morality'. And I agree wholeheartedly. These are constructs, terms and language defined by us and with a meaning that we choose to assign to them.

Brian Shanahan

Read this article by Hari Kunzru in the Grauniad this morning. It's a nice little piece on the whole "you need to have religion to be moral" fallacy, among other things.

recedite

Its a good article. "Attacker of the faith" is a great expression, and he is spot on with the observation that the people who think "faith schools" are a great idea should not be surprised when faith schools turn out hundreds of British jihadists.

This might be acceptable, even useful, to Britain's political class if their faith was neatly subordinated to nation: "defender of the faith" is, after all, a royal title, and until political correctness went mad, presumably "attacker of the faith" was, too.

bnt

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Absolutely. It just leaves us with the possibility that delusion is favoured by evolution. And, indeed, there's no particular reason why delusion would not be favoured.

Possibility, sure, but not certainly. Traits can persist even without any selection pressure in their favour. What would be the benefit of a tendency to addictions such as alcoholism, for example?

Besides - as Darwin (and most evolutionists since then) pointed out - we are not slaves to evolution. Even if we accept that any human trait is the result of natural selection, we are unde no obligation to submit to it. We have evolved the ability to decide what we want and correct our own behaviour.

Personally, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't have any Morals, but I do have Ethics.

Piliger

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Read this article by Hari Kunzru in the Grauniad this morning. It's a nice little piece on the whole "you need to have religion to be moral" fallacy, among other things.

I actually don't agree. He is trying to make a valid point about morality and the way that religious zealotry dominates discourse, but he drags in what is clearly an anti politics personal agenda that weakens his point instead of strengthening it. He also comes across very weak in his ability to express his views, especially in his use of the term 'faithless' as if there is something that Atheists are missing.

All in all a poor poor piece imho.

recedite

Piliger wrote: »

He also comes across very weak in his ability to express his views, especially in his use of the term 'faithless' as if there is something that Atheists are missing..

Well, faithless is fairly self explanatory, and not necessarily derogatory. Adding less onto the end of faith is no different to adding a onto the start of theist.
I was confused by his use of capitals and apostrophes to apparently change the meaning of the word faith though. As in; faith, Faith and "faith" being used as if they all had different meanings.

Piliger

recedite wrote: »

Well, faithless is fairly self explanatory, and not necessarily derogatory. Adding less onto the end of faith is no different to adding a onto the start of theist.

I didn't mention derogatory. But it is deprecating and it infers Atheists are missing something by it's very use. As such his article comes across as almost apologetic imho. Atheist are not missing something. Theists are missing something - rational thinking, logic and common sense.

I was confused by his use of capitals and apostrophes to apparently change the meaning of the word faith though. As in; faith, Faith and "faith" being used as if they all had different meanings.

Another weak part of his article. I suspect the Guardian chose someone who would qualify as a polite Atheist, and they got one.

wretcheddomain

Piliger wrote: »

I didn't mention derogatory. But it is deprecating and it infers Atheists are missing something by it's very use. As such his article comes across as almost apologetic imho. Atheist are not missing something. Theists are missing something - rational thinking, logic and common sense.

I'm confused. At the one hand you're saying theists are missing rational thinking and logic -due to faith.

Yet when an atheist describes himself as faithless you look at it as deprecating and missing something.

Piliger

wretcheddomain wrote: »

I'm confused. At the one hand you're saying theists are missing rational thinking and logic -due to faith.

Yet when an atheist describes himself as faithless you look at it as deprecating and missing something.

Now you have it.