If evolution is true then why have we developed a sense of ethics while other animals have not?

Question

Ignoring for the fact that my question implies that humans are animals and thus ethically equivalent to other animals, I'm going to claim that it's because God created man to be ethical.

It's not like human ethics are the result of a highly evolved intellectual capacity that allows us to reason about complex issues.

It's also not true that animals like dolphins have been observed to behave in ways we would consider ethical. For example, it's not like this link contains evidence that dolphins behave altruistically.
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2001/Spring01/Ewart/Altruism.html

If you think I'm wrong perhaps you should visit this link and tell him so...


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiseLQjleoyW6FMK0qUVQwvsy6IX?qid=20070806105623AA5evF5

Answer 1

Lol. Ethics, schmethics. What do we need those for? As long as we have an instruction manual, why would we need intellectual capacity or complex reasoning?

Answer 2

Your question would seem to presume that evolutionists deny the presence of a higher power and/or the role that the higher power might have played in the course of evolution. That would be incorrect. Many, perhaps most, religious people have come to reconcile their religious beliefs with evolutionary fact.

Whether humans are more ethical than other animals is highly debatable. Animals act out of need and take only what is necessary for survival. Man alone acts too frequently out of pure greed and disregard for his very own environment or even the consequences of his acts on his offspring.

Answer 3

In a changing world, creatures adapt to changing circumstances. When things stabilize and a species can survive as they are, they stay as they are. To ask why only one species evolved to be humans is like asking why only one species evolved to be rabbits. Did you expect that all species would evolve into human like creatures? Why would they? They started out as different things and slowly evolved into what we see today. If you came back a thousand years from now (assuming that we haven't killed off ourselves and every other living thing by then) you'd probably see some very different animals than you remember. If the environment changes enough, the animals will adapt to survive. So will the humans. Duh. Just because somebody made up a story thousands of years ago and told it to you before you were old enough to say "oh, come on" doesn't mean it's true. In the beginning, was it the heavens and the Earth and the spirit of God, and a journalist? Taking notes?

Answer 4

When lions, wolves and other large carnivores fight for leadership of their group, the loser yelps and the fight ends. The victor does not attack or kill an opponent who has surrendered.

The evolutionary reason for this is that large carnivores can easily kill or main each other, so by yielding and accepting yields, they do not risk being killed by heirarchy struggles.

Most people would say that humans not killing other humans who have surrendered is a result of their ethics, yet the same type of actions exist in many, many animals who live in groups and are easily capable of killing each other.

Answer 5

There are many different forms of ethics, some quite contrary to each other.

If animals have ethics, they probably have their own form that work to keep their society together. That is the evolutionary point of ethics. They probably wouldn't understand our ethics any more than we would theirs.

Answer 6

Evolutionists do primarily deny a higher power, if they accepted a higher power, they'd have to answer to them, which is why people like evolution, if gives them an excuse to do nothing about a possible higher power.

If we have evolved, that what's so bad about killing someone really? I mean, if their just a evolved ape, which evolved from something else, etc, to a single cell organism, then why do we get sent to jail???

Answer 7

Yes, ethical systems do exist amongst animals or what we would label as ethical systems from our point of view.

http://www.bioethics.uu.se/symposium/2007/abstracts/bekoff.html

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20611FE3C540C738EDDAA0894DF404482

Morality is probably evolved by us to enhance our ability to form social units and live together in groups.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/evolmoral.html

http://primatediaries.blogspot.com/2007/07/evolution-of-morality.html

Answer 8

You are, of course, absolutely correct. How could anyone believe otherwise? However, it has to be a *specific* god that made eithics. Not some wierd *ethnic* god with a name like a taxi driver. No, no.

Well said, young man, well said!

Answer 9

Well, for the same reason that man has a more developed frontal lobe of the brain than other animals......

Answer 10

Bonobo. Ever work with them? I have. Most of them are more ethical than many R&Sers.