If evolution is the answer to the question of the foundation of morality?

Question

I also posted this question in Philosophy but got little response.

A significant number of people point to evolution as the source of morality. Here is a representative statement:

"There is a strong desire to help when we see someone in need. This desire has been developed in our brains over millions of years of evolution. This desire to help is the basis of morality."

My question is this. We know that mindless evolution doesn't "care" about the individual, only about gene survival. Evolution has created this desire to help, thus sometimes causing us to sacrifice our own self interest. Shouldn't I put this desire to help to a rational test? Why should I allow myself to be pushed around by this irrational, evolution-designed desire? BTW, I think most people do put their initial desire to help to a rational test. And if we place a rational test on the desire, then that desire is no longer the standard. Isn't the real standard self-interest?

I don't need evolution to tell me that if I help someone, it is possible they might help me. Doesn't reason tell us that?

"Too easy. A feeling of compassion and a desire to help has been instilled in our brains because mankind has found it beneficial to help others in the hope that those people will someday reciprocate your kindness."

I use reason to judge whether someone will reciprocate. This evolution-inspired feeling gets in the way of that judgment when it tries to get me to sacrifice myself.

"There is no reason that it isn't in your self interest to protect your family..."

I agree but I don't need some evolution-designed feeling/desire to help me with determining my own self interest". If self interest is the standard, I don't need the feelings.

Answer 1

This is why I am so concerned about what some evolutionists are saying. I am very happy to go along with the Theory of Evolution with mutations and selection and so on. This is a proper concern of science. But I get concerned when people start talking about ethics, morality and meaning and even postulating that evolution in some way is bound to produce a superior being. I fail to see how evolution can be a source of morality.

I believe that every community needs some agreed basis if it is to operate. Traditionally this has been a shared faith and all that implies. Today people reject this but they are struggling to find what to put in it's place. At the moment it is a residual from religion - I call it a folk religion. But it isn't working very well. More and more laws are being passed to try and control behaviour, courts are busy and prisons are full. hence the desperate need to try and find morality in evolution. But it just ain't there. The process of mutations etc is completely amoral.

Answer 2

So, where did it come from?

We don’t see it in animals. Oh, they will sometimes act nice toward their own families and we see some reciprocal altruism (and evolutionists try to point to that as the beginnings of morality), but that is a far cry from what we see in humans. A dog doesn’t feel guilt from stealing another dog’s bone. Apes don’t sit down and talk about morals and ethics. If an ox gores a man to death, it is not arrested, tried, and condemned to the electric chair. We recognize its inability to make moral judgments and so we might just confine it in a sturdier pen and warn people to stay away. If we evolved from animals, how did we come to be moral creatures? And where did true altruism come from (that which is done without any expectation or hope for reward)?

Could non-moral matter combined with time and chance and natural selection be an adequate cause for this? If people are merely products of physical evolution and “survival of the fittest,” why do we sacrifice for each other? Where does courage, dying for a cause, love, dignity, duty, and compassion come from?

How could over $4.2 billion be raised for Hurricane Katrina-related relief and recovery?

And why do we have hospitals? We should let the sick people die; we don’t want them passing on their genes. An evolutionist who is a medical doctor is really inconsistent.

How does “survival of the fittest” fit with jumping on a grenade to save your fellow soldiers? Or pushing someone out of the way to take the oncoming car yourself? It is often the strong who do these things. How can you procreate and pass your genes on to your offspring if you are dead?

This seems to be the opposite of what evolution would produce—in a struggle for survival, will the existence of a conscience help or hinder survival?

As Eric Lyons has asked, “Why are humans moral beings if, as evolutionists teach, we merely evolved from lifeless, mindless, unconscious matter over billions of years? Why do humans feel a sense of ‘ought’ to help the poor, weak, and oppressed if we simply evolved by the natural law of ‘might makes right’ (i.e., survival of the fittest)?”

And I have to agree with John Adam, “...according to the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest, a loving human with a conscience is at a great disadvantage and would be unlikely to have survived the evolutionary process.”

Answer 3

Evolution as a source of Morality is a farce...as you said, evolution does not care about the individual...that strong desire to help others does not come from evolution but from something else within humans....otherwise we as humans would not have been so willing to kill and destroy anything and everyone through out the course of history...

Now where that comes from is going to be up for debate...but evolution is not the answer...

Answer 4

Too easy. A feeling of compassion and a desire to help has been instilled in our brains because mankind has found it beneficial to help others in the hope that those people will someday reciprocate your kindness. Animals share this same Darwinian explanation when a pack of lions hunt to feed the whole group instead of just relying on themselves.

Answer 5

If there was no god from the beginning of time and did not physically interact with humans then the human being would have not evolved having the concept of a god any more than a gorilla does. Human foundation of morality evolved from the teachings of an "Intelligent Designer" not from any creative minds of any ancient civilizations trying to concock their own fictional god and make up 600 + new laws and regulations that no one would agree to follow unless forced to or die if they didn't by the same fictional god that never existed and no one ever physically seen to scare them to do so.

Answer 6

Our history of religious belief is evolutionary. It's my contention that when intelligence reaches a certain level of development in a species, those creatures start to think beyond what is obvious. This new avenue of thought can lead to curiosity or superstition, both are prevalent in man and each demonstrates the out of the box thinking that separate man from other creatures on this planet.

The fact that mankind has organized superstition, sustained it and allowed himself to be ruled by it, reflects the power of the human desire to believe the implausible often to the detriment of common sense and scientific advancement. This is who we are.

Answer 7

In my opinion, I believe that evolution can only account for the physical aspects of the world. For instance, humans becoming bipedal and frogs being able to breathe on land and in water.

But dogs and other animals can be compassionate and willing to save their "owner" or other animals, despite evolutionary claims otheriwse. So I think it is a matter of personality, since many people on this Earth are very malevolent despite evolution talking effect.

Answer 8

Yes, the real standard is indeed self interest. However, we interact with the same people over and over. If you mistreat them, they will reciprocate.

In game theory, this is known as the repeated prisoner's dilema, and the optimum strategy to promote self interest is to be nice to others unless they are mean to you first, in which case you reciprocate.

If you really want to understand how evolution leads to observed human behavior, you may be interested in The Selfish Gene.

Answer 9

Evolution is the source of the desire for altruism, but one can rationally test the validity of that desire. I suggest you read some books on moral philosophy. Emmanuel Kant and J.S. Mill are a good place to start.

Answer 10

Morality can not be purpose through fact there are diverse gods and each supplies a diverse ethical bent in case you will, allah prohibits alcohol, baccus says wine is devine. picking which morality is a subjective act.