Evolutionary Ethics Pt. I

It's an interesting fact that when the consensus worldview of a society is unable to explain a crucial aspect of human experience, that failure is often just papered over and ignored rather than allow the basic assumptions that lead to the failure to be challenged.

Such is the case with naturalism (the belief that physical nature is all there is) and morality. Naturalism simply cannot give a plausible account of the kind of robust morality that obligates people to behave in one way rather than another.

Many philosophers recognize this and have concluded that moral claims are either all false (error theorists), neither true nor false (emotivists), or simply the subjective expression of one's own biases, prejudices and preferences (subjectivists).

A worldview that cannot explain morality, however, is quite unsatisfactory since not only does it conflict with our deepest intuitions about the way the world is, but it leads almost inevitably to nihilism. Since naturalists are perforce evolutionists many have tried to rescue their naturalism by grounding morality in evolution, but those attempts are unconvincing.

Philosopher David Anderson discusses three of these attempts in an article at Salvo magazine (subscription required).

The first attempt is to posit the theory that morality arises from our natural desires, and was formed in us by natural selection and random mutation over millions of years. These natural desires serve as the objective standard of morality — the plumb line of right and wrong, as Anderson puts it.

He cites political scientist Larry Arnhart's theory which elaborates on these "universal human desires". These core desires have been possessed by human beings in every culture. They include, "parental care, sexual mating, familial bonding, friendship, social ranking, justice, political rule, war, health, beauty, and ten others." Anderson comments:

In Arnhart's view, an objectively good person is one who satisfies these natural desires insofar as he is able. For example, a man who cultivates friendships, cares for his kids, maintains his physical health, appreciates art, and so on, is a morally good person.

By contrast, a man who alienates his friends, neglects his kids, abuses his body, cares nothing for art or beauty, and so on, is an objectively bad person.

In sum, morality is anchored in universal human desires, and these desires were formed in humans over eons, through descent with modification. Our evolutionary heritage is the wellspring of right and wrong.

A second version of evolutionary ethics, one held by philosopher Michael Ruse, contends that, as a direct consequence of the evolutionary process, humans have developed subjective moral standards that have the appearance of being objective but really are not. They are illusions fobbed off on us by evolution. Here's Anderson again:

That is, evolution has given humans a disposition to believe that there are objective moral values and duties, but in reality there are none; right and wrong are simply matters of personal preference or feeling. This means, for example, that breaking the golden rule is not actually wrong, even though most human beings believe that it is.

Ruse explains: "The evolutionist's claim . . . is that morality is subjective—it is all a question of human feelings or sentiments—but he/she admits that we 'objectify' morality. . . . We think morality has objective reference even though it does not."

According to Ruse, natural selection fooled us into believing in objective morality because such beliefs ultimately help us to survive and reproduce. If we believe we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves, for example, then we cooperate more with others. And the more cooperative a society is, the more successful its members are at surviving and reproducing.

But in reality, morality is ultimately a matter of personal preference and feeling. Since there is no purpose, plan, or goal to evolution, humans are nothing more than the accidental results of a mindless process. We were not designed by God (or anything else) to live in a certain way.

All that's left, then, to build a sense of morality upon is each individual's subjective feelings. Objective moral values and duties are no more real than the tooth fairy.

A third evolution-based view comes to us from the late Cornell biologist William Provine who held that evolutionary theory (and science more generally) supports subjectivism. Anderson remarks that Provine,

...agrees with Ruse that there is no objective standard of morality; rather, each person should do what's in his own best interest.

But Provine adds a twist. He believes modern science has shown that human beings are physical objects—made entirely of things like electrons, quarks, fermions, bosons, and so on. Physical objects obey the laws of physics: electrons do not "decide" what to do, they just mindlessly interact with other phenomena.

Similarly, human beings don't actually make any decisions at all. We think we do, but we are mistaken. We have no more free will than toasters. As Provine says, "What modern science tells us . . . is that human beings are very complex machines.

There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices."

Consider a long line of falling dominoes. A given domino can't choose whether to fall or to jump out of the way when struck by another domino; its action is entirely dictated by that of the domino immediately before it (and of the other dominoes before that).

Likewise, no human being has ever made a free decision. Instead, all his "decisions" were really determined by particles and forces set in motion in the distant past. As Provine says bluntly, "free will as it is traditionally conceived . . . simply does not exist."

In summary, the first view holds that we've evolved desires which fit us for survival and therefore we're obligated to live in accord with them.

The second holds that moral values are illusory and don't exist in any objective sense, but we should nevertheless submit to them because things work out better if we do.

The third holds that we're just evolved machines, that free will is an illusion and that since we cannot make genuine choices, there's really no genuine moral responsibility.

We'll take a further look at each of these in our next post.