Freedomain Radio

First, I apologize if this has been discussed earlier. If so, I didn't find it.

Considering morality, I constantly think of WHY something is moral and something else is not. There has to be a reason for this. Even if violence is evil, WHY is it evil?

I think that morality and moral rules are the result of evolution. Human groups and societies which possess certain rules succeed better than their rivals. Most animals do not eat their own kind because it can be argued that such behavior would not increase the survival of the species. A human society where it is not acceptable to murder other members of the society survives better than the others. So, basically, anything that increases the chances of the survival of the genes of the species is moral. To me this makes sense. These rules may be learned in childhood, but in theory they could be genetic. But either way, it may not make make a big difference.

If it is accepted that morality comes through evolution, it has some implications.

Morality may not be global. Species in different environments evolve in different directions. Each species evolves into optimal direction in its environment. If species develop, why not morality? Different environments in the world COULD (in theory at least) "require" different morals. Within the same population the morality would probably be the same, but not NECESSARILY between populations. Any thoughts?

 I'm fairly sure this has other implications as well but I've not yet formulated any concrete thoughts of them..
 

I understand the idea but I can't think of something specific to work with.
could you give an example of a moral rule that is opposed to our shared sense of morality and could be applied universally?

That's a fairly oft-invented idea, which for the life of me I can't remember the name of. It's a fairly close cousin of the various utilitarian ideals, so rooting in that direction might bring up something useful. The obvious problem being that the only basis of value is a subjective prediction of future events...

I'd recommend flipping through this article, as any definition of morality based on consequences is necessarily limited to arguing about the effect of an action.

Aapo:

First, I apologize if this has been discussed earlier. If so, I didn't find it.

Considering morality, I constantly think of WHY something is moral and something else is not. There has to be a reason for this. Even if violence is evil, WHY is it evil?

I think that morality and moral rules are the result of evolution. Human groups and societies which possess certain rules succeed better than their rivals. Most animals do not eat their own kind because it can be argued that such behavior would not increase the survival of the species. A human society where it is not acceptable to murder other members of the society survives better than the others. So, basically, anything that increases the chances of the survival of the genes of the species is moral. To me this makes sense. These rules may be learned in childhood, but in theory they could be genetic. But either way, it may not make make a big difference.

If it is accepted that morality comes through evolution, it has some implications.

Morality may not be global. Species in different environments evolve in different directions. Each species evolves into optimal direction in its environment. If species develop, why not morality? Different environments in the world COULD (in theory at least) "require" different morals. Within the same population the morality would probably be the same, but not NECESSARILY between populations. Any thoughts?

 I'm fairly sure this has other implications as well but I've not yet formulated any concrete thoughts of them..
 

I'm not sure if this would be correct because not all social human groups share this same, more civilised, morality system. It's a really good theory, technically speaking it should be true, but with in a species there is competition also, and not just between one species and other. i suppose what I mean is that even though all humans are the same we still fight with each other. I studied a tribe in my psychology class recently, and they certainly show self-destructive behaviour towards each other (even though they are from the same social tribe), and so don't really show this moral code (perhaps you've heard of the Stick Fight? men will be murdered in this, and the women pierce massive holes in their lips, like ear stretching and wear disks in them). And so an evolutionary theory can not really be supported unless all humans show the same social behaviour.

Sure enough though, a species wants to survive, but personally I feel that if we look back into the biological history of any animal, each individual being will care more about the surivival of its own genes rather than any other animal's survival in the group (this theory is supported by the fact that female animals care more about their young who carry their genes into the next generation more than themselves or others in the group, and the fact that you'd jump infront of a gun to save your child type thing

Lions are a good example, the new male lion will try and kill all the cubs of the females because the females cannot become pregnant if they are feeding their cubs (and he wants to pass his genes on). This is obviously just destructive behaviour towards it's own species, but it still happens, because passing on his genes is far more important to him than other members of the group.

I think evolving to how we are now was caused by many things. I'm unsure about how the decision to not kill each other in your theory is morality though? isn't it more likely to be just wanting to carry on our genes and see the survival of our own species rather than actually caring that killing another being is a cruel thing to do? also that it is evident species attack each other with in a group (lol animals in mating season as an example. . . the violence looks so stressful that there's debate about whether the animals even enjoy sex )

that's my general opinion on the theory anyway.

dude:

I understand the idea but I can't think of something specific to work with.
could you give an example of a moral rule that is opposed to our shared sense of morality and could be applied universally?

 

Do u mean give an example of where humans universaly act moral? if so the best example I can think of is caring for our offspring, though even this is not eveident in all cases. . . ! such as child abusers/molesters etc. hmmm no I really can't tihnk of an entirely universal moral behaviour that all humans share.

What I do is moral because it is what I do?

There was a post of a three part youtube lecture about suicide bombers on here a few days ago. Have a look at it, it covers some theory as to the fact that killing in groups is an inate human male characteristic. I don't think that qualifies as a moral thing to do. Morality could even be defined as the pursuit of good behaviour regardless of natural behaviour. 

well no its obviously not a moral act to kill other human beings haha:p I feel that morality is something we developed because we're such social creatures, I suppose it's about having the ability to empathise with other beings and look at another creature who is suffering and think "wow that's wrong!!" or just understand that it's not right to harm another being because you might be causing it severe emotional and physical pain, which we wouldn't like having done to ourseleves, it's largely about our ability to empathise with another creature's pain and then making the decision to not harm that being, human or animal.

lol Some of us [humans] appear to know how to empathise while others haven't quite picked up on it for whatever reasons. The thing is, is that if its so supposedly "innate," howcome it's behaviour that varies so much between each individual? if it is innate and out of our control to act in this way then it should be that every human shows this behaviour.

I'm learning about evolutionary theories (sexual-behaviour evolution in humans) in my psychology lessons at the moment, it's extremely interesting and the evolutionary theories do make sense but there is an awful long list of flaws that evolutionary theories have (i.e. it's only speculation, nothing can be verified because it happened in the past, it's post-hoc because you can't tell human behaviour from a skeleton/fossil, it's deterministic to say we're only controlled by our genes as humans have free-will and many many more).