Morality Via Evolution?

[Wiccan_Child]

Ok. What makes morality an evolutionary device humans needed when "we evolved?" We need lungs to survive off of oxygen in the atmosphere, legs to walk/run from danger or for food, etc. Morality really serves no purpose in the evolutionary cycle...

Sure it does: instinctive urges that compel an individual in a social species to be altruistic, compassionate, forward-thinking, etc, tends to be urges whose genetic foundations are passed on.

That is, the gene benefits from being proliferated in many hosts, and those hosts being, on average, better protected.

The individual experiences urges to protect its progeny and its kin, which improves the odds that its own offspring or the offspring of its siblings (etc) would be more likely to pass on - even if the individual dies, its genes live on in its children, nieces, and nephews. Genetically, that is enough.

The society benefits from having altruistic individuals, thus promoting en masse reproductive success.

That, in a nutshell, is why morality evolves in social species such as H. sapiens.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

That, in a nutshell, is why morality evolves in social species such as H. sapiens.

Or prehaps a certain aspect of morality, namely pro social instincts.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I see sociopaths as immoral in the sense that they do not behave in accord with approved social convention. But I think at heart they too live in a world of value and have to respond to it in a coherent fashion. So they might be immoral to us, in one sense of the word, but they are still affected by a sense of value just like us, and as such share in our basic moral predicament. They too I believe know what it is to be "ethically situated" insofar as that means situated in a world-of-value one must respond to. But in a more unique fashion, from their ideosyncratic angle, which I believe is the basis of their "deviant" behavior as the foundational experiences of value they have, live with and respond to can be different to the norm. They IMO are an extreme case of the truth that what is valued, and the experience of value, differs from person to person just as it differs from species to species. They have a different cognitive "value landscape" which causes them to respond to the world in a different way to us.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Or prehaps a certain aspect of morality, namely pro social instincts.

What other sorts of morality is there?

 

[Naraoia]

There´s countless animals nowadays that have survived "millions" confused of years perfectly without wings or lungs or legs or hair or....

Sponges rule, you mean?

Also, the Blob. Though lacking a fossil record, I'm not sure how long they have been like that.

Ok. What makes morality an evolutionary device humans needed when "we evolved?" We need lungs to survive off of oxygen in the atmosphere, legs to walk/run from danger or for food, etc. Morality really serves no purpose in the evolutionary cycle...

Soooo many things survive on atmospheric oxygen just fine without lungs. (For that matter, many things survive just fine without oxygen.) Likewise for legs and pretty much any other human trait you care to name. Morality is really no different from those.

There are no "needs" in evolution. We have lungs because our ancestors had them and we never lost them. Lungs appeared because they appeared and remained because they were useful. There are no "needs" in evolution.

Morality (altruism, sociality) remained as traits in human populations because they were (and still are) useful for the species to continue evolving. I will say it again, there are no "needs" in evolution.

This, a hundred bazillion times.

Let's try to put the concept in somewhat more human terms. Since we all have internet access, and enough spare time to procrastinate here, I would assume we all earn enough to survive. Wouldn't a pay rise still be nice, though?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

What other sorts of morality is there?

I see all sentience witch responds to a world-of-value as morally engaged (as opposed for instance to number for the mathematically engaged). Value is is an aspect of the world, and various ethical codes and strategems are responses to it.

The psychopath is morally engaged in his world-of-value, perhaps instinctively valuing control more then we do. In the same way a dog is for me moral (at the basic level) because it values certain things like fetching sticks, according to it's evolutionary and psychological make up. Its habits of action are thus morally produced. A psychopath's morals may be immoral, but they are still morals if you see what I mean.

Althought humans may be the only ones to philosophise I do not think that is an essential ingredient of moral response.

Morality is a cross species phenomenon. I say that although of course the term "moral" can and does mean an approved or praiseworthy moral response. E.g. "She is a highly moral person". Not all moral codes and devices and agents deserve that categorisaiton, just as not all chefs are good at their job (producing meals of positive worth).