RE: Evolution cannot account for morality
May 29, 2022 at 9:13 pm
(This post was last modified: May 29, 2022 at 9:14 pm by Jehanne.)
(May 29, 2022 at 9:00 pm)Belacqua Wrote: It's easy to accept that the way humans evolved resulted in us having morality.
What I don't see yet is why evolution would necessarily result in us having any particular morality. I mean, it would be nice to think that natural selection favors societies in which everyone lives happily together and shares resources. But is there any scientific evidence that this is true? Maybe strong DNA is more effectively passed down if one or two tough guys enslave harems and rape them to produce lots of babies.
Is there any empirical, repeatable, quantifiable evidence that evolution gives rise to the kind of morality that we happen to like?
As I said earlier, the rise of agriculture at the dawn of the Neolithic era demanded cooperation between larger and larger groups of human beings. More humans resulted in a greater likelihood of an infant surviving to reproductive age. Instead of 9 out of 10 human infants perishing in the 1st year of life, maybe only 1 out of 2 did. As cooperation aided survival, that genetic trait was passed down. Remember that infanticide occurred all throughout the Paleolithic and Mesolithic eras, and so, infants and small children who lacked amenable traits were simply abandoned or killed by their parents or other kin. To survive in that era, an infant or young child needed to cooperate with Mom & Dad.