Evolution cannot account for morality

[Mister Agenda]

We cannot get our morality from evolution because evolution does not care about how we treat others. Also, it makes no sense that we have instincts therefore it makes more sense that God wanted us to have instincts. Evolution only starts with life, which makes no sense, it should show how inanimate matter turns into life as well. Also, if evolution has all this power then where does evolution come from?

I'm sure this has already been discussed thoroughly by now, but I'm going to be optimistic that I have something to offer on it that may be helpful. Welcome, by the way.

Evolution does not care about how we treat others. What we get pertaining to morality from evolution are some basic pro-social sentiments that are found in other social primates (our senses of blame, empathy, fairness, guilt, love, reciprocity, and shame come to mind), a capacity to reason out how to serve those instincts and the needs of ourselves and our society, and culture to transmit our morality to future generations.

The 'moral sentiments' don't give us morality, but they're very helpful in getting us to care about morality. When we're outraged by the way someone is treated, it's those sentiments coming into play. Then we work out the morality as a society, inspired by our sentiments and guided by our reason and experience. And there's a bit of natural selection at play, a society that gets morality really wrong will be at a disadvantage compared to a society that gets it better; for example a society where murder isn't punished or even discouraged is going to have a hard time competing with a society that tries to minimize their murders, rampant murder just imposes too many costs on a society that allows it.

Other animals have instincts, so I'm not following what about us having instincts doesn't make sense. Would you elaborate on that please? I would argue that our moral instincts are too mutable and subjective to have been imposed by an omniscient being.

You cant' have biological evolution without biology, but it may be accurate to say that abiogenesis involved some 'chemical evolution', that is, something that we wouldn't call life that could vary in such a way that natural selection could act on it. For example, we probably wouldn't call a self-replicating strand or RNA alive on its own, but once that existed, it would be selected on to be better at copying itself.

Evolution is what happens when you have hi-fidelity but imperfect replication, the success of which can be influenced by environmental factors. The phenomenon isn't confined to biology, for example there are computer programs that take advantage of this type of evolution to find solutions to problems (there are many slightly different variants of the initial program and the variants that are closest to the solution are selected for).

[The Grand Nudger]

-and now we have an incel opining on sexual health…..

[chiknsld]

We cannot get our morality from evolution because evolution does not care about how we treat others. Also, it makes no sense that we have instincts therefore it makes more sense that God wanted us to have instincts. Evolution only starts with life, which makes no sense, it should show how inanimate matter turns into life as well. Also, if evolution has all this power then where does evolution come from?

I'm sure this has already been discussed thoroughly by now, but I'm going to be optimistic that I have something to offer on it that may be helpful. Welcome, by the way.

Evolution does not care about how we treat others. What we get pertaining to morality from evolution are some basic pro-social sentiments that are found in other social primates (our senses of blame, empathy, fairness, guilt, love, reciprocity, and shame come to mind), a capacity to reason out how to serve those instincts and the needs of ourselves and our society, and culture to transmit our morality to future generations.

The 'moral sentiments' don't give us morality, but they're very helpful in getting us to care about morality. When we're outraged by the way someone is treated, it's those sentiments coming into play. Then we work out the morality as a society, inspired by our sentiments and guided by our reason and experience. And there's a bit of natural selection at play, a society that gets morality really wrong will be at a disadvantage compared to a society that gets it better; for example a society where murder isn't punished or even discouraged is going to have a hard time competing with a society that tries to minimize their murders, rampant murder just imposes too many costs on a society that allows it.

Other animals have instincts, so I'm not following what about us having instincts doesn't make sense. Would you elaborate on that please? I would argue that our moral instincts are too mutable and subjective to have been imposed by an omniscient being.

You cant' have biological evolution without biology, but it may be accurate to say that abiogenesis involved some 'chemical evolution', that is, something that we wouldn't call life that could vary in such a way that natural selection could act on it. For example, we probably wouldn't call a self-replicating strand or RNA alive on its own, but once that existed, it would be selected on to be better at copying itself.

Evolution is what happens when you have hi-fidelity but imperfect replication, the success of which can be influenced by environmental factors. The phenomenon isn't confined to biology, for example there are computer programs that take advantage of this type of evolution to find solutions to problems (there are many slightly different variants of the initial program and the variants that are closest to the solution are selected for).

Hello and thank you! This was a handy response and you offer a lot of insight. 

My issue regarding instincts was that life appears to start out with a bunch of preprogrammed instructions that can be seen even in a single-celled microorganism. In essence, I would argue that pretty much all the behavior of a single-celled microorganism is instinctual.

There are also jellyfish that have no brain at all and can basically live forever as they continually go through a process of rebirth.

But what others have taught me here is that all of these instinctual anomalies are reducible to complex chemical reaction.

I really appreciate all the help you all have given me in understanding evolution!

[Pat Mustard]

We cannot get our morality from evolution because evolution does not care about how we treat others. Also, it makes no sense that we have instincts therefore it makes more sense that God wanted us to have instincts. Evolution only starts with life, which makes no sense, it should show how inanimate matter turns into life as well. Also, if evolution has all this power then where does evolution come from?

I'm sure this has already been discussed thoroughly by now, but I'm going to be optimistic that I have something to offer on it that may be helpful. Welcome, by the way.

Evolution does not care about how we treat others. What we get pertaining to morality from evolution are some basic pro-social sentiments that are found in other social primates (our senses of blame, empathy, fairness, guilt, love, reciprocity, and shame come to mind), a capacity to reason out how to serve those instincts and the needs of ourselves and our society, and culture to transmit our morality to future generations.

The 'moral sentiments' don't give us morality, but they're very helpful in getting us to care about morality. When we're outraged by the way someone is treated, it's those sentiments coming into play. Then we work out the morality as a society, inspired by our sentiments and guided by our reason and experience. And there's a bit of natural selection at play, a society that gets morality really wrong will be at a disadvantage compared to a society that gets it better; for example a society where murder isn't punished or even discouraged is going to have a hard time competing with a society that tries to minimize their murders, rampant murder just imposes too many costs on a society that allows it.

Other animals have instincts, so I'm not following what about us having instincts doesn't make sense. Would you elaborate on that please? I would argue that our moral instincts are too mutable and subjective to have been imposed by an omniscient being.

You cant' have biological evolution without biology, but it may be accurate to say that abiogenesis involved some 'chemical evolution', that is, something that we wouldn't call life that could vary in such a way that natural selection could act on it. For example, we probably wouldn't call a self-replicating strand or RNA alive on its own, but once that existed, it would be selected on to be better at copying itself.

Evolution is what happens when you have hi-fidelity but imperfect replication, the success of which can be influenced by environmental factors. The phenomenon isn't confined to biology, for example there are computer programs that take advantage of this type of evolution to find solutions to problems (there are many slightly different variants of the initial program and the variants that are closest to the solution are selected for).

I would also contend that human technological development is at least an evolution adjacent process. We have externalised our responses to enviornmental pressures to such a great extent as a species that our evolution can no longer be described as fully biological.

[The Grand Nudger]

As it’s generally understood, instinct is possessed by minimally self aware creatures.

Heliotropism in plants is handled by a chemical reaction, when light hits a photophobic growth hormone called auxin.

You can see how this growing up is different from a creature that feels a compelling need to look up, though it may not understand why.

To have instincts you must feel compelled. To fell compelled you must be (at least) minimally self aware. Fwiw, neither chemical processes nor minimally aware creatures are believed to be moral agents. They’re just as evolved as we are( arguably more)- but it’s a great example of how evolution will not necessarily produce a moral agent let alone a morality- even if there are or were moral facts to observe.

[Anomalocaris]

actually, instinct requires no self-awareness.   self-awareness is but a subset of more complex instincts.

[Anomalocaris]

I'm sure this has already been discussed thoroughly by now, but I'm going to be optimistic that I have something to offer on it that may be helpful. Welcome, by the way.

Evolution does not care about how we treat others. What we get pertaining to morality from evolution are some basic pro-social sentiments that are found in other social primates (our senses of blame, empathy, fairness, guilt, love, reciprocity, and shame come to mind), a capacity to reason out how to serve those instincts and the needs of ourselves and our society, and culture to transmit our morality to future generations.

The 'moral sentiments' don't give us morality, but they're very helpful in getting us to care about morality. When we're outraged by the way someone is treated, it's those sentiments coming into play. Then we work out the morality as a society, inspired by our sentiments and guided by our reason and experience. And there's a bit of natural selection at play, a society that gets morality really wrong will be at a disadvantage compared to a society that gets it better; for example a society where murder isn't punished or even discouraged is going to have a hard time competing with a society that tries to minimize their murders, rampant murder just imposes too many costs on a society that allows it.

Other animals have instincts, so I'm not following what about us having instincts doesn't make sense. Would you elaborate on that please? I would argue that our moral instincts are too mutable and subjective to have been imposed by an omniscient being.

You cant' have biological evolution without biology, but it may be accurate to say that abiogenesis involved some 'chemical evolution', that is, something that we wouldn't call life that could vary in such a way that natural selection could act on it. For example, we probably wouldn't call a self-replicating strand or RNA alive on its own, but once that existed, it would be selected on to be better at copying itself.

Evolution is what happens when you have hi-fidelity but imperfect replication, the success of which can be influenced by environmental factors. The phenomenon isn't confined to biology, for example there are computer programs that take advantage of this type of evolution to find solutions to problems (there are many slightly different variants of the initial program and the variants that are closest to the solution are selected for).

I would also contend that human technological development is at least an evolution adjacent process.  We have externalised our responses to enviornmental pressures to such a great extent as a species that our evolution can no longer be described as fully biological.

IMHO, self-awareness is the mental facility to create thought model of self as an entity that facilitates simulation of own action and more sophisticated prediction of their consequence in abstraction, in essence self awareness provide evolutionary advantage by facilitating the capacity to game out own behavior.

technology at its most basic level is the extension of this modeling capability that supported self-awareness to also cover objects with which the self can interact.

morality at its most basic level is the recognition the extension of our self-modeling capability to cover others people and animals with whom we can interact.

the concept of soul seems to me to the manifestation of the fact that our mental model of ourselves is not of such a high level of fidelity that it would always anticipate the model that supports self-awareness as coming to an end when the physical being that is the subject of the model comes to end.

basically, we tend to believe we have souls because our self awareness is not sufficiently fully self aware.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I would also contend that human technological development is at least an evolution adjacent process.  We have externalised our responses to enviornmental pressures to such a great extent as a species that our evolution can no longer be described as fully biological.

IMHO, self-awareness is the mental facility to create thought model of self as an entity that facilitates simulation of own action and more sophisticated prediction of their consequence in abstraction, in essence the capacity to game out own behavior.

technology at its most basic level is the extension of this modeling capability that supported self-awareness to also cover objects with which the self interacts. 

morality at its most basic level is the recognition the extension of our self-modeling capability to cover others people and animals with whom we interact.

the concept of soul seems to me to the manifestation of the fact that our mental model of ourselves is not of such a high level of fidelity that it would always anticipate the model that supports self-awareness as coming to an end when the physical being that is the subject of the model comes to end.

basically, we tend to believe we have souls because our self awareness is not sufficiently fully self aware.

(Bold mine)

It’s fairly well established that plants exhibit minimal self awareness. Does this mean petunias believe they have souls (since it’s pretty certain that their self awareness is even less fully self aware than our own)?

Boru

[Angrboda]

So, our self awareness is insufficiently fully self aware? I think I've just been Chopra'd.

[Anomalocaris]

IMHO, self-awareness is the mental facility to create thought model of self as an entity that facilitates simulation of own action and more sophisticated prediction of their consequence in abstraction, in essence the capacity to game out own behavior.

technology at its most basic level is the extension of this modeling capability that supported self-awareness to also cover objects with which the self interacts. 

morality at its most basic level is the recognition the extension of our self-modeling capability to cover others people and animals with whom we interact.

the concept of soul seems to me to the manifestation of the fact that our mental model of ourselves is not of such a high level of fidelity that it would always anticipate the model that supports self-awareness as coming to an end when the physical being that is the subject of the model comes to end.

basically, we tend to believe we have souls because our self awareness is not sufficiently fully self aware.

(Bold mine)

It’s fairly well established that plants exhibit minimal self awareness. Does this mean petunias believe they have souls (since it’s pretty certain that their self awareness is even less fully self aware than our own)?

Boru

Really, to what extent have we established plants are self-aware in the sense of running a model of itself on, something, in order to predict consequences and affect its own behavior?

Also, how does the notion thar being more accurately and completely aware of ourselves than we currently are would have precluded the delusion of a soul, imply the delusion of soul is intrinsic to all lesser degrees or types of self-awareness?