(May 28, 2022 at 5:06 am)Belacqua Wrote:(May 28, 2022 at 1:59 am)Astreja Wrote: Morality does utilize evolution indirectly.
People who mistreat other people get thrown out of tribes, or beaten or killed. This makes it rather hard for them to reproduce, and their genetic line is more likely to die out.
People who play well with others generally prefer to hang out with like-minded people, and there is safety in numbers. Survival is better in a strong, mutually beneficial community, and the individuals who live in such an environment are more likely to have strong, healthy, safe offspring.
There is a natural bias towards moral behaviour in successful communities. Religion simply summarizes existing community standards in scripture and designates clergy to be teachers and enforcers.
This sounds reasonable, but I wonder if there's any scientific evidence.
Does moral behavior lead to more offspring than, for example, a man who cheats on his wife and makes lots of illegitimate babies? Or a guy who lies to women to get them into bed? Or someone like Elon Musk, whose immoral acquisition of lots of money gets him dates?
As I recall there was a paper a while back claiming that one in every 200 men is directly descended from Genghis Khan, famous moral exemplar.
There was that fertility doctor who secretly used his own sperm and ended up having like a hundred babies.
In US culture, lots of people have babies but don't settle down into stable moral environments.
It would be interesting to see some kind of scientific studies.
In the light of his age Chinggis was very moral. He would spare cities that surrendered, honourable opponents and give those nations he defeated a wide power of self government afterwards. Meanwhile, in Europe we had Caedite Eos.
Urbs Antiqua Fuit Studiisque Asperrima Belli
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