Evolution cannot account for morality

[chiknsld]

That's very interesting, do you think that an advanced species is capable of not having any morality at all? Or do you think that life itself requires morality as it would require group dynamics, compromise, etc.?

Interesting question. 

If we define morality as a set guidelines for group interaction, then it seems to me (off the top of my head) that any social group would require it. Social primates other than us seem to have customs or social laws for how they organize their hierarchies, who gets the best stuff, etc. Whether we want to call that a morality or not I'm not sure. Some people might want to insist that to qualify as morality, the customs must be conceptualized and therefore something we can debate and codify officially. That would mean that bonobos go by instinct rather than morality. I'm not sure.

There are two very interesting Christian writers who felt that people, in their most advanced state, would grow out of morality. That's if we're defining morality as a set of rules, customs, or traditions imposed on the individual by society or by God, and which the individual may kick against. 

Antinomian Christians like William Blake felt that any sort of codified morality was from Satan. He thought that Jehovah's commandments of the Old Testament were really from the devil, and only Jesus was truly God. He emphasized that Jesus, being a perfect person, didn't follow any moral law but operated only from instinct. And since his instinct was perfect, his behavior was always good. This is a kind of life beyond morality, in which the person acting is so in tune with what is Good that no rules, customs, or mores are necessary. 

Blake was an optimist and thought that very advanced people could achieve a Christ-like state of instinct in this life. Very few Christians agree with him.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante posits a similar state of having a purely good character which places the individual beyond the moral law. Unlike Blake, though, he thought this state is only available to those who have died and been purified in Purgatory. At the top of the mountain, after Dante's sins have been purged, his guide tells him that now he should do whatever he wants, since whatever he wants will be good. (Sin, for Dante, is misdirected desire -- once it is purged all desires are perfectly directed to the Good.) 

So if we think of an advanced society not in science fiction terms but in terms of improved character, I can imagine a culture in which discussion of morality is forgotten, or moot. This would be because people have such clear understanding of what is good that no discussion is necessary. 

(I can imagine such a culture, but I am not optimistic. I am more like Dante than Blake, in that I don't think it's possible in a human lifetime.)

This is truly profound. An instinct that supersedes morality. 

And you know what, I would reckon as well that an advanced species would find moral codes to be trivial. 

So if the more intelligent a species becomes this means that morality will always be inevitable.

Thus, we may say that life leads to morality. You people believe in evolution therefore life leads to evolution.

So, as I was saying earlier in the thread, the universe will inevitably lead to live (eventually), life will inevitably lead to morality. Life will lead to evolution.

Thus, we may say that whenever there is a universe, there will be life, morality, and evolution.

Let us presume that the universe was always here, therefore the universe exists so that life could exist and life exists out of some sort of moral impetus. This leaves one final mystery, where does evolution come from? 

Evolution must have been there from the very beginning since it is already guaranteed from the outset of the universe being in existence. Thus, evolution is some sort of eternal power.