Morality evolved.

[The Grand Nudger]

As I've told "Rhythm" in a PM, I had some wierd problem in trying to post to this site, something to do with quotes.

I've read some Pinker, what a mind the man has, but not that book, yet.

My notion is that morality and manners are a product of evolutionary pressure on individuals within gregarious species to "get along" in the interest of their own individual well-being (access to food, social standing, opportunities to mate) BECAUSE getting along serves the interests of the group. This doesn't mean that we can look at a specific example of morality or manners and figure out an evolutionary sequence for it. Oh, sometimes we can for very simple things. The custom or manner of shaking right hands, as we've all read, likely derives from the fact that it formerly showed willingness to temporarily take one's "sword-hand" out of play. The widespread moral injunction against incest surely came about to avoid the likelihood of genetically-defective offspring. But many or most moral injuctions are both specific to cultures and arose from far too many antecedant factors to even guess at an evolutionary lineage. I'm not interested in tracing particulars, and do not think it is even necessary in order to say that codes of conduct come not from God but from the needs of cooperative species both simple and complex. Pack-hunters such as wolves MUST have brains which are maleable for the learning of cooperative behaviors. Individuals that do not have such brains will tend to be selected out of the gene pool. Solitary-hunters such as some of the felines probably do not have very socially-maleable brains. As "Rhythm" pointed out to me, and as Pinker has explained at length, the most modern methods of examining the physical brain are uncovering structure, connections, and chemical compounds that enable our complex socialization. How can these not be yet more evidence of evolution?

Minor correction with regards to incest. It isn't so much that there is a high likelihood of genetic defect, but that selection seems to favor populations of organisms which draw widely from their total possible gene pool (especially if they can extend it to hybridization). This touches on heterosis or "hybrid vigour". Ideally, you want your mate to be as unlike you as possible while still being able to procreate with you (our entire ag system is based upon this btw). This may be the origin of incest taboos. Conjecture.

(it would be more appropriate to say that this is a mechanism whereby a creature that lacks interest in incest, or views it as less than preferable would have a competitive advantage, and that advantage would express itself in surviving populations, perhaps -in the case of ourselves; very social and highly evolved intellectually speaking- as "taboo")