RE: Can Darwinism account for morality?
June 18, 2015 at 11:34 am
(This post was last modified: June 18, 2015 at 11:41 am by FatAndFaithless.)
Let's just be careful with our wording on this topic, because sometimes I feel that people overreach when discussing morality and evolution.
It's no doubt that the base drives and feelings we have (empathy, protection of family and friends, cooperation being desirable, etc) have emerged through our evolution as a social species. But I sometimes encounter people who try to address any moral issue we have today from an evolutionary perspective, and I find their arguments pretty terrible. Our moral and legal systems today have been designed (intelligently designed, one might say~) by us and our predecessors for the millenia that human societies have existed.
Many times our intrinsic and natural instincts or feelings about a situation (bred by evolution in a social species) would be considered immoral if we were to act on those reactive feelings. For example, I'm sure anyone here has been in a situation where they've been angry enough that they've desired to punch the asshat that's making you so angry (a natural reaction, animals fight all the damn time), but I'd also wager that most of us here would agree that reacting with violence towards speech is immoral.
Our moral and legal systems might draw from a common pool of natural evolved instincts or feelings, but in many situations we create systems in order to discourage some of those natural reactions (territorialism, tribalism, aggression, etc).
It's no doubt that the base drives and feelings we have (empathy, protection of family and friends, cooperation being desirable, etc) have emerged through our evolution as a social species. But I sometimes encounter people who try to address any moral issue we have today from an evolutionary perspective, and I find their arguments pretty terrible. Our moral and legal systems today have been designed (intelligently designed, one might say~) by us and our predecessors for the millenia that human societies have existed.
Many times our intrinsic and natural instincts or feelings about a situation (bred by evolution in a social species) would be considered immoral if we were to act on those reactive feelings. For example, I'm sure anyone here has been in a situation where they've been angry enough that they've desired to punch the asshat that's making you so angry (a natural reaction, animals fight all the damn time), but I'd also wager that most of us here would agree that reacting with violence towards speech is immoral.
Our moral and legal systems might draw from a common pool of natural evolved instincts or feelings, but in many situations we create systems in order to discourage some of those natural reactions (territorialism, tribalism, aggression, etc).
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson
