A Case for Inherent Morality

[JohnJubinsky]

I think that morality is inherent for the simple reason that I believe it became inborn through the process of natural selection. That is, I believe there was a time when morality was not particularly inherent. However, I believe that at that time those who preferred to be good were better equipped to survive. That is, I believe that they were  better able to work together to care for their young and each other, to hunt and gather, to build and manufacture, and to defend themselves. I believe that this lead to them becoming more numerous and prosperous than those who did not prefer to be good and that they eventually eliminated in self-defense a great many of those who did not prefer to be good. I believe that over time, as the good parented the overwhelming majority of children they passed on to them the genes that made them prefer to be good in the first place. I believe that this resulted in the vast majority of people today having an inborn feeling that it is right to be good and wrong to be bad.

It’s possible, I suppose. But it’s equally likely that it’s more of a social construct than a genetic one. In other words, those qualities you mention (cooperation, defense of the group, etc) have been found to be so useful to society, that they are inculcated rather than genetically inherited. This would explain why parents expend so much effort on teaching their children to be ‘good’.

Boru

Certainly people are also taught to be good but my experience has been that young children are happy innocent things. There is no doubt that they are broadly viewed this way by society.