Can Darwinism account for morality?

[Aaran]

That's an excellent post, thank you.

I hope I didn't infer that everything constituting the moral system of any given society is derived from natural selection.  The human intellect is quite liberated from the confines of instinct, and this is what furnishes people with the ability to conjecture on the morality/immorality of things like making lewd remarks, which can't really be addressed from the perspective of evolution.

The most annoying thing is when creationists ask a fascile question like "If evolution and survival of the fittest is true, why should we help the needy/why shouldn't we kill people with disabilities/etc etc."  They view Darwinism as some sort of proscriptive code, instead of simply the biological mechanisms through which we arrived at our current state of genetic diversity.  You might not hear that line of argument much in the UK, but I can't tell you the number of times I've been asked "why be good, if we're all just animals and only the fittest should survive?", along with the attendent comparisons to nazi eugenics and the like.

I've heard it on occasion, from individual nutjobs rather than collectives of nutjobs. I try to explain that simply describing a scientific process like survival of the fittest isn't the same as endorsing the 'kill or be killed' worldview.

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What the hell is "Darwinism"???? A 19th century religious movement that worshipped Charles Darwin?

Or just a phrase uttered by utterly ignorant fundigelicals in an ignorant attempt to ridicule evolution?

I didn't think a respectable atheist would ever use that term.

I wasn't aware that atheists were in the business of declaring people 'good atheists' or 'respectable atheists', or, by the same token, 'bad atheists' or 'disrespectable atheists'. I thought that sort of thing was monopolized by the religious.

Forgive me, but I don't see how my use of the term Darwinism has attracted such criticism. ISM's aren't the province of religion alone - Minimalism, Aestheticism, Modernism, Post-Modernism, SOCIAL DARWINISM. Has nobody questioning my deployment of the word Darwinism ever heard of Social-Darwinism, an ideology wholly divorced from all religious connotation? If that phrase can be used without qualms, why can't its second constituent part?

[Alex K]

I don't particularly like the term "Darwinism" mainly because it seems to imply that modern evolutionary science somehow hinges on a revelation handed down to us by this messianic figure Darwin, and is based on his infallibility, when in reality it is today entirely irrelevant for the status of the theory of evolution what the man wrote or thought, much of which was wrong anyways. I say that as someone who has read his books and admires these things greatly as historical monuments.

[The Grand Nudger]

Which is why asking whether "darwinism" can account for something won't give you the answer you're looking for.  "Darwinism" accounts for very little. As a theory of evolutionary biology it is, in itself, incomplete at best...and inaccurate at worst.  What -would- we expect it to account for? Taken as far as we could possibly take it, darwinism can only account for the persistence of a trait or behavior in a population...not it's origin, not it's existence. A more complete theory is required for that, and thankfully we have a more complete theory......but......-once we possess this morality business (and it just as easily could have been a morality of "kill every other living thing")-, if it provides reproductive advantage, we expect to see those behaviors more and more well represented within future populations of creatures which pass those behaviors (as they may pass a hereditary trait) on to their offspring.

[henryp]

An interesting aspect of this, is that humans developed empathy and whatnot to further their group of humans.

But within those human groups, the traits that I would associate with the rich and powerful throughout history are very very different than the standard moral/empathetic people.

Which might relate to the point the Dosty was making.  It is a free for all.  The good folk can band together and try to stop the bad folk.  But the bad folk seem to have a knack for amassing wealth and power and crushing their opposition. And the only people to say they are wrong is the opposition who are often crushed. 

I think the reality is, that the 'darwinistic' morality shifts heavily depending on who you are and who you want to be in the social dynamic.  I'd say Dosty was right in his idea that everything is permissible in our setup, although there will be a high cost for a lot of behaviors for most people.

[The Grand Nudger]

The old "cheaters never prosper" is, of course, false.  We don't like what they do because they -do- win and they -do- prosper......by refusing to play by our rules in a situation in which we are incapable of enforcing them.  So, of course someone who doesn;t limit himself, as we might limit ourselves...is going to have a wider range of options available, and of course competition between these two different types of people isn't going to be fair...but even for the rich who have "cheated" it;s generally not something they commit their lives to.  They exploited a situation...they may, immediately thereafter, go back to toeing the line......and most do.  After all, if you've gotten away with something, you don't want to bring any attention to that fact surrounded by a mob of angry losers and runners-up.

Its not as if the exploitative urge and ability isn't useful, even in otherwise social, empathetic creatures. Any of us might shift back between these two "modes" -if there's even, truly, any separation between them...at pretty much any time. It's sort of binary to wonder why, if we evolved to be good (good as in showing empathy, following the rules, etc etc etc)....do we do bad, or VV. Neither urge was "developed" with the express purpose of furthering our species...but both further the reproductive aims of the individual.....which -does- benefit our species.

So, I guess the short answer is that morality -didn't- develop in our species to further it, that;s not -why- it developed....it's just one of the effects that it had once we'd acquired it. It may be that the situation could change, and it becomes detrimental, but in the here and now, to say that it's a "free for all" ignores the whole point of our moralizing in the first place. It's -not- a free for all...not even "darwinistiacally", if it were.......we wouldn't be bitching about our limitations, self imposed and otherwise...and the people who break them, nor would we see patterns of behavior be consistently successful over long spans of time in many different populations. We are, to at least some extent, morally constrained by who and what we are.