Good day from a new member.

[Longhorn]

Hwell good day to you too

[Angrboda]

I would say currently, the thing I'm in need of the most is a good book explaining morality with Darwinian evolution. I live with two seminary students, so usually I can slam all of their arguments into the ground, but I don't have any answers for morality. I've heard Sam Harris' book on morality is a good one, but are there any others you all find particularly enlightening?

The philosophy underpinning Harris' The Moral Landscape is rather crude and easily picked apart. You may want to consider another source for your morality arguments.

[Minimalist]

Any source except the bible, that is.

[robvalue]

Hi there, welcome

Thanks for sharing your story.

The explanation for morality through evolution is essentially very simple:

1) Our ancestors survived better when working together than acting alone. Organised hunting was efficient, as was protection from others.

2) Therefor, any slight deviations which caused us to "care" about our group and not just ourselves gave a survival advantage, and so more opportunity to reproduce.

3) Fast forward millions of generations, and natural selection would focus on and refine this "caring" to the point where it becomes full blown empathy.

4) Once you have empathy, hurting others is like hurting yourself, and so the natural inclination is not to do it.

PS: There are very good online essays here going into much more detail. (Not by me, but proper people.)

I also have links to many other resources on my website here.

[robvalue]

Oh yes, I forgot to say:

Even if science couldn't account for how morality occurs, that would just mean we don't know. It doesn't mean everyone has a free pass to make up whatever nonsense they want, like "It comes from a magic book".

It's an especially dumb explanation because many people manage to be perfectly moral without even reading it, which raises the question of what the point of it is.

[brewer]

Welcome!

[atjanks]

Thank you all so much for the replies!

Jörmungandr, I'll look around for some good book on morality, thanks!

robvalue, your explanation actually makes a lot of sense. I've thrown ideas around on the same lines. I'll take a look at the essay and your website.
Do you have any opinions on an objective morality? A recurring topic in my conversations with my roommate is that an objective anything is impossible without a god. He argues that without god, how can I objectively say slavery in the 1800's or the holocaust were bad. If it was morally right for them at the time, how can I say it was evil.

[SteelCurtain]

from Tennessee!

A really good book on the possible evolutionary sources for morality is Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are".

Very well written and sourced. It was written over 20 years ago, but it remains a good introduction to evolutionary psychology.

I look forward to discussing with you!

[Whateverist]

First of all welcome to the forums and thank you for sharing your story. I wish more people raised in a religion had parents like yours.

Do you have any opinions on an objective morality?

I don't personally think an objective morality makes good sense of morality as we experience it.

A recurring topic in my conversations with my roommate is that an objective anything is impossible without a god.

All moral claims seem to depend on the values a person subscribes to. There do seem to be broad swaths of commonality but obviously no moral generalizations are entirely universal. People who are brought up believing moral actions please God find it hard to let that go. And yet those who have never believed in any gods also have moral experience and do or refrain from doing some acts for no other reason than their sense that it is or wouldn't be right to do so. Some of those godless people can articulate a broader, well thought out moral schema but for others it operates intuitively. To make sense of moral experience a theory needs to take account of all the ways we find it practiced. Objective morals laid out by God only explain moral behavior in a subset of the population, specifically those brought up to conceive of morals that way.

He argues that without god, how can I objectively say slavery in the 1800's or the holocaust were bad. If it was morally right for them at the time, how can I say it was evil.

How can you presume to say it now? Understanding how variable moral experience is, who has the authority to speak for everyone? To state it categorically merely expresses how strongly you yourself feel about it, and you can go on feeling that strongly about it even if you don't think morals are objective.

Perhaps the one aspect of moral experience which is not supported by subjectively based morality is the sense so many have of righteous indignation. To take account of that phenomenon you probably do need to understand that some people operate under moral absolutes. That doesn't mean the person who holds their morals subjectively is any more likely to rape your daughter. It just means he is less likely to become apoplectic in assuring you of that fact.

[Excited Penguin]

I would say currently, the thing I'm in need of the most is a good book explaining morality with Darwinian evolution. I live with two seminary students, so usually I can slam all of their arguments into the ground, but I don't have any answers for morality. I've heard Sam Harris' book on morality is a good one, but are there any others you all find particularly enlightening?

The philosophy underpinning Harris' The Moral Landscape is rather crude and easily picked apart.  You may want to consider another source for your morality arguments.

bold mine

I'm sure your arguments for why that's so aren't./sarcasm

Not looking for a debate here, just saying.