Can Darwinian evolution impose any moral obligations on me?

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For example, which of these commandments does evolution impose an obligation upon me to obey?
  1. Honor your father and your mother.
  2. You shall not kill.
  3. You shall not commit adultery.
  4. You shall not steal.
  5. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  6. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
  7. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
 
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snarflemike said:
For example, which of these commandments does evolution impose an obligation upon me to obey?
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None of them. Evolution is a scientific theory. It doesn’t bind any morals on you any more than the special/general theories of relativity.
 
Fauken said:
None of them. Evolution is a scientific theory. It doesn’t bind any morals on you any more than the special/general theories of relativity.
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I agree. I’ll be curious to hear from atheists on the question.
 
False thinking. Yes, science has gone off the deep end. You were programmed, they say, like a robot. Evolution programmed you.That’s false. To find out more, see: Evolutionary psychology.
 
edwest211 said:
False thinking. Yes, science has gone off the deep end. You were programmed, they say, like a robot.
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I really, really don’t understand this response. What false thinking? What programming?
 
Um…generally speaking, the evolutionary idea would be that the survival strategy that allowed humans to thrive, even though we are animals that are pretty weak and vulnerable individually, is that we cooperate really effectively and also teach each other what strategies do and don’t work. We also divide labor. Human populations are more successful when there is more cooperation, which requires that the people trust each other. Societal trust requires pro-social boundaries such as the Ten Commandments. As an example: the honor for elders would preserve institutional memory of infrequently-seen but important events. Other animals can’t communicate in anything like an articulate way about activities the older animal is no longer capable of demonstrating, but people can. This increases the value of individuals who have aged beyond being able to hunt or forage on their own.

Et cetera…really, it isn’t as if divine law is arbitrary. It really does describe the kinds of behaviors that lead to peaceful and contented societies.
 
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I agree that this is a reasonable explanation of the evolutionary idea. But does any of this impose a moral obligation on me? It may explain why people behave the way they do, but is there any moral obligation to behave the way that evolution has “programmed” us? (I’m concededing the “evolutionary idea” for purposes of discussion)
 
snarflemike said:
is there any moral obligation to behave the way that evolution has “programmed” us? (I’m concededing the “evolutionary idea” for purposes of discussion)
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Science doesn’t really have all the facts of our programming" through evolutionary processes.

We don’t know enough about human embryology to place a quantitative and qualitative theory on human evolution. But I agree with PetraG’s analysis of divine law describing behaviors that lead to healthy societies.

From an evolutionary perspective, it would be wise to honor our elders and avoid killing others. This can include the avoidance of killing humans as well as species in other kingdoms. In general, humans don’t like to be ripped-off, lied to, or cheated on, so avoiding those types of behaviors keeps an individual from being a hypocrite. Coveting is out of the picture because it wastes time and takes the focus of working toward making one’s own life better. Better to focus one’s energies on what’s important and obtainable.
 
MamaJewel said:
From an evolutionary perspective, it would be wise to honor our elders and avoid killing others.
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But behaving wisely is not a moral imperative we are bound to by the evolutionary process, correct?
 
snarflemike said:
I agree that this is a reasonable explanation of the evolutionary idea. But does any of this impose a moral obligation on me? It may explain why people behave the way they do, but is there any moral obligation to behave the way that evolution has “programmed” us? (I’m concededing the “evolutionary idea” for purposes of discussion)
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Evolution doesn’t work that way. It isn’t based on moral obligation. It is based on whether or not you are successful at passing on your genes or the genes of your close relatives across a very very long time frame.
snarflemike said:
But behaving wisely is not a moral imperative we are bound to by the evolutionary process, correct?
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It depends on the strategy of your species. Yes, I’d say we’re a “wise” species in the sense that we invest a lot in a relatively small number of offspring rather than a “profligate” species that breeds like crazy and depends on survival by high numbers. (Tigers compared to spiders would be an example of “wise” vs. “profligate”) We’re also a cooperative species that competes in groups rather than a species that is highly competitive as individuals among ourselves: that is, we care for each other’s young and so on.
 
snarflemike said:
I agree. I’ll be curious to hear from atheists on the question.
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Not an atheist, but I’m pretty sure that even from an atheist perspective, evolution would only offer a bit of historical insight into why we are prone to following those commands, in that they may have been helpful for our survival as a species. Going further into using that in ethics would start moving into the is/ought fallacy.
snarflemike said:
What programming?
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I think he’s trying to apply a biological answer to a psychological problem. And while our current psychology is probably affected by past evolution, it isn’t universally believed to be to the sole driver of it. As far as I know, that’s actually a minority opinion, but it does make a convenient strawman for YECs, though.
 
Laws come from a Law-Giver, an authority over the obligated “citizen”. Law and Grace | SoftVocation
Conscience itself requires a kind of obedience to “something / someone unnamed and unseen, yet in authority”. Persons, not situations or philosophies, impose obligations.

John Martin
 
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PetraG said:
Evolution doesn’t work that way. It isn’t based on moral obligation. It is based on whether or not you are successful at passing on your genes or the genes of your close relatives across a very very long time frame.
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Right. But do we have a moral imperative to be successful at passing on our genes? Is there a “should” regarding passing on our genes? Should we be punished for not passing on our genes?
 
snarflemike said:
Right. But do we have a moral imperative to be successful at passing on our genes? Is there a “should” regarding passing on our genes? Should we be punished for not passing on our genes?
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No, that isn’t how evolution works. Your family’s genome might even be more successful if you don’t pass any genes on at all. You don’t know that. What “judges” the “rightness” of the strategy you or your family takes is whether your family survives in the very long term, much longer than a single lifetime. It is all “judged” in retrospect, based on what genetic lines survive and which ones die out. A line that mutates isn’t better than one that essentially doesn’t change at all. A line that gets to more complicated organisms isn’t better than one that is simple. All that matters is the survival over a long period of time.

It could be that giving a moral code to humans will make the line that has one more successful than one that doesn’t have one. From the evolutionary standpoint, that makes the moral code an advantage to survival of a family line; it does not make it more right or wrong in an ethical sense.
 
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