Evolution & Morality?

[Veritas6]

I found this article where an atheist agrees a lot with Mark Linville’s beliefs that “[e]volution cannot explain moral values… Evolution only explains how we came to believe in moral facts.”

Quote from Linville:

“it would appear that the human moral sense and the moral beliefs that arise from it are ultimately the result of natural selection, and their value is thus found in the adaptive behavior that they encourage. But then it seems that the processes responsible for our having the moral beliefs that we do are ultimately fitness-aimed rather than truth-aimed . This is to say that, in such a case, the best explanation for our having the moral beliefs that we do makes no essential reference to their being true. [(the author agrees with this part)]… This is to suggest that there are no objective moral facts, though we have been programmed to believe in them.”

“But this clearly commits the genetic fallacy. The cause of a belief may be unreliable, but that does not mean the belief itself is false.”

Linville continues:

“A more modest conclusion might be that we are not in a position to know whether there are such facts because our moral beliefs are undercut by the Darwinian story of their genesis… Thus, our moral beliefs are without warrant.”

“Here, Linville argues that because we cannot trust our evolved moral ‘sense’ to give us moral knowledge, we cannot have moral knowledge at all.

But this does not follow. We cannot trust our evolved sense of invisible agents… but does this mean we cannot have knowledge of spirits? Of course not!.. [W]e could know the existence of spirits through other means – inference from the apparent design in the universe, for example.

So Linville’s conclusion follows only if the sole possible source of moral knowledge is our evolved moral sense. But I see no reason to grant this hidden assumption. If moral facts exist, we may be able to infer them from scientific and rational discovery, and totally ignore our unreliable, evolved moral sense.” (Emphasis mine)

In a way I agree with this reasoning: we can infer a moral fact exists from our rationality and conscience. To “use evidence and reason to infer moral facts from the natural universe. I do not consult my evolved prejudices , I do not test my theory against them, and I use all the tools of science and logic to remove their influence from my moral calculus.”

Do you think this atheist is on the right track and Linville might be wrong? That even if we can’t trust our evolved moral senses for moral knowledge, we can still have moral knowledge? (Although I would base this on natural theology and the conscience instead of blind naturalism.)

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1244

 

[Veritas6]

The author believes in a 'desire utilitarianism’ – “the idea that morality involves using praise and condemnation to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and to inhibit desires that tend to thwart other desires.” A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism by Alonzo Fyfe

Overview of the theory:

• The focus of moral judgements should concern an agent’s desires , rather than his actions .
• Desires are persistent entities.
• Value derives from desire-fulfillment. (There is no value without a valuer.)
• Morality is about maximising value (and hence desire-fulfillment), universally.
• Hence, a good desire is one that will tend to fulfill desires generally, regardless of whose they are. A bad desire is one that will tend to thwart desires generally.
• Morality is subjective in the sense that it depends on minds (‘valuers’) generally, but it is nevertheless objective from the perspective of any individual.
• An act can be judged on its consistency with how a person with good desires (see definition above) would behave in that situation.
• The Is/Ought gap can be bridged, by noting the general form of the hypothetical imperative: ‘If you want Y, you ought to do X’, is another way of saying ‘Doing X is such to fulfill the desires in question’ (where the desires in question are ‘Y’). To extend this to morality, note that the ‘desires in question’ are all desires, regardless of who has them ." The Locker: Desire Utilitarianism

Interestingly, I read: “desirism claims that desires are the only reasons for action that exist. Intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, ideal observers, divine commands, social contracts, and other foundations for moral theories do not exist.” (bold mine) http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2982

What do you make of all this?

 

[Wozza]

The author believes in a 'desire utilitarianism’ – “the idea that morality involves using praise and condemnation to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and to inhibit desires that tend to thwart other desires.” A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism by Alonzo Fyfe

Interestingly, I read: “desirism claims that desires are the only reasons for action that exist. Intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, ideal observers, divine commands, social contracts, and other foundations for moral theories do not exist.” (bold mine) http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2982

What do you make of all this?

It’s not that morality uses praise and condemnation. It’s that we describe moral acts as being good because the acts themselves are (and have been in the far past) beneficial.

So for example, a tendency to share the work load rather than acting individually enabled humans to form societies which were beneficial in helping Man to survive. So that those who had such tendencies (by random genetic processes) were those that survived. And passed on those genetic tendencies to their offspring. So they became the norm. As those without those tendencies fared less well.

So it’s not that certain acts are good in themselves and we therefore feel obliged to follow a moral code based upon them. It’s that we are genetically inclined to perform those certain acts (and avoid others that we feel reflect negatively upon ourselves). And we have therefore nominated such acts as being moral.

We can also determine what these moral acts should be in any case. It’s what works. So although we feel instinctively that we shouldn’t steal and murder for no reason, it doesn’t take too much thought to realise that NOT following these ‘rules’ would lead to a weakeni g of the glue that holds society together.

So when Jesus gave His sermon on the mount, He wasn’t bringing anything new to the table. He was just reminding us of what works. And not to forget it.

 

[Veritas6]

What do you make of moral naturalism? It’s the idea that “objective, mind-independent moral facts are natural facts.”

Here are some arguments against “normative non-naturalism”:

1. The normative supervenes on the natural; in all metaphysically possible worlds in which the natural facts are the same as they are in the actual world, the moral facts are the same as well… For naturalists, such an explanation is easy to provide: the moral facts just are natural facts, so when we consider worlds that are naturally the same as the actual world, we will ipso facto be considering worlds that are morally the same as the actual world. But for the non-naturalist, no such explanation seems available. In fact, it seems to be in principle impossible for a non-naturalist to explain how the moral supervenes on the natural.
2. According to evolutionary debunking arguments , our moral beliefs are products of evolution, and this evolutionary etiology of our moral beliefs serves to undermine them… if moral naturalism is true, the realist needn’t grant the skeptic’s premise that our moral beliefs are the product of evolutionary facts rather than moral facts. If moral facts are natural, then we needn’t see moral facts as being contrary to natural, evolutionary facts… for instance, to be good just is to be conducive to social cooperation , then an evolutionary account that says that we judge things to be good only when they are conducive to social cooperation would not debunk any of our beliefs about goodness.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/

 

[Veritas6]

Here is a response to the idea that moral truths are true simply because we feel they are so:

“Evolutionary theory and moral psychology give us no reason to suspect that our inner feelings about morality (our “moral intuitions”) actually track the moral facts. They also mount a positive case against any such view. The moral intuitionist generally wishes to argue that we have a mental faculty capable either of detecting moral facts or of reasoning properly to them. But moral psychology demolishes this view. For example, our moral judgments are different when we smell freshly baked bread than when we are exposed to fart spray (even fart spray of which we are not aware). Our moral judgments are primarily emotional reactions, not the result of moral reasoning (moral reasoning is post-hoc) or of an as-yet undetected moral faculty capable of direct detection of non-natural moral facts, whatever that would mean.” (Bold mine).
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=582

What do you make of this?

 

[Veritas6]

Here is an argument for “objective” morality without God:

“Not only do we have reason to set standards for electricians and firefighters, but we also have reason to set standards for neighbors… We have reason to seek neighbors that will help in times of need, and refrain from doing harm at all other times.

Furthermore, we have tools available to help us establish these standards. Those tools are praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. The individual teaching others the standards for being a good neighbor praises those who are kind and helpful, and condemns those who do harm.”

Atheist Ethicist: Ethics Without God

 

[Veritas6]

It’s that we are genetically inclined to perform those certain acts (and avoid others that we feel reflect negatively upon ourselves). And we have therefore nominated such acts as being moral.

Do you mean that everyone desires the good as a part of their nature? So even those who desire evil desire it “only under the aspect of good,” i.e., of what is desirable?

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

It’s that we are genetically inclined to perform those certain acts (and avoid others that we feel reflect negatively upon ourselves). And we have therefore nominated such acts as being moral.

Do you mean that everyone desires the good as a part of their nature? So even those who desire evil desire it “only under the aspect of good,” i.e., of what is desirable?

Let’s say that we have a population that lives from day to day. Hunting and foraging. There are those in the group that have a (genetic) tendency to generosity. And they share their food with others who haven’t been so successful in their hunt. This is quite common in the animal world. Even bats do it: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/vampire-bats-share-blood-make-friends.

Now if someone shares their food with people who reciprocate then that arrangement will continue. But if you share your food with someone who has a (genetic) tendency not to then it won’t. So those who share tend to stick together and disassociate themselves from those don’t.

Now it’s obvious that a group of people who work together have a better chance of survival than individuals who don’t. So the genetic disposition to follow the Golden Rule propogates through the group. Everyone is on the same page. And it works so it’s considered to be a good thing. Because not following the Rule results in being an outcast from the group. Which is a bad thing.

Now does that mean that some people can’t swing the lead and take advantage of the majority of people who are generous? No. It’s relatively easy to get a free ride. But the number of people the system will allow that do this is limited. Once too many start taking advantage of the generosity of others then everyone reverts to looking after themselves. And the group falls apart. So it’s self-adjusting.

Now that’s an absurdly simplistic description of a very complex process. And there are a myriad of other aspects to consider. But in a nutshell…

 

[Veritas6]

What do you make of this objection to some apologists’ answers to Euthyphro’s dilemma:

“In the modified version, something is good because it conforms to God’s nature. So love and justice are good because God is loving and just. But now the exact same problem arises: If God were hateful, hate would be good . And once again, a divine command theorist cannot escape this by claiming that God’s nature is good (and thus could not be hateful), for that implies that there is a standard of goodness that is independent of God.

Proponents of the view might object that God is necessarily the way he is — so that it is impossible for him to have had a different nature — but that misses the point. (And if that objection worked here, it would work for the original version as well: One could as easily maintain that God couldn’t have desired anything other than what he does desire. So why invent a new theory to avoid that problem?) The reason this misses the point is that it fails to address the underlying question: What makes something good? Is it because it conforms to God’s nature irrespective of what that nature is , or is it because it conforms to God’s good nature? If the former, then the original problem remains. If the latter, then goodness doesn’t depend on God. For in that case, there must be something that makes God’s nature good other that it simply being God’s nature.” (bold mine)

 

[vern_humphrey]

“Not only do we have reason to set standards for electricians and firefighters, but we also have reason to set standards for neighbors… We have reason to seek neighbors that will help in times of need, and refrain from doing harm at all other times.

Furthermore, we have tools available to help us establish these standards. Those tools are praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.

Who gave us those tools?

 

[Wozza]

What do you make of this objection to some apologists’ answers to Euthyphro’s dilemma:

“In the modified version, something is good because it conforms to God’s nature. So love and justice are good because God is loving and just. But now the exact same problem arises: If God were hateful, hate would be good . And once again, a divine command theorist cannot escape this by claiming that God’s nature is good (and thus could not be hateful), for that implies that there is a standard of goodness that is independent of God.

Proponents of the view might object that God is necessarily the way he is — so that it is impossible for him to have had a different nature — but that misses the point. (And if that objection worked here, it would work for the original version as well: One could as easily maintain that God couldn’t have desired anything other than what he does desire. So why invent a new theory to avoid that problem?) The reason this misses the point is that it fails to address the underlying question: What makes something good? Is it because it conforms to God’s nature irrespective of what that nature is , or is it because it conforms to God’s good nature? If the former, then the original problem remains. If the latter, then goodness doesn’t depend on God. For in that case, there must be something that makes God’s nature good other that it simply being God’s nature.” (bold mine)

Whatever God wants appears to be what’s good for us. It aligns perfectly with that which has allowed us to prosper as a species. Which He obviously (it appears to me) instilled into us via the process of evolution.

Good is what helps us prosper. Bad is that which doesn’t. With a few exceptions.

 

[Veritas6]

What do you make of “why the Thomistic defense of libertarian free will fails”?:

1. “The argument is viciously question-begging. What is at issue is, does the human have free will? It begs the question to use as a premise the thesis that humans have free will. Aquinas can only establish that rational creatures have will or a faculty of choosing perceived goods, arbitrium, not that this faculty is also ‘free,’ i.e. the first principle of its own operations or acts. Aq seems only to assert, not demonstrate, that the will in rational creatures is ‘free’: cf. e.g. ST 1a 60.1 ad 2, ST 1a2ae 1.2 c, etc. To argue that will is free because it chooses betw two possibilities seems to ignore the opponent’s case that the choice that is made is actually determined by factors other than the will; e.g. Aq’s reply at ST 1a2ae 13.6, which asserts things rather than undoes this objection.
   As far as I can see, the Thomist equivocates on ‘free,’ sometimes taking it to entail ‘being the first moving cause’ and sometimes not so.
2. Aquinas also allows that God can override the creature’s free will and change it, incline it to choose something else, ST 1a 115 and 116. If God does this sometimes, and can do it always, then the will is not per se free.
3. God’s providence and predestination decree that there be moral evil acts.”

What do you think? I would really appreciate any help. Thank you.