Morality

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."   -Mark Twain

 

So today we're going to discuss morality. It's a huge topic, so I apologize if this runs long. If necessary I'll break it into two, but a lot of the points are interconnected, so I'd prefer to keep it all together. I was going to wait to tackle something this big, but the question has already been raised in the comments, so I may as well go ahead.

 

These are the basic issues raised in the comments- If there is no afterlife in which we will be punished or rewarded for what we've done, why shouldn't we simply do whatever we want? What is the rationale behind altruism and self-sacrifice? And are "good" and "evil" simply words that we define as we choose, or is there some objective concept behind them?

 

The first issue I'll be addressing is actually not one from the comments, but is a common misconception that I'd like to clear up before proceeding to the main body of the post. There are many religious people in the world who believe that, since we have no fear of hell, atheists are a bunch of immoral heathens. It is true that atheists do not condemn some things, such as premarital sex between consenting adults, however, they certainly do not condone murder, rape, or any of the things one would commonly term "evil." If atheists had no morals, one would expect to see more of them in prison. In reality, the percentage of atheists in the prison population is lower than the percentage of atheists in the non-imprisoned population. Also, many countries (such as America) with very high percentages of religious people have significantly higher crime rates than many countries with a higher percentage of non-believers. "So there seems to be an inverse correlation between a nation's religious devotion and its moral conduct." (David Mills) I realize that the average believer probably doesn't think just because I'm an atheist I would think it's okay to murder someone if it was to my advantage to do so. I just wanted to make it clear for those few who do, that is not the case.

 

So, on to the real issues. Why should I bother to be good if I have no fear of punishment? To answer I will have to venture into the scary realm of evolution. However, I believe it can all be classified as microevolution (evolution within a species), which the vast majority of believers do concede is a fact. (And I can genuinely say those that don't are either hopelessly uninformed about the subject, or willfully blind to reality.)  We'll start with a very brief synopsis of how evolution works.

 

Evolution occurs through natural selection when a useful mutation occurs in a gene (useful being defined in this case as something that increases an individual's likelihood of surviving long enough to pass on the new mutation) and is then spread through the population. A simple, but horribly overused, example of natural selection is that of the peppered moth. Originally light colored moths dominated the peppered moth population, with only a small minority of dark ones.This served them as camouflage when they rested on the light colored trees. However, when pollution from the Industrial Revolution caused the trees to darken, the light colored moths were no longer camouflaged, and were nearly wiped out. The dark moths, which were once a minority, became the dominant color once the trees were dark as well. You can see how if say, there was a group of animals that lived near dangerous cliffs who were completely indifferent to heights, a mutation that caused the individual to think jumping off heights was awesome would not be useful, and the mutation would almost definitely never be passed on. However, a mutation that produced an aversion to heights might result in the individual having slightly better odds of surviving than if they were indifferent, giving the useful mutation a chance to spread through the population as their descendants inherited this aversion that gave them slightly better odds of survival.

 

So how does this pertain to morality? I believe Dawkins explains it best, so he gets the credit for most of what I'm about to say, and all quotes are from him unless otherwise specified. He starts with the reminder that the unit that is "trying" to survive is the gene. He then lists four ways in which altruism and empathy could be useful adaptations that could increase the likelihood of the survival of the mutated gene and thus easily spread through a population. 

The first is the case of genetic kinship. Early humans were tribal, living in fairly small groups. Since these groups were small, most of the individuals in them were likely related. "A gene that programs individual organisms to favour their genetic kin is statistically likely to benefit copies of itself." Since related individuals frequently share genes, this increases the likelihood that those with the gene for helping relatives will survive, and therefore pass on the gene, even, occasionally, at the expense of the original "helper." So a mutation that produces a desire to help those who are part of one's "group" could easily spread through a tribe that is closely related.

The second means by which altruism could be a useful adaptation is the case of reciprocation, and tied to this is the third, reputation. This is, basically, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. One must also include the stipulation of punishing those who "cheat" and fail to return favors. It is frequently advantageous for individuals to live in groups, for protection, help raising young, and to make it easier to find mates, among other things.  Working together within the group makes this more effective. One example is the case of vampire bats. If a vampire bat is hungry, he can go to another and they will give him regurgitated blood (yuck! ^_^). And they "learn which other individuals of their social group can be relied upon to pay their debts (in regurgitated blood) and which individuals cheat." Those who do not pay their debts won't be helped if they are later in need. Thus they are more likely to die, and thus their odds of passing on their cheating genes are decreased. Whereas those who are reliable are helped through difficult times, allowing them to survive and pass on their "nice" genes. The development of language also makes it possible for one to develop a much more wide-spread reputation for cheating or being reliable, allowing this to develop on a larger scale.

The last way in which altruism could be evolved is through "conspicuous generosity." "Altruistic giving may be an advertisement of dominance or superiority." There is a species of bird called the Arabian babbler that demonstrates this very clearly. Their altruistic sharing of food and willingness to stand watch in a position of greater risk is not tied to reciprocation. In fact, if a babbler that has low standing within the group attempts to give food to one of higher rank, they will be violently rejected. In this case, the advantage is that those who make the grandest gestures of largess are those most likely to be chosen as mates by the females (and thus have children to carry on their altruistic genes). Their ostentatious displays of generosity are the equivalent of a peacock's tail or a canary's song.

So these are Dawkins' four main ways which altruism could be a result of evolution. I would also like to add my own point. We, as a species, have an extraordinarily long adolescence. This was a natural result of our developing intelligence. It takes time to learn so much. My point being, in order to raise children through such a long adolescence, it was very helpful to mate for life. I hope by now you can see how this could have developed without an explanation. Empathy is a trait that makes it a great deal easier to mate for life, as well as to raise children, and to live in groups, which is also a necessity. Empathy could easily have developed as a result of, or in conjunction with, our long adolescence.

In conclusion, in the infancy of our species we lived in groups. First as nomadic tribes, then in small villages. This was the perfect setting for any or all of these forms of altruism to develop. Dawkins uses the example of sexual desire to explain how this applies to us today, when we no longer live in closely related groups, and our altruism often extends to those who will never reciprocate, etc. Natural selection programmed us to want to have sex,  because that's how babies are made, hence the fact that many women's libidos are at their highest when they ovulate, and are thus most likely to get pregnant. Yet when humans feel the desperate urge to mate, it is rarely as a result of a conscious desire to make a baby. Couples that know they are using birth control, or are infertile, do not feel a diminished desire to have sex. The drive is a result of unconscious programming, and in the case of those who can't have children, it is a misfiring. To quote Dawkins once again, "I am suggesting that the same is true of the urge to kindness- to altruism, to generosity, to empathy, to pity. In ancestral times, we had the opportunity to be altruistic only towards close kin and potential reciprocators. Nowadays that restriction is no longer there, but the rule of thumb persists." Our sense of right and wrong is a result of an evolutionary drive that is something of a "mistake," but a very nice one. Fear of eternal punishment or hope for eternal reward is unnecessary for the average person to do good. Which makes sense, given that we've already established that atheists, who feel neither fear nor hope towards a potential afterlife, are just as moral as those who do.

So the things that we consider good, and those we consider evil, can be derived from the evolutionary development of our species. As to whether I believe there is an objective standard of good or evil, that exists outside of our own definitions of the words, the answer is no. I see no reason to think that if it had benefited our species' development to murder on a regular basis, that we would not now consider murder perfectly acceptable, and possibly even "good." Deer probably think wolves are evil, if they are capable of thinking such things.

There is one final position that I have heard espoused by Christians which I would like to address. It's related very closely to the question of an objective standard of good. It is an argument for the existence of God that is usually attributed to Thomas Aquinas, referred to as the Argument from Degree or Argument from Gradation. Simply put, he states that we see varying degrees things in the world, such as goodness. In order to judge those degrees, we must have an ultimate standard of good to compare to. Humans are incapable of maximum goodness. Therefore there must be some other maximum good to set the standard. This maximum is God.  This is one of those bizarre arguments that just makes me really confused. It seems a great deal more like wordplay than a genuine argument. I love Dawkins answer, and doubt I can improve on it, so forgive me for quoting him yet again. "You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God." Also, since we have established that concepts of good and evil could easily have developed naturally without the necessity of positing some outside standard (particularly one that also supposedly is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, reads our thoughts, cares what we do, etc), Ockham's Razor allows us to dismiss this argument easily.

Again, I apologize for allowing this to get so long. I promise future posts will be kept to a much shorter length. And if you actually bothered to read this far, congratulations, I'm impressed, and thank you for your time. ^_^