Morality is linked to biology, not philosophy

Morality is linked to biology, not philosophy

thechronicleherald.ca

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Related News Links:
www .nytimes.com
science.slashdot.org

[edit on 3/24/2007 by supercheetah]

[edit on 3/24/2007 by supercheetah]

[edit on 3/24/2007 by supercheetah]

I think this is what many of us who have had any experience with animals--well, at the least non-human mammals--have known for a long time, but this finally confirms that suspicion. Now there's hard science behind it, and not just anecdotal evidence.

Plato, in his dialogue Euthyphro, long ago confronted the question of whether the sacred is sacred because of some quality imparted to them because of the divine/deities, or if it is sacred because of some inherent quality. I think this puts a science behind the latter.

NB: The NY Times article is more extensive than the one from The Chronicle Herald, but The Chronicle Herald is more concise.

thechronicleherald.ca
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3/24/2007 by supercheetah]

[edit on 3/24/2007 by supercheetah]

I read about this yesterday, it was interesting.

I have to say though, while some basic things, like not killing, or raping
or things like that have biological basis as part of evolution, the majority
of what people see as morality is based in philosophical-religious ideas.

Originally posted by iori_komei
I read about this yesterday, it was interesting.

I have to say though, while some basic things, like not killing, or raping
or things like that have biological basis as part of evolution, the majority
of what people see as morality is based in philosophical-religious ideas.

When you look at the image above (I don't have any relationship with the site owner, so I'm not using the ats tags), does it look like there are blinking black dots?

Just because we sometimes perceive something in a certain way does not make it so. We may change our perception of morality through philosophy (and we're quite good at this), but that doesn't change the fact that morality is a core part of our existence.

Just as a dj trains herself to hear the congruent beats of two different tracks so that she can smoothly transition between them, we train ourselves through philosophy to "see" some of the different patterns of morality. At its most fundamental, however, it is a part of us all.

I don't know if I'd call it morality. I have often thought about what seperates man and animal, mentally.

Somewhere in our past, a disconnect occurred. Or happened. Maybe we were all at the same level at one point, and an injection of alien DNA caused us to be conceptive instead of merely perceptive. That was the point at which we seperated from the rest of the animal kingdom, mentally. That is my best guess as to what happened.

The only other explanation is Creationism.

Originally posted by jsobecky
and an injection of alien DNA caused us to be conceptive instead of merely perceptive. That was the point at which we seperated from the rest of the animal kingdom, mentally. That is my best guess as to what happened.

Alien as in not a normal part of the local ecosystem, or alien as in
little grey dudes?

The only other explanation is Creationism.

I have to disagree that those are the only explanations.

In my opinion, what likely happened is that over time as we evolved,
and started thinking of more complex thoughts, those basic things, like
not killing and such evolved along with us into more complex versions,
and over time the other things that are considered under morality were
added as philosophies and religions developed.

Originally posted by iori_komei

Originally posted by jsobecky
and an injection of alien DNA caused us to be conceptive instead of merely perceptive. That was the point at which we seperated from the rest of the animal kingdom, mentally. That is my best guess as to what happened.

Alien as in not a normal part of the local ecosystem, or alien as in
little grey dudes?

I don't know. If it were part of the local ecosystem, it would seem to me that at least one other species would have evolved in the same way.

And what in the ecosystem could have caused such a drastic change? What chemical, or whatever?

The only other explanation is Creationism.

I have to disagree that those are the only explanations.

In my opinion, what likely happened is that over time as we evolved,
and started thinking of more complex thoughts, those basic things, like
not killing and such evolved along with us into more complex versions,
and over time the other things that are considered under morality were
added as philosophies and religions developed.

Yeah, but why didn't any other animal do something similar? There had to be some major event or trigger to cause us to be so advanced over the rest of the animal kingdom.

I have to say that I find the concept of morality repugnant. These discussions seem to be revolving around the concepts of rationality and choice, which are simply not used by animals. This does not make them any less aware or rob them of the ability to feel pain and indignity. Animals are masters of feeling and sensing. Morality is a system of beliefs developed over time in a culture usually for the purposes of societal control. What scientists conclude about morality is not of very much interest without an examination of what morality is. The preying mantis rips the head off its male partner and eats it at the conclusion of mating - is this moral? The attempt to find evolutionary reasons for morality is headed towards extinction - morals are nothing more than behavioral habits inculcated by society. Do animals have ethics? seems more germane to the discussion. The obsession with finding genetic reasons for isomorphic behaviors is at full bloom. The logical result is to find ourselves consigned to a genetic fatalism that obviates choice.

Truly fascinating.

I'm a strong believer (the word believer denotes just that - belief - and not the opinion that I must be factually correct) in the notion that there are two sides to the coin of the human condition. That is to say that I feel and believe that we are as much abstract and ephemeral beings as we are purely physiological and material beings. The line between the two is, in my opinion, blurred in the case of humanity.

For instance, we have the capacity - when we so choose - to struggle against instinct and biological urges solely because we choose to. Even in the absence of rational reasons, moral beliefs, needs, desires, or empathy (this happens in the case of those as well, of course, but it can be convincingly argued that those things also have a purely biological basis,) we have the ability to arbitrarily choose to do, or not to do something by sheer force or will and self determination. This capacity to overcome pure instinct may not be entirely unique to human beings, but is certainly one of our defining characteristics in my opinion.

The way I conceptualize the human mind is as a purely biological system that has as its base wholly physiological mechanisms and functions, but which has become sufficiently complex and sophisticated that its instincts, cognitive abilities, imagination, emotions, and will can act together synergistically to transcend the purely physiological in an entirely abstract and ephemeral way. This may be similar to the way hardware-dependent software may one day attain artificial sentience. We know that there are chemical/biological/material factors at the root of our consciousness, yet we also sense that we are more than the sum of our parts. Whether this is because there are merely aspects of those biological factors that we cannot yet fully understand or that we are not consciously aware of, or whether we truly do transcend the purely biological, is a matter of intense debate and is of great fascination to many.

My belief is that we are more than the sum of our parts, however, as others have stated, that does make my belief factually correct.

Ace

You missed a "not".

I agree, a truly fascinating subject.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Ace

You missed a "not".

I agree, a truly fascinating subject.

Indeed I did! Thanks lol. This is why I shouldn't post just before bed when my eyes are beginning to cross!

jsobecky you should take a look at this.

en.wikipedia.org...

We may have killed off the other subspecies simply for food sources. Maybe chimps were just not enough of a threat to kill them off like the neanderthals and such who were much more like us, much more intelligent then the chimp, and much more a threat to fight over resources.

They weren't stupid. They weren't plato's but they weren't stupid either. They were probably purposely killed off.

I don't really see it that hard to believe that their were subspecies we just killed off because we were more intelligent and could do so, thus more resources as our reward.

Originally posted by liquidself
I have to say that I find the concept of morality repugnant. These discussions seem to be revolving around the concepts of rationality and choice, which are simply not used by animals. This does not make them any less aware or rob them of the ability to feel pain and indignity. Animals are masters of feeling and sensing. Morality is a system of beliefs developed over time in a culture usually for the purposes of societal control. What scientists conclude about morality is not of very much interest without an examination of what morality is. The preying mantis rips the head off its male partner and eats it at the conclusion of mating - is this moral? The attempt to find evolutionary reasons for morality is headed towards extinction - morals are nothing more than behavioral habits inculcated by society. Do animals have ethics? seems more germane to the discussion. The obsession with finding genetic reasons for isomorphic behaviors is at full bloom. The logical result is to find ourselves consigned to a genetic fatalism that obviates choice.

You seem to be playing pedantics here. I used to try to get people to understand the difference between ethics and morality, but I gave up that battle to fight more important battles.

Also, notice that the animals in question are social creatures. Praying mantises are not social. Social cohesion through some form of ethics is of far greater import to social creatures than to non-social ones like praying mantises.

Finally, genetics do not dictate the type of person any of us becomes. They give us a foundation for being human that we use to build ourselves within the environment we live. Living in certain environments may mean that certain genes are never expressed, but are in others. There is no genetic fatalism--only genetic predispositions.

Originally posted by grimreaper797
jsobecky you should take a look at this.

en.wikipedia.org...

We may have killed off the other subspecies simply for competition over food sources. Maybe chimps were just not enough of a threat to kill them off like the neanderthals and such who were much more like us, much more intelligent then the chimp, and much more a threat to fight over resources.

They weren't stupid. They weren't plato's but they weren't stupid either. They were probably purposely killed off.

I don't really see it that hard to believe that their were subspecies we just killed off because we were more intelligent and could do so, thus more resources as our reward.

Fixed that for you. The way you had it could lead someone to believe we ate Neanderthals. That's highly unlikely.

Those aren't subspecies. They're wholly separate species--at least according to everything we know about them. That may change with new evidence in the future, but right now, all the evidence shows that we did not procreate with them. They seemed to have evolved on their own, but died out with our help.

My only arguement with this thread is that morality cannot be applied to anything other than human beings. Morals are a standard that a society sets forth for itself and varies from society to society. They can be applied to nothing else.

For example, Mark spends a weekend building himself a fishing dock. He pounds the nails into his dock with his trusty hammer and finally the dock is finished. Tired and exhausted he goes to bed. The next morning he grabs his fishing pole and heads out to his new dock to try it out. His neighbor Bill is already out on the dock fishing though. In a fit of anger he picks up the hammer and beats Bill to death.

Is the hammer moral or immoral? One day it was used to build a dock, the next day it was used to take a life.

The answer is neither. Morals do not apply to hammers or any other tool or animal or island or ocean.

Morals apply to human beings, and human beings alone. We create them for our society to function as we believe it should. They apply to nothing else in the universe.

[edit on 25-3-2007 by mrwupy]

Originally posted by AceWombat04
Truly fascinating.

I'm a strong believer (the word believer denotes just that - belief - and not the opinion that I must be factually correct) in the notion that there are two sides to the coin of the human condition. That is to say that I feel and believe that we are as much abstract and ephemeral beings as we are purely physiological and material beings. The line between the two is, in my opinion, blurred in the case of humanity.

For instance, we have the capacity - when we so choose - to struggle against instinct and biological urges solely because we choose to. Even in the absence of rational reasons, moral beliefs, needs, desires, or empathy (this happens in the case of those as well, of course, but it can be convincingly argued that those things also have a purely biological basis,) we have the ability to arbitrarily choose to do, or not to do something by sheer force or will and self determination. This capacity to overcome pure instinct may not be entirely unique to human beings, but is certainly one of our defining characteristics in my opinion.

The way I conceptualize the human mind is as a purely biological system that has as its base wholly physiological mechanisms and functions, but which has become sufficiently complex and sophisticated that its instincts, cognitive abilities, imagination, emotions, and will can act together synergistically to transcend the purely physiological in an entirely abstract and ephemeral way. This may be similar to the way hardware-dependent software may one day attain artificial sentience. We know that there are chemical/biological/material factors at the root of our consciousness, yet we also sense that we are more than the sum of our parts. Whether this is because there are merely aspects of those biological factors that we cannot yet fully understand or that we are not consciously aware of, or whether we truly do transcend the purely biological, is a matter of intense debate and is of great fascination to many.

My belief is that we are more than the sum of our parts, however, as others have stated, that does make my belief factually correct.

It does or does not make it factually correct? Did you mean the latter?

Anyway, everything you wrote in that post is beautifully ambiguous, and can't really be measured, and so it's more art than science, which is great, but it's just not science.

Originally posted by mrwupy
My only arguement with this thread is that morality cannot be applied to anything other than human beings. Morals are a standard that a society sets forth for itself and varies from society to society. They can be applied to nothing else.

For example, Mark spends a weekend building himself a fishing dock. He pounds the nails into his dock with his trusty hammer and finally the dock is finished. Tired and exhausted he goes to bed. The next morning he grabs his fishing pole and heads out to his new dock to try it out. His neighbor Bill is already out on the dock fishing though. In a fit of anger he picks up the hammer and beats Bill to death.

Is the hammer moral or immoral? One day it was used to build a dock, the next day it was used to take a life.

The answer is neither. Morals do not apply to hammers or any other tool or animal or island or ocean.

Morals apply to human beings, and human beings alone. We create them for our society to function as we believe it should. They apply to nothing else in the universe.

[edit on 25-3-2007 by mrwupy]

Morals didn't come to us ex nihilo, and that's the point of the article. We evolved from social creatures that had to maintain a certain amount of social cohesion or else they died out.

There seems to be some universals within all human social units, but there are degrees of flexibility with each, but this order isn't an order of importance (that seems to be relative):

• Be kind to others.
  
• Preserve your own survival.
  
• Protect your tribe (in a very general sense--many Americans could be called members of the US tribes, and the various sub-tribes thereof).
  
• Reciprocate kindness.
  
• Intercourse/reproduce (the societies that didn't emphasize this died out).
  
• Protect your offspring.
  
• Reciprocate unkindness (sometimes revenge).
  
• Avoid malicious acts against others, along with anything you wouldn't want done to yourself (golden rule).
  
• Buy into your tribes beliefs without question, or at least emulate socially normative behavior ("When in Rome...").
  
• Dislike "outsiders" or "outcasts" (these shouldn't be taken too literally--Republicans and Democrats would be outsiders to each other, and certainly not very welcome at each other's part conferences).
  

Sometimes these conflict in particular situations, and society may create taboos or laws to sort out conflicting moral situations. Different societies will prioritize these morals in different ways. The more successful societies stress all of these things, and are able to grow, and the less successful ones that seem to neglect some of these moral precepts often stagnate or even die out.

The quote in your original post states:

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality.

Precursors being the operative word here. Compassion and empathy are not morals, they are instincts.

One monkey caring and trying to help another is not a moral law, but an act of compassion. Those monkeys do not have a ten commandments chissled into stone. (yet)

I do believe in evolution, and that time is going by faster and faster. I believe that when those ape societies begin to build cities and till the soil they will find a moral code that will provide them with a society where they will grow and prosper. We will be gone by then, Just as the ones that came before us left this world when it was our time to reach sentience.

The moral code of any society applies only to that society. Morality cannot be dictated or projected onto another species. (another human culture, yes)

I'm going to hang in with this conversation though. I do see the point you are trying to make, and I also see the possibility of just how wrong I may be. I'm not convinced of it yet, but I would not be a true seeker if I were absolutely convinced of anything.

It is not wrong to believe you have found the truth. It is only wrong to stop searching once you think you have found it.

I'm fascinated and learning.

Thank you,

[edit on 25-3-2007 by mrwupy]

Originally posted by grimreaper797
I don't really see it that hard to believe that their were subspecies we just killed off because we were more intelligent and could do so, thus more resources as our reward.

Neither do I, now that you mentioned it. That possibility never crossed my mind. That's what I love about ATS.

Thanks for the (missing) link.

Originally posted by supercheetah
Fixed that for you. The way you had it could lead someone to believe we ate Neanderthals. That's highly unlikely.

Those aren't subspecies. They're wholly separate species--at least according to everything we know about them. That may change with new evidence in the future, but right now, all the evidence shows that we did not procreate with them. They seemed to have evolved on their own, but died out with our help.

haha thanks, I was too busy watching "Stranger Than Fiction" to pay any good attention to what I was writing down. Thanks for the correction, and pointing out that they aren't subspecies.