anthropology, moralityWhat is the source of morality in human society and why has it persisted? Why aren’t the lives of atheists, to abuse Hobbes: “nasty, brutish, and short”?
Evolutionarily, helping the clan, tribe, or genetic pool survive helps you to continue your genes. Prosocial behavior has been demonstrated in nature from simians right on down to ants; rats and mice to packs of wolves. Protecting the group helps you protect yourself.
There’s a study about bacteria, done by some folks at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Center for BioDynamics, entitled Bacterial charity work leads to population-wide resistance. You can check out the abstract on PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20811456). It shows that even bacteria have prosocial behavior. It’s more or less genetically encoded to help the rest of their little bacteria buddies survive, instead of letting them die off. Bacteria have no brain, and thus have no way to have a concept of a god – yet they’re still being good to each other.
My take on it is that morality is an evolutionary adaptation to social life. Religions1 describe morality instead of generating it. There are many instances of other social animals engaging in what we would consider moral behavior. Elephants are a good example of this in that their sense of morality seems to apply to other species as well.
There's a really good argument to this effect. It essentially asks how people that have some insane holy book (e.g. the bible) know which parts of its rules to follow and which parts to ignore. Of course the ignore they immoral parts and follow the moral parts. Their inbuilt sense of morality is the cause of this.
1 At least good interpretations of them
We have an innate sense of morality, provided to us by evolution, and informed or customized by our cultural upbringing. Religion does not provide morality, it co-opts it. You know that warm feeling you get when you help someone out, make a kid smile, make your mom proud? An atheist feels all those things too. We want to feel those things- so we behave in the only way that allows us to, which is nice. Morality is literally its own reward. No god needed.
- Strong magnetic fields could affect moral judgment.
- Targeted magnetic fields can make people more inclined to judge outcomes, not intentions.
- The findings could have implications for neuroscience, as well as the legal system.
Magnets can alter a person's sense of morality, according to a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So maybe it's in our brain!
There's also a good article of Marc D. Hauser about morality where he suggests that biology (not religion) equals morality. There are a good biological reasons to be good and friendly.
If you’re citing Hobbes this is generally a simple answer, and Hobbes answered it:
It really doesn’t matter that we don’t believe in a God. Hobbes didn’t need God to explain the state. In fact, if religion wasn’t an element of the state and could have created upheaval in the state, then I think Hobbes would have been against it.
If you’re speaking in the abstract the question is far too broad. Are you looking for a biological cause of morality? Or, the grounds on which to agree on a morality? Or, the ability to make an agreed morality absolute? Good luck anyway, you should learn a lot just clarifying this question.
It comes from us. It’s a zeitgeist. We have evolved it (culturally and otherwise) over thousands of centuries.
I always think it’s important in any discussion of morality (at term I prefer to avoid) to consider both the biological aspect of pro social behaviour and the social/cultural aspect. As already covered we have a biological disposition to pro social behaviours; culturally we can probably normalise almost any behaviours. Personally, I take a utilitarian approach and apply it within the basic (but not offensive part) of the universal declaration of human rights. To this however I attach considerable weight to animal rights, particularly those bred for domestic purposes. It is worth noting, of course, that rights only exist to the extent others are willing to support them.
I don’t really think there is a source of morality.
We as humans do what is necessary to survive. Since the time we were simple hunter gathers we have done what we needed to do to survive. As we developed into socially dependent beings we developed rules that propagated our survival. Now that we are so interdependent the lines of what constitutes survival have blurred. We still react with this survival instinct, it’s just the scope of what “to survive” means that has changed. It is this individual and collective desire to do what needs to be done to survive that creates a moral framework to build on.
It is obvious that we survive as a collective more successfully than as single independent individuals. There is only short term gain in destroying what, or whomever is around us. It is contrary to long term survival. So it is natural we would develop a society that has established a framework of morality to exist in a socially dependent construct. There is no need to invoke a moral authority to justify our actions.
Our ability to cooperate with and abhor the mistreatment of other members of the in-group will most likely have been selected for through the processes of evolution. However, as we have developed towards larger and more complicated social multi-groups, our ‘sense’ of morality improves over time. For example, for most of us, the changing moral zeitgeist towards certain groups often overrides previous histories of exploitation and xenophobia.
My morals come from my ability to have empathy for others, I can imagine how someone might feel if I love them, hurt them, lie to or nurture them.
Morals do not come from the Bible, the bible uses a few morals that were already in existence and put its own brand on them.
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