Morality, like everything else, is purely relative. If you saw today's age through the eyes of someone from 1000s of years ago, you would say that we are the most perfect human beings on the planet. If you saw today from the perspective of someone from a futuristic utopia, you would say we are a bunch of savage barbarians with no sense of morality.

I asked "Do people think that evil exists?"

Orathiac's response seems to represent the consensus:
''I morality is relative, then evil is defined relatively aswell. That leaves no 'absolute' or 'pure' evil.''

I am reminded of that quote from Dostoevsky (please note I am not the first here to bring up the ''G'' word):
''If God did not exist, all things would be permitted.'' (“Если Бога нет, то всё дозволено”, in case anyone wants to look it up).

Orathiac goes on to write this:
''As for this 'genetic'/'natural' behaviour. Genes do not control our behaivours. Genes define possible behaviours (fixed behaviour patterns) and our environment shapes when we display each behaviour.''

I am curious about two things
1) whether it is proposed that all/most/ human behaviour, in a moral contex,t is a result of the interaction between an individual's genetic make up and the environment; aka natural selection aka the survival of the fittest?

2) if there is any quantitative evidence for the hypothesis proposed by point 1)?

fullhamish your comments about natural selection and human behavior is a recurring theme in your posts. Which is it that you have issues with? Is it just natural selection explaining at least some of human behavior that you disagree with? Or is it natural selection itself that you find implausible?

@ spyman. Thank you for your question, it is principally the former. That is the extension of the paradigm into fields such as human behaviour, economics, politics, eugenics etc....

I also have some concerns about its application to biology itself (Lewontin is good on this). Please note I think that I do not deny its usefullness, but worry when it starts to become a somewhat simplistic catch all explanation. For example -
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/not-so-natural-selection/?pagination=false

Thank you again for your question and in the spirit of the debate I have tried to be as open as possible. Now, may I ask, what do you think?

Orathaic, for the purposes of your survey, I believe that morality is absolute and universal.

But I believe in God. Pretty much everyone who believes in God would agree with me, and people who don't, would say it's relative. I can't see any other logical answer for either option, so it really comes down to whether or not you think God exists.

Take Dawkins' ''memes'' as a further example, (I note that some use the ''m'' word on this site). There was a Journal of Memetics published. I am afraid that it is now defunct. in its last issue some time ago there was a very good short paper given on why the journal itself failed. The introduction was as follows -

''Over two years ago in this journal I challenged the memetics community to meet three challenges (Edmonds 2002). My prediction was that if these were not substantially met that memetics as a distinct approach would not survive. Despite some attempts to do this these challenges were not met, at least not within the terms I had proposed. Now JoM‑EMIT in its current form has ceased due to a lack of quality submissions. Whilst I do not claim that the former caused the later, I do claim that the failure to answer those challenges was indicative of the poverty of the memetics project resulting in a lack of demonstrable progress which, in turn, has meant that it has failed to interest other academics.''

Read on it gets better

http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2005/vol9/edmonds_b.html

fullhamish I believe in evolution and natural selection. As Daniel Dennett says, if we have variation and heridity then evolution must occur. Since our behavior is determined by physical processes (within our brains), and since some behaviors confer a survival advantage, if we accept natural selection, then we must accept that some our behaviors are as much rooted in natural selection as much as our physical characteristics.
As far as exactly which behaviors are a product of natural selection as opposed to products of environmental factors such as culture we have to look for behaviors which are consistent across the human race. Take for example infant suckling. Since the instinct to suckle allows a baby to survive, and babies that are good at suckling are more likely to survive than babies that are not good at suckling (or lack the instinct), if we accept natural selection, it seems reasonable to assume that suckling is a product of natural selection.
We can also look at animals. For example can we selectively breed animals for behavior characteristics? The answer to this is yes. Ask any dog or horse breeder. If behavior is heritable within animals why not human beings?
I am no expert on the subject of evolutionary pschology, however. But I suppose I could jump on google and find some more evidence, but that should do as a starting point.

^ correction: if we have variation, heredity, and *selection, then evolution must occur.

@ spyman - ''I believe in evolution and natural selection'' The use of the word ''believe'' is interesting. I have seen it said that to ''believe'' in something confers an evolutionary advantage on the holder of the belief, do you hold to that tenet? ;-0
Seriously did you read that Lewontin piece? I was partricularly impressed with this example, what did you think?

''In contrast, most evolutionary biologists work on natural populations of plants or animals that they have chosen because they believe they can tell a natural historical story of how selection actually operates in a particular case. The most famous example is the increase in the black form of the wings in the peppered moth that has occurred in England since the mid-nineteenth century. The explanation offered and repeatedly appearing in textbooks (although since called into question because of faulty methodology) was that the moths rested on tree trunks where they were at risk of being eaten by birds. Before the spread of heavy industry the tree trunks were covered with lichens whose speckled appearance was matched closely by the “peppered” appearance of the moth’s wings, so the camouflaged moths were only occasionally attacked. With the air pollution caused by heavy industry, the lichens were killed, so the moths were easily visible on the naked dark bark and were heavily preyed upon. A mutation to black wings appeared and was strongly favored by natural selection since the black-winged forms were now once again camouflaged.

There is little doubt that this example, widely taught in lectures and textbooks, had a powerful influence in convincing evolutionary biologists who came into the field from their prior interest in natural history that one could tell the causal story of natural selection. One unfortunate feature of this case is that the caterpillars of the dark-winged forms also have a slightly higher survival rate than those of the speckled-wing form, even though they are not black, so something more is going on, but this fact is not part of the curriculum.''

As regard your suckling exampleI would ask, if i may, is the knee jerk a product of natural selection?

I have a busy day ahead so please forgive any tardiness in replying.

"'If God did not exist, all things would be permitted."

Considering the fact that 'god' sanctions all manner of heinous crime in the foundational monotheistic texts, and religious extremists have always found it convenient to justify their crimes in the name of 'god', this is an odd claim to make. It appears you have it backward, with god all things are permitted. People who acknowledge that society constructs moral rules do not try and destroy said societies and peoples in the name of god.

Anyway, how does god 'existing' make morality universal/objective? If anything wouldn't god make morality extraordinarily subjective, based the ever-changing whims of a single being? I mean, the claim of Christianity is that the entire Law of Moses was overturned by Jesus Christ, that's hardly an objective basis for morality if fundamental moral rules can be changed like that.

And I take note of the fact that Fulham still hasn't provided a single argument for objective/universal morality, only his usual trite attacks of Darwinian biology and an unsubstantiated assertion that god must exist else we'll all commit horrific acts (a statement whose purpose I'm still unclear)

Seriously, I'm tired as hell of Fulham's regurgitated conspiratorial views about evil scientists cooking the books to indoctrinate the world with Darwinian natural selection. I notice Fulham hasn't bothered to address Spyman's very good arguments for why natural selection exists, instead we're told to read Lewontin, which he has told us to read I don't know how many times now, the conspiratorial Creationist's favorite scientist.

I find it interesting this argument that moral rules would be weak or non-existent unless based on the diktats of an all powerful autocratic "god". Moral rules based on human reasoning and popular consensus built over time are claimed to be weak. This is an interesting argument because the only logically consistent position with it it that is that absolute monarchies are stronger political systems than popular democracies. After all, a absolute monarchy's laws and rules are based on the autocratic whims of a single powerful person, whereas a democracy's rules are based on the will of much of society. Considering Fulham is an anarchist I don't see how his political views are reconciled with his need for a god to impose moral order on the universe.

Hey Putin I am not getting into a slanging match with you. talk to me properly and I will respond. Otherwise forget it.

Is the knee jerk a product of natural selection? I don't really know. Does it impact our liklihood to pass on our genes?
Not all behaviors are adaptive. Some are side-effects of other adaptations. For example the instinct to suckle (which does impact our fitness) also manifests itself in thumb sucking (which does not impact our fitness), while other behaviors are evolutionary accidents, and not rooted in natural selection at all.

I'll just wait for your 'response' to others, since I don't anticipate it'll be much of one anyway, instead it'll be more questions for them to answer instead of providing an argument yourself. I expect that we'll go down this rabbit hole where people are forced to defend Darwinian evolution from your peppering of questions and people will end up forgetting what the original topic was about and you'll be left off the hook again.

fullhamish, with regards to belief, I "believe" in evolution in the same sense that I "believe" in gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. But it is not a creed. I don't care if it is true or not. It just so happens that it is true. (Likely to be true - nothing is certain)

It seems people are also debating the question whether morals "are" universal/relative or "should" universal/relative. I think we should split up this thread Gordon Gekko style and sell each spin off to the best bidder.

"should be"

'Nature is about what works... and many many different things work.'

i really like this sentiment, and thus you conclude that morality (as a subset of nature) is something which works.

@Kochevnik: thanks for your concise contribution! :)

@Fulhamish, you said:
"Orathiac goes on to write this:

''As for this 'genetic'/'natural' behaviour. Genes do not control our behaivours. Genes define possible behaviours (fixed behaviour patterns) and our environment shapes when we display each behaviour.''

I am curious about two things
1) whether it is proposed that all/most/ human behaviour, in a moral contex,t is a result of the interaction between an individual's genetic make up and the environment; aka natural selection aka the survival of the fittest?"

Natural selection and survival of the fittest require generations to affect a change in the genetic makeup of any given species.

I was specifically not making any reference to behaviour as it pertains to sexual selection or passing one's genes on. Though the issue of how morality works to further one's gene is an interesting question.

I was considering only one generation, where the genes are thus fixed. Without any population you get a variety of genes, which leads to a variety of fixed behaviours - similar ones in the case of humans - but while these are effectively set by the genes, how and when these behaviours appear depends on the environment (social, community, education, moral values)

We are each capable of violence, and most of us learn when it is appropriate to be violent. The same could be said of sexual behaviour, we mostly learn not to have sex in public.... this is not a genetically determined behaviour, it is a learned cultural one.

I make no claims to understand how to apply an survival of the fittest style evolution theory to this one set of genes. I was merely trying to highlight that morality, or 'appropriate behaviour' is a learned thing, not a genetic one. (though our ability to learn is likely heavily genetically encoded aswell - what we learn is not...)

evil is also definitely relative. No dictator in history ever made it is job to be universally hated, Hitler though he was doing mankind a favour by killing Jews, Mao wasn't aware of how many of his people were starving.

We view them as evil today, but they probably justified their actions themselves. Also as someone who went to China recently, many of the poor farmers have pictures of Mao in their houses, they still view Mao as a God (thanks to propaganda), are these people evil for supporting an evil dictator? nope, they don't think Mao is an evil dictator.
Evil is relative.

fulhamish quoted Dostoevsky: ''If God did not exist, all things would be permitted.''

In nature (and we are part of nature) it appears that in fact all things *are*, in fact, permitted. Some are selected for by the environment and socially (part of the environment for an individual) - but when it comes to variation, all options are on the table.

Either Dostoevsky is saying the results would be disconcerting if God didn't exist (and therefore we should believe), or he is ignoring all social and hereditary factors supporting moral codes and is focused on only one possible source for moral codes - an authority figure, god. The first is an Argument from Consequences of Belief fallacy, and the second is a False Dilemma.

@fulhamish, Putin said: "I expect that we'll go down this rabbit hole where people are forced to defend Darwinian evolution from your peppering of questions and people will end up forgetting what the original topic was about and you'll be left off the hook again."

I share his concern. As an attempt to head this off at the pass, here are some key biological concepts (off the top of my head) that might be important to realize if one is trying to understand evolution and is approaching it from the standpoint of a Creationist skeptic:

1) Genetic variation and natural selection are two distinct things... genetic variation is what makes each individual unique in their population and is determined through the dice roll of reproduction and mutation... Natural Selection is a negative force - it favors the death of those individuals who are not well adapted to their particular environment... but it does not select what those adaptations might be in the first place (genetic variation does that).

2) There are many genetic variations that are not adaptations, and a very few that are. An adaptation is a genetic variation that has adaptive value in the environment. Many variations are retained simply because they have no significant negative effect on survivability. The presence of a variation does not infer that it is adaptive of something.

3) Some genetic variations are simply associated with another genetic variation that has survival value and thus is selected for... i.e. some variations get a free ride because they come with the useful adaptation.

4) Natural selection pressures are most severe when the organism is most out of tune with the environment - this often happens when there is a sudden and significant change in the environment. This can result, and often does, in extinction. As a population acquires an adaptation over a number of generations, the pressure on the population to "perfect" the adaptation lessens... the adaptation only need be good enough to survive... approaching perfection is an asymptotic thing.

5) Vestigial structures - structures left over from an adaptation for an environment that no longer acts on the organism - may persist for quite some time (and can be compelling evidence of the previous environment and evolutionary path of a population). As with random genetic variation, these former adaptations - now vestigial - may have little to no effect on survivability and therefore may persist in a population for some time, perhaps indefinitely.

6) The mathematics of natural selection are commonly misunderstood. Genetic variation from generation to generation can be, and usually is, very slight. Natural selection accumulates change very slowly most of the time. It's just we have many millions to many billions of iterations to make it possible. I liken it to the game of Yahtzee. Roll a set of 5 dice once, select out the dice you want to keep, roll the remainder again. One does not need to roll a Yahtzee (5 of a kind) in one roll - the chances of that are admittedly relatively small. The probability of a Yahtzee in a single roll is 1 in 1296... whereas the probability in any three-roll turn is roughly 1 in 22 attempts. A huge difference. Besides, in nature, since many different adaptations work in the same environment (thus how we get whole ecosystems rather than a single species by itself), one need not even wait for the Yahtzee... a significant number of different results will suffice to improve the survival chances of that population.

7) Behaviors are complex in their origins... they have genetic, developmental, environmental and social factors that determine them not to mention the possibility (unproven) of free will. When people talk fast and loose about a behavior being something we evolved for reason X or Y - they are displaying a set of serious misconceptions about how evolution works. Further, when someone uses the holes in such generalizations to try and shoot down evolution and they therefore hope to use that as a basis for an argument for a need for a god, they again are basing such arguments on misconceptions... and thus a Strawman.

Hopefully this serves my purpose - addressing questions you might have, en masse... if you pursue further argument in this thread that fails to take into account the above basic science, I for one will ignore it. Should you have genuine, honest questions about how some aspect of evolution operates maybe we can answer that for you - but we're not here, as Putin points out, to be defending evolution from attacks... at least not in this thread.

Is morality associated with or selected for within natural selection? That is a reasonable question - and your answer would apparently be "no"... and your answer would likely also be that morality is not a social construct but is absolute and provided by a god. That *is* a view... Question is, can you support it directly?

with respect to whether morality is absolute, universal and divinely ordained, *and* can be either proven or reasoned - this misses the target. these things precisely *cannot* be derived from reason or evidence. moral universalism or divine absolutism, or however you would like to situate these conceps, are of a different order, beyond or outside, that of logic, reason, evidence.

there are many descriptions of the incompleteness of evidence, proof, reason, etc., from godel's incompleteness theorem to kant's critique of metaphysics. the point is, there are things that our rational faculties cannot account for, or explain. and it is precisely at that point of incompleteness which opens the door to the absolute, universal and divine. these things are not available by way of evidence or logic - they are imposed as command, or directly revealed (revelation), and the only way to affirm these things is by taking a leap of faith.

that may be unsatisfactory to the critics of the divine or of universal morality, but structurally, definitionally, it is beside the point to insist on logic, or evidence. furthermore, there is never really a way to resolve it. still the point of this is to describe to the relativists / materialists, that their framework does not govern what they criticize - to have a valid criticism, you need to find another way beyond "show me the proof."

Universalist: "This thing exists."

Relativist: "Where is it?"

Universalist: "Right there, even though you can't see it."

Relativist: "Why did you even bother to try and have this conversation with someone other than a brick wall?"

it's not "you can't SEE it" but rather "YOU can't see it"

"still the point of this is to describe to the relativists / materialists, that their framework does not govern what they criticize - to have a valid criticism, you need to find another way beyond "show me the proof.""

So basically you are saying that you cannot be reasoned with. I have to agree.

yes, but the flipside is, you're oblivious to the Truth

Putting the capital "T" on it, that makes it truthier.