I was prompted to write this essay as an assignment for my "Philosophy of Morality and Ethics" course (a kind of novice-topic in the realm of philosophy, but people still manage to get it all wrong anyways)....
...enjoy.
...enjoy.
Darwinian Morality.
Even as Darwin writes that morals are formed through the process of natural selection, and rationalization he also believes that the foundation of morality is in the human’s sense of sympathy (a sense that has also developed through natural selection), and this I find is not a plausible explanation for the origins of morality.
Morals are defined as things that ought to be done, not what is, and that is what Darwin ever really does – defines what is. He writes that because in lower species we can see certain behaviours have evolved as the species evolved as they serve a purpose key to their survival, we as the human race can assume that the behaviours that we deem ‘right’ or ‘good’ have done the same. Yet, that does not entail that I absolutely ought to do said behaviours, or absolutely ought not to do the opposite. Ought, I find, when linked to an action, holds the connotation that said action does not depend the human’s ability to recognize and properly enforce or punish and reward the action, and if Darwin is right, if we are alone in this universe and nothing transcends the things within it (matter and energy, space, and time), then our evolved behaviours are not morals, but only behaviour. For example, every culture accepts the moral: Do not steal. Darwin would say that our desire not to steal from anyone is a behaviour developed through natural selection and sustained by our sense of sympathy – so what? If I will not be caught or punished for stealing then why should I not steal? And now that I have realized that sympathy only hinders me from getting what I want by stealing, especially when I will not get caught, what is to stop me from doing away with sympathy altogether? What about those who do accept and follow the moral: Do not steal? If nothing transcends the things within this universe, then those who Darwin would deem are moral beings because they ‘do not steal,’ would not be moral beings at all, but beings who merely dance to chemical reactions within their brains. These beings would not be choosing to do good deeds, as choice entails that one transcends the material world. If morals are evolved behaviours sustained by our sympathy, then one only needs to do away with sympathy and the ‘ought to’s and ought not’s’ are meaningless, and one who accepts said morals, are not moral beings because they did not choose to be moral.
Darwin also writes that as higher species of high intelligence, unlike the lower species, our morals can be rationalized. This also is implausible, as if one were to honestly rationalize the validity or non-validity of morals according to the Darwinian worldview, then one could only conclude that either morals are not valid, or all morals, even contradicting morals existing simultaneously, hold validity. Once again, Darwin believes that there is nothing beyond the things within this universe, that when we die, that is it and we become as indifferent to the universe as the universe is to us while we breathe. Now, with this in mind, one would have a hard time justifying why it was wrong for Hitler to rationalize that extermination of the Jews, Gypsies, effeminate homosexuals, and later Northern Europeans, African descendents, Asians, Middle-Easterners, Native Americans would be better for the human race. One may say that all of humanity is equal ... well, says who? It is clear that humans are not all equal, as we constantly judge ourselves according to beauty, strength, talent and smarts, and as these things matter to us, they mattered to Hitler, so much so, that he felt it necessary to kill so the human race can attain ultimate beauty, strength, talent and smarts and he rationalized that our race’s hindrances were of a certain peoples. Yet, we could not say he was wrong as the universe is so utterly indifferent to our existence that we might as well have not existed at all, and that one man with power enough took it upon himself to decide who should exist is no more meaningful than Simon Cowell brutally informing contestants of how horribly they sing. Somehow, we in the west, at least, can agree that Hitler’s actions were atrocities, even though we cannot justify that they were so with this more popular idea that morals just – evolved.
Our morals are not simply based on evolved behaviours as just being aware of said behaviours negates that we ‘ought’ to follow them due to our freedom of choice, our morals are not based on rationality as if they are actions we ‘ought’ to do, then they do not depend on how well human beings understand them to exist, and morals are not sustained by sympathy as our sympathies waiver, yet do not make our moral actions any less absolute. There are many alternatives to Darwinian morality, but the only one that holds any validity is one that concludes that morals transcend the human, are unchanging, and are sustained by something(one) absolute.
© Avey Owyns.
