Science of Good and Evil Page 2

  This assumes, of course, a God who is not actively involved in some measurable way in the world and our lives. If, for example, prayer induced God to intervene in a person’s recovery from disease or accidents, then prayed-for patients should recover from disease and accidents sooner than non-prayed-for patients. To date the prayer and healing studies have all proved either nonsignificant or significant but harboring deep methodological flaws.6 Given this qualification, however, peace should reign in the valley of science and religion … and the sheep shall lie peacefully with the lion.

  The How and the Why of Morality

  The study of morality is, at its core, the study of why humans do what we do, particularly on the social level, since almost all moral issues revolve around how we interact with others. What do we mean by morality and ethics? I define morality as right and wrong thoughts and behaviors in the context of the rules of a social group. I define ethics as the scientific study of and theories about moral thoughts and behaviors in the context of the rules of a social group. In other words, morality involves issues of right and wrong thought and behavior, and ethics involves the study of right and wrong thought and behavior. The first half of this book deals primarily with morality, the second half with ethics. That is, part 1, “The Origins of Morality,” focuses on the evolution of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions related to what we call the moral sentiments; part 2, “A Science of Provisional Ethics,” focuses on the evolution of ethical systems—absolute, relative, and my own provisional ethical theory—and how we can reconcile them with our evolutionary and cultural heritage.

  The Science of Good and Evil picks up where How We Believe left off. It defines religion as a social institution, one that evolved as an integral mechanism of human culture to create and promote myths, to encourage altruism and cooperation, to discourage selfishness and competitiveness, and to reveal the level of commitment to cooperate and reciprocate among members of a community. In the first half of this book I shall unpack that sentence in great detail, but for now what I mean is that religion evolved as a social structure to enforce the rules of human interactions before there were such institutions as the state or such concepts as laws and rights. Long before there were state-enforced constitutional rights for the protection of basic freedoms, humans devised various mechanisms of behavioral control to facilitate goodwill and to attenuate excessive greed, avarice, and other vices. The religious foundation of human virtues and vices, saints and sinners, in fact, is a codification of an informal psychology of moral and immoral behavior. Humans are a hierarchical social primate species, and as such we need rules and morals and a social structure to enforce them. In the social mode, religion is that social structure, and God—even a God that exists only in the heads of those who believe in Him—is the ultimate enforcer of the rules.

  In a study I conducted with University of California, Berkeley, social scientist Frank Sulloway (the results of which are presented in How We Believe), we discovered that one of the most common reasons people give for believing in God is that without the existence of a deity there would be no ultimate basis for morality. The source of this belief might be that these three components—morality, God, and religion—have been intertwined for so long that there may be an evolutionary foundation that lies beneath the connection between these three cultural entities. Secular moral systems, such as those expressed in the French Revolution (“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and the “Rights of Man”) and the American Revolution (the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal”) are centuries old. Religious moral systems such as those expressed in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are millennia old. Evolutionary moral systems such as those expressed by indigenous peoples (the modern remnants of Paleolithic societies) are tens of millennia old. To find out why we are moral in an ultimate sense (and not just a proximate sense), we must return to those long-gone epochs when anatomically modern humans were living simultaneously with other hominid species, collected in tiny bands as hunter-gatherers eking out a living and struggling to survive in a physical environment filled with predators, parasites, diseases, accidents, and nature’s quirks; and a social environment filled with hierarchies, conflicts, and competition for dominance, status, recognition, and mates.

  When I ask why we are moral I am asking the question in the same manner that an evolutionary biologist might ask why we are hungry (to motivate us to eat) or why sex is fun (to motivate us to procreate). Why questions are different from how questions. How questions are concerned with proximate causes—the immediate or nearest cause or purpose of a structure or function. We are hungry because when our blood sugar is low our hypothalamus detects this drop and is stimulated to release chemicals that cause a sensation of hunger, motivating us to consume food. The fun of sex is similarly explained through physiological causes, such as the release during orgasm of oxytocin that enhances the bonding between a couple, an especially adaptive function because human infants are helpless for so long that they need the efforts of two parents (rather than one parent and one sperm or egg donor). But these are proximate explanations. Evolutionary biologists are also interested in ultimate causes—the final cause (in an Aristotelian sense) or end purpose (in a teleological sense) of a structure or behavior. We are hungry and horny because, ultimately, the survival of the species depends on food and sex, and those organisms for whom healthy foods tasted good and for which sex was exquisitely delightful left behind more offspring. Since differential reproductive success is the ultimate product of natural selection, and natural selection is the primary driving force behind evolution, we have reached an ultimate level of causal thinking in trying to answer these questions.

  Of course, hunger and sex are relatively easy targets for evolutionary theorists. Psychological and social behavior—including and especially moral behavior—is another genera of problem altogether. But this does not exclude it from an evolutionary analysis. Although our species is arguably the most complex on earth (at least in terms of brain and behavior, especially as expressed in social systems), we are nonetheless animals, and as such we are not exempt from the forces of evolution. Ultimate why questions about social and moral behavior, while considerably more challenging, must nevertheless be subjected to an evolutionary analysis. There is a science dedicated specifically to this subject called evolutionary ethics, founded by Charles Darwin a century and a half ago and continuing as a vigorous field of study and debate today. Evolutionary ethics is a subdivision of a larger science called evolutionary psychology, which attempts a scientific study of all social and psychological human behavior. The fundamental premise of these sciences is that human behavior evolved over the course of hundreds of thousands of years during our stint as hominid hunter-gatherers, as well as over the course of millions of years as primates, and tens of millions of years as mammals. As such, evolutionary psychology is itself a branch of sociobiology and ethology, the sciences that study all animal behavior. Since we are, first and foremost, animals, the findings from all these fields are applicable to the study of human moral behavior, although humans are unique in the fact that the most advanced primates—chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans—show only the most rudimentary forms of moral behavior. Finally, since The Science of Good and Evil is a work of science, it employs the evidence and findings from those sciences most allied with evolutionary ethics, evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and ethology, including archaeology, history, anthropology, sociology, cognitive and social psychology, neurophysiology, behavior genetics, and evolutionary biology.

  This scientific theory of morality will build a case for how humans evolved from social primates to moral primates, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence and logical reasoning. That is, this book tackles two deep and essential problems: (1) the origins of morality and (2) the foundations of ethics. This is the why and the how of morality. Embedded within these are questions that have occupied the greatest minds
in human history: Is it our nature to be moral or immoral? If we evolved by natural forces, then what was the natural purpose of morality? If we live in a determined universe, then how can we make free moral choices? Do good and evil exist, and if so, from whence do they come? Why do bad things happen to good people? If there is no outside source to validate moral principles, does anything go? Can we be good without God? How can we tell the difference between right and wrong?

  In part 1, “The Origins of Morality,” a theory on the origins of morality is presented in four chapters. This part addresses the why question of morality. Chapter 1, “Transcendent Morality,” presents an answer to the challenge that without a transcendent source of validation (for most people, this is God), all ethical systems are reduced to moral relativism or moral nihilism. I demonstrate that evolutionary ethics can be ennobling and morality transcendent by virtue of the fact that the deepest moral thoughts, behaviors, and sentiments belong not just to individuals, or to individual cultures, but to the entire species. Chapter 2, “Why We Are Moral,” presents my theory, based on a model of bio-cultural evolution, to explain the development of the moral sentiments and moral behavior. The chapter reviews the million years over which premoral sentiments evolved in our ancestors under primarily biogenetic control, the hundred thousand years over which the moral sentiments evolved in our species alone, the transition about 35,000 years ago when sociocultural factors became increasingly dominant in shaping our moral behavior, and the shift within the past 10,000 years when the moral sentiments were codified into formal ethical systems. Chapter 3, “Why We Are Immoral,” addresses the darker side of humanity: war, violence, and the ignoble savage within, showing that we are both moral and immoral animals. Here I address the classic problem of evil: If God is all-powerful and all good, then why does evil exist? If God is neither all-powerful nor all good, then evil can logically exist; but this is not a deity most believers would profess belief in or make a commitment to. If there is no God, then how are we to deal with evil on the scale of the Holocaust? Do bad people ultimately get away with doing bad things if there is no final judgment? I suggest a way around this conundrum, as well as debunk the myth of the Noble Savage and peaceful native, showing how all humans share a common humanity. Finally, chapter 4, “Master of My Fate,” considers how moral choices can be made in a determined universe. I suggest several solutions (since I do not believe that any single one is adequate) to the problem of free will—if God is all-powerful, or if nature is ultimately guided by the law of causality (where all effects have causes), then how can we be expected to make free moral choices, much less be accountable for making the wrong moral choices? Both philosophy and science provide viable solutions.

  In part 2, chapter 5, “Can We Be Good Without God?,” addresses head on one of the most common arguments made by believers that without an outside divine source of validation and objectification, moral principles cannot be universally held or consistently applied. Chapter 6, “How We Are Moral,” reviews the various absolute and relative ethical systems that have been developed throughout human history, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each one, and concluding that because of the complexity of human society and culture, no single ethical system can be all-encompassing or thoroughly consistent; this chapter also presents a science of provisional ethics that is neither absolute nor relative, showing how moral principles can be applicable to most people in most circumstances most of the time. With provisional ethics there is no abdication of moral responsibility, but at the same time there is room for tolerance and diversity in recognizing that although we are all responsible for our moral actions, there is scope for forgiveness and redemption in recognizing the fallibility of humans and human social systems. Chapter 7, “How We Are Immoral,” examines a number of principles that help us tell the difference between right and wrong, and then applies these principles to a number of ethical issues, including truth telling and lying, adultery, pornography, abortion, cloning and genetic engineering, and animal rights. Chapter 8, “Rise Above,” considers the evidence that our species is on a long evolutionary trajectory that will lead to greater amity toward members of our own group, and a long historical path toward more liberties for more people in more places, whether they are members of our group or not. Out of this analysis arise two recommendations, one on personal tolerance and the other on political freedoms, based on extensive scientific data that demonstrate why and how humans can and should be more cooperative.

  Finally, two appendices accompany the book. Appendix 1, “The Devil Under Form of Baboon,” is a history of the evolution of evolutionary ethics and the background to the scientific study of moral behavior, starting with Darwin and working our way to the latest findings from evolutionary psychologists. Appendix II supplements chapter 2 in providing additional evidence of the evolutionary nature of our moral behavior in the form of human universals related to religion and morality.

  That’s it. The rest is details. But as the nineteenth-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert observed, “Le bon Dieu est dans le détail,” a phrase astutely (and appropriately, considering his profession) reiterated by the twentieth-century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “God dwells in the details.” Those details are the sum and substance of this book.

  I

  THE ORIGINS OF MORALITY

  I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important … . It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment’s hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, impelled simply by the deep feeling of right or duty, to sacrifice it in some great cause … . The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with wellmarked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience.

  —Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871

  1

  TRANSCENDENT MORALITY: HOW EVOLUTION ENNOBLES ETHICS

  One should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds.

  —Moses Maimonides, Eight Chapters, twelfth century

  In one of the most starkly honest and existentially penetrating statements ever made by a scientist, Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins opined that “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”1 Here we cut to the heart of what is, in my opinion, the single biggest obstacle to a complete acceptance of the theory of evolution, especially its application to human thought and behavior, particularly in the realm of morality and ethics: the equating of evolution with ethical nihilism and moral degeneration. If we are nothing more than the product of sightless natural forces operating within a mercilessly uncaring cosmos, from whence can we find absolute ethical standards or ultimate moral meaning? My answer to this question follows, although Charles Darwin said it more succinctly in his magnum opus, The Origin of Species, in which he presciently provided an answer to Dawkins’s observation: “When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.”2 What can possibly be ennobling about evolution, and how can we construct a transcendent morality out of evolutionary ethics? Here is how.

  A Moral Dilemma

  In his dialogue The Euthyphro, the Greek philosopher Plato presented what has come to be known as “Euthyphro’s Dilemma,” in which his favorite protagonist—the cantankerous political gadfly Socrates—asks a young man named Euthyphro the following question: “The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods?” The underlying assumption for Plato, as it has
been ever since for most philosophers and theologians, is that moral principles are and must be linked to a God or gods in order to be considered absolute, eternal, and meaningful. Socrates is trying to show Euthyphro that a dilemma exists over whether God embraces moral principles naturally occurring and external to Him because they are sound (“holy”) or that these moral principles are sound because He created them. It cannot be both.3

  Regardless of which choice is made, under this paradigm, theologians and religious philosophers have made God an integral part of the moral process. The thirteenth-century Catholic scholar Thomas Aquinas laid the foundation for a natural law theory of moral development by arguing that God supports moral principles that occur naturally, instills them in us, which we then discover through rational analysis, prayer, and our God-given intuitive mental faculty for moral reasoning. William of Ockham and Samuel Pufendorf, by contrast, preferred the second choice in Euthyphro’s Dilemma, arguing in what has come to be known as Divine Command Theory and voluntarism that God freely created moral principles through divine fiat. Hugo Grotius gave the nod to the first choice, claiming that God endorses certain already-existing moral principles. The assumption made by all these commentators, of course, is that at some level God is involved in the process of creating and/or sanctioning moral principles.4