isn’t quite right. Evolution only asks if the genes that predispose to a trait can be passed along under these conditions. Sometimes self-sacrifice can achieve that better than living.
Clearly selection at the individual level can select for altruistic behavior to those percieved as part of a kinship, and the closer the percieved kinship the more likely altruistic behaviors are likely to be.
Clearly a family that has the capacity for co-operative behaviors is more likely to thrive and pass on those predispositions than one without those predispositions. And so with an extended kinship, a tribe. A tribe that has the ability to detect freeloaders and punish them will thrive better than one that has no such means. The genes that allow for this will be selected for. The behavioral structures will be reinforced.
At this point behaviors that keep the tribe a cohesive structure will allow for perpetuation of these social structures, these morals. The tribe will grow and get more resources. It might absorb other tribes and the particular social structures will extend to other less related individuals. This is selection at the level of the societal organism. This can occur faster than genetic mechanism and rather than success being reproduction of individuals, success is absorbtion of other cultures or imitation by other societies.
Your point is totally and utterly irrelevant. Altruistic atheists also exist. Until you can show me that a statistically significantly larger proportion of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc. demonstrate “altruistic” behaviour when compared to atheists your point is irrelevant. Welcome to GD, check in your intuition at the counter over there.
Evolution is about survival, not morality. But morality can be required for survival. Obviously freeloading is a survival advantage. Thus, the obvious extension of that logic is the extinction of those species which do not develop mechanisms to regulate freeloading. For instance, the pallad cuckoo is one of many animals which lays its eggs in the nests of other species. Some of those species have developed mechanisms by which they throw out eggs that don’t look like their own, or throw out eggs if there are more than a certain number of eggs. Then, those who have eggs that are more similar to the eggs of the other species prosper, or those who only put one egg in other birds’ nests prosper. Then, in turn, increasingly intelligent defence mechanisms are developed by the other species. This is an eternal battle which neither side will win; it is more or less the same concept as symbiosis.
Morality is largely a system to govern freeloading. Freeloading will never cease to exist, but when viewed at a sufficiently large timescale morality is the only evolutionary stable state (with a slight allowance for freeloading) as the only alternative is extinction. I think this is covered in Dawkins’ “The Extended Phenotype” in one of the first couple of chapters (the ESS bit).
As for social vs. biological basis of morality, I think most of the useful aspects of morality come from evolution. An evolutionary aversion for certain coloured foods can prevent poisoning, whereas a ban on eating pork is nothing but a sheer anachronism and is completely arbitrary with today’s hygiene.
I don’t think anyone here is really arguing that morality cannot exist without religion; obviously one can be atheist and still have a code of ethics. What I’m getting at here is that:
Much more of morality is inherent than you would believe.
Relying on biological whimsy is not much more anachronistic than relying on an arbitrary code of religious ethics. (ie. Telling people they can’t eat fermented soy beans because they taste horrible is no more arbitrary than telling them they can’t eat pork.)
Interesting question: is an entirely altruistic person necessarily entirely moral? After all, is it really any more or less moral for everyone to serve each others needs, and thus everyone has all their needs served, vs everyone serving their own needs, and, again, everyone’s needs being served?
I don’t think there’s such a thing as an entirely altruistic person. I would consider myself altruistic, but because it also makes me feel good, can’t say that I’m “entirely” altruistic. There’s no such thing as entirely moral either because it is so subjective. I think my morals came from social conditioning, starting with my parents, then teachers and possibly a tiny extent from peers. That conditioning made serving/meeting other people’s needs a necessary part of meeting my own needs. Went to church, but don’t think my moral base came from religion at all. Most of us weren’t raised (conditioned) to meet all of our own needs. Evolution in the guise of maternal instinct is probably the reason I repeated what my parents did, although I never thought of it being a product of evolution. So if I’m understanding it right, morals aren’t inherent, but the urge to pass acquired morals down, which comes from evolutionary drive, is.
If you were to be entirely altruistic, I think you would appear to be moral, before your nervous breakdown.
I think it’s more nearly the case that there can be morality in spite of religion, than that it is because of religion.
You might say our only axiomatic obligation is to be thoughtful about all our other obligations, that we try to be correct in our thought processes and of course use correct information at the start. Religion blows that to bits.
I think being religious is actually immoral for this reason.
