"Where does this moral principle to which you appeal come from? A statement that itself presupposes some sort of moral code that presumably is just part of the furniture of the universe is inconsistent with the notion that morality evolved."
No it isn't. I never said that the morality that evolved was the right one. I don't look to my evolutionary history to determine my moral code. Or to determine what I value or don't value. What a strange concept.
"Evolution provides no accounting for the origin, evolution or existence of morality in the first place, and no basis for any moral judgment concerning different approaches."
Not true. Evolution most certainly does give an account of the origin of morality and ethical codes.
See Sociobiology. It is true that evolution doesn't have much if anything to say about what moral code is correct; it does have a lot to say how the dominant code came to be. It can help explain why parents will fight to the death to protect their children, it just won't be able to tell you if they SHOULD. That's what philosophy and theology are for.
"If mindless, purposeless Evolution is true there is no such thing as good and evil."
You don't believe that morality can have a rational basis without a supernatural entity telling us what to do? How odd.
If God spoke to us all, in clear unmistakable words, and announced that His work here was done, and He was leaving this universe forever in order to take care of business elsewhere, wouldn't we still be able to determine things like right, wrong, and truth?
What part of man creates for himself a moral structure? Is it something we have more of now than we did 2,000 years ago? Has science imbued us with morality now?
Have we so quickly forgotten New Orleans?
If mindless Evolution is true there is no 'correct' or 'right' moral code. To allow for the possiblity of a 'correct morality' you have to presuppose a prior morality before the statement can even be uttered, which begs the question of the origin of morality. Where do moral rules come from and why should I be obligated by them?
Evolution, being descriptive in nature could at best only be a description of past behavior; it is descriptive, not prescriptive. But morality is prescriptive in nature. It tells how we ought to behave. So how do you explain morality by mere descriptions of past behavior? If the moral element is prior to the behavior, then it can't be the behavior itself and the behavior itself cannot be the explanation of it. Any evolutionary description that purports to be a justification or explanation for the origin of moral rules will inevitably end up depending upon a moral rule before it can even be offered, the very thing it supposed to explain in the first place, so such descriptions cannot possibly be the explanation of what we understand morality to be.
Cordially,