An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

NY Times ^ | October 31, 2006 | NICHOLAS WADE

[neverdem]

Who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin.

Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys. The animals’ feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality.

Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, “Moral Minds” (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind.

People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously.

Dr. Hauser presents his argument as a hypothesis to be proved, not as an established fact. But it is an idea that he roots in solid ground, including his own and others’ work with primates and in empirical results derived by moral philosophers.

The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior.

Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the same moral judgments, Dr. Hauser writes, implying “that the system that unconsciously generates...”

[hosepipe]

[ I wonder what they'll come up with next; their own standards to measure right and wrong against? And who would decide that? ]

Karl Marx...

[metmom]

Strange, isn't it, that you never see an inhherently good and benign empire arise.

[metmom]

Kohlberg argued that instead of teaching children rules and manners they should be allowed to reason out their own ideas about justice.

I guess HE doesn't have any children.

Childhood justice: Grab the toy and hit the other kid over the head with it.

[joylyn]

Actually, Kohlberg did have children. Kohlberg's essay on the "hidden curriculum" takes issue with his son's second grade teacher who gave his son the idea that "good boys" put their books away after the lesson is finished. "His teacher would probably be surprised to know that her trivial classroom management concerns defined for children what she and her school thought were basic moral values, and that as a result she was unconsciously miseducating them morally."

So clever, and yet so dumb. It didn't seem to occur to Kohlberg that the teacher wanted her students to have consideration for others, responsibility for their own belongings, etc. and that these things are related to important moral questions.

By the way, Kohlberg committed suicide by drowning in Boston Harbor.

[metmom]

...to have consideration for others, responsibility for their own belongings, etc.

That's miseducating them morally....*sigh*

[Elsie]

yes...

[Elsie]

Of course, the Bible says that men are born with an innate sense of right and wrong.

Genesis 3:22
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

[Elsie]

I was also taught that human beings are flawed (not "totally depraved," but flawed), because of a catastrophic error committed very near the beginning of the human race, the consequences of which are transmitted to every succeeding generation.

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Yup!

Sure looks that way!

[Elsie]

By the way, Kohlberg committed suicide by drowning in Boston Harbor.

Matthew 18:6
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

[bert]

The law of the jungle is "kill or be killed"

Eons of human existanceion have softened that law and the process is the evolution of religion. For society to exist, the LOJ must be softened.

[stacytec]

If there is even a sliver of evidence to support this, then I might have to re-examine my own ideas about the existence of natural law. Should make for some interesting philosophical discussions regarding the nature of morality and ethics.

[RunningWolf]

Is there not a passage in the Bible about building your house on sand or something like that?

That is a metaphor to me as to what toe and anything that comes out of that ideology as. Something that is transitory ephemeral and ultimately false.

Yet another illusion 'Maya' as it would be called in the Hindu writings.

[little jeremiah]

Thanks for reminding me of this thread, I need to ping it out.

The ToE posits that accident and chance are the foundation for all existence. That is false, hollow, and nothing could be more meaningless and transitory.

When people think that their existence is temporary and meaningless, that the physical machine is all they are, a deep hopelessness pervades their lives. It can be covered up with busy-ness, TV, entertainment, ever-increasingly potent sensual gratification, trivia, pet causes, accumulating possessions, and especially mental novocain of all types, both licit and illicit.

But the fear is there. Fear that death will be the snuffing out of a small candle. But it is not; it is a doorway.

[gleeaikin]

"Try doing the Snake first and Then the fuzzy!!!"

I am quite sure that they either alternated the presentation, or used different children for one presentation or the other.

[70times7]

Ahh yes. Our children come hard wired through evolution to know right and wrong without parent intervention. All these wonderful flowers need is the opportunity to learn and they will blossom into wonderful actualized human beings.

Tell ya what - take this recycled 60's/70's liberal manure and spread it liberally on your garden and growth will happen.

The only parents that still believe this garbage are so self deluded that they are parents in title only. The exact opposite is true, or are there any parents out there who actually DID teach their little darlings to lie - and yet their moral compasses came up with it anyway...

[little jeremiah]

It's like watching Chinese contortionists. It would be interesting if the fools-who-think-they're-wise didn't have so much influence over the rest of us. Trying to have some kind of moral guidelines while rejecting God is like trying to - hmm, make sense out of a bad dream a schizophrenic had while on a triple dose of LSD. If there is no God, then each person has just as much right to decide "right" and "wrong" as anyone else. End of story.

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[metmom]

If there is no God, then each person has just as much right to decide "right" and "wrong" as anyone else. End of story.

And if that's the case, they can't tell us we're wrong.

[achilles2000]

Don't forget the NYT...

[achilles2000]

Part of Kohlberg's depression was that he came to see that his "work" was wrong.

[little jeremiah]

EXACTLY! That's why every word that comes out of their mouth is internally inconsisent and their entire philosphy is counterfeit and nothing but sheer hypocracy!