[Junior]

You can look at morality as placing the long-term needs of the group over the short-term desires of the individual. Human beings are social animals; without the group we are short work for whatever hungry comes along; and without the group our chances of finding enough resources to survive are greatly diminished. Consider this fact to be the foundation of morality. Individual human beings have a set of priorities themselves, including survival, procreation, whatnot. The goals are perfectly acceptable -- until they interfere with the survival of the group. Nearly all human morality is designed to curb the clash of priorities between the individual and the group with the preference going to the group.

[jwalsh07]

You can look at morality as placing the long-term needs of the group over the short-term desires of the individual.

Karl says he concurs.

[Heartlander]

If I ask: “Why I ought to be unselfish?’ and you reply ‘Because it’s good for society.’ I can then ask, ‘Why should I care what happens to society unless it happens to pay me personally?’ Is the answer, ‘Because one should not be selfish?’

Does one play football ‘in order to score goals?’ That is not the reason for the game, it is the end result.

C.S. Lewis paraphrased

Besides Junior, you are a Christian, surely you believe God put it in our hearts.

[gore3000]

Nearly all human morality is designed to curb the clash of priorities between the individual and the group with the preference going to the group.

A pretty lame defense. "Nearly" does not cut it. Where does the rest come from? Where does conscience come from? Conscience has nothing to do with public perception, it has to do with one knows is correct when others are not looking. Conscience constantly clashes with what is most expedient, yet people ofted do listen to their conscience. Further, evolution, more than a struggle between species, is a struggle within the species. Your explanation has absolutely no relevance and is the opposite of what such a struggle would require.

[AndrewC]

Consider this fact to be the foundation of morality.

So morality is founded in the ant colony? Why aren't we communists?

[jennyp]

You can look at morality as placing the long-term needs of the group over the short-term desires of the individual. Human beings are social animals; without the group we are short work for whatever hungry comes along; and without the group our chances of finding enough resources to survive are greatly diminished. Consider this fact to be the foundation of morality. Individual human beings have a set of priorities themselves, including survival, procreation, whatnot. The goals are perfectly acceptable -- until they interfere with the survival of the group. Nearly all human morality is designed to curb the clash of priorities between the individual and the group with the preference going to the group.

I missed this the first time around, but around 6:30am this thread took off on a troublesome tangent because of it. (Maybe that's why I woke up at 6:30, thinking maybe I should stay up & start my day early. My nightowl nature made me go back to sleep instead!)

I can see your point - to a point - about morality being a group phenomenon. However, I think it's very very easy to take that concept too far. (I think JediGirl has fallen into that trap.)

Two problems in particular I see. 1) I think that for humans, the reproductive urge is very indirect, and less important a foundation of morality than you seem to think. If it were, then the more prosperous societies would have at least as high a birthrate as struggling peasant societies. But they don't. Young adults in prosperous societies may have more ability to indulge our sex drives than youth who have to work the fields from sunup to sundown, for instance, but we've also developed moral codes and technologies that prevent such indulgence from creating more babies. And every prosperous society seems to use them. (Note: Even Europe, with its welfare states that subsidize out of wedlock births, has a lower-than-replenishment birthrate.)

2) Assuming that morality is based on passing on our genes strikes me as awfully collectivist, and collectivism is squarely at odds with our nature as rational beings with free will. Communism of any form may be the best "strategy" for ants, to take AndrewC's example, precisely because ants' brains have, what, a couple dozen neurons? Free will is something that only people with a sufficient capacity for thought can sustain.

You can look at morality as placing the long-term needs of the group over the short-term desires of the individual.

Reading that passage again, I think that's your biggest mistake. I look at morality as placing the individual's long-term interests over the individual's short-term interests. I agree that a person's long term interests tend to be maximized by their cooperation within the context of a particular kind of society (but not just any society!), but the society is secondary to the fundamental goal: The individual's long-term interests.

IMO this avoids the trap of thinking that morals are determined by which group one is in: Society is merely a tool we use to sustain our long-term values.

p.s. Ayn Rand would be much less charitable with you... :-)

You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.
- Ayn Rand (via John Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged)