Thinking About Evolutionary Ethics

According to the Encylopedia of Philosophy:

Evolutionary ethics tries to bridge the gap between philosophy and the natural sciences by arguing that natural selection has instilled human beings with a moral sense, a disposition to be good. If this were true, morality could be understood as a phenomenon that arises automatically during the evolution of sociable, intelligent beings and not, as theologians or philosophers might argue, as the result of divine revelation or the application of our rational faculties. Morality would be interpreted as a useful adaptation that increases the fitness of its holders by providing a selective advantage. This is certainly the view of Edward O. Wilson, the 'father' of sociobiology, who believes that "scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized" (Wilson, 1975: 27). The challenge for evolutionary biologists such as Wilson is to define goodness with reference to evolutionary theory and then explain why human beings ought to be good.

It seems obvious that intelligence is evolved, and were we not intelligent it would make no sense to talk about ethics. Who worries about the ethics of trees, or for that matter of social but not intelligent species such as ants and termites.

it also seems obvious that social behavior is evolved. Scientists look for indications of mental perceptions of fair and unfair in chimps and dogs, but I don't think they would do so in species that live alone (cats, tigers?).

More than other species Homo sapiens as a species has culture, and it seems obvious that there are differences among cultures as to what is considered ethical.

Lets assume that most people are capable of recognizing the existence of "right" and "wrong" because of the way our brains evolved, but the classes of things perceived as right or wrong are modified by culture. (Sociopaths perhaps have brains that do not perceive right and wrong as do the rest of us, which may well be "the exception that proves the rule".)

In an earlier posting today I summarized research which suggested that people have a built in predilection to make decisions that appear immoral if the decision situation is presented in certain ways: they prefer to save 10,000 lives rather than 20,000 lives in one scenario, or that they would donate more money to save one life than to save eight lives in another scenario. There are a number of known phenomenon in which evolution has led to biases in decision making that lead to suboptimal decisions.

Culture can be changed. In Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword Noel Perrin describes the way that the Japanese gave up the use of firearms for centuries, demonstrating the self-determination of the Japanese culture.

It might be that our culture could define a system of ethics sufficiently consistent with our in-built feelings to be accepted, but correcting some of the evolved biases with cultural fixes. I suppose that churches and law enforcement institutions are social institutions that do just that, and indeed both have decision making systems that seek to be more rational than uninformed and built-in prejudice.

Perhaps these systems could be further improved by philosophers armed with understanding of biology (evolution) and social science (culture) and the sources of bias in ethical decision making.

According to the Encylopedia of Philosophy the two essential questions in ethics are:

• How can we distinguish between good and evil?
  
• Why should we be good?

Perhaps society can provide a better answer to how we can distinguish between right and wrong, following a set of rules that have been developed analytically from basic principles. Indeed, the answer to the second question may be "because you are equipped by evolution to be good, and conditioned by society to be good".