Would we say "You should kill the competition to improve your survival odds"? Of course not. So in that respect you cannot rely of evolutionarily derived traits as morals. The other problem with this line of thinking is that so many things we consider to be de facto right and proper are counter to the survival of our own DNA. This sort of thing cannot be explained from an evolutionary standpoint. I'm talking about things like not stealing, giving to others, helping the sick and weak. Some might argue that these things are better for the herd but that argument is weak and full of holes. Herd survival has little to commend helping the weak and sick or sacrificing oneself to help a stranger.
Again, thanks for you response, but it just doesn't make an argument for moral authority.
George,
Isn't that what is basically said to all armies engaged in battle? (You not only should kill the competition, but if you don't you'll be in serious trouble.)
Our survival and evolutionary development have depended on the practice of such a 'moral authority' long before we had the brain power to develop a language to articulate such concepts.
All animals compete for resources, and fight or flee when predators appear. It used to be thought that mankind was the only animal that engaged in warfare, until someone observed a group of Chimpanzees walking in line through the forest, and followed them to see where they were going. Their destination was another region where a neighbouring group of Chimpanzees lived, which they viciously slaughtered.
The argument I'm presenting is, what some of us now imagine to be a transcendental moral authority, originating from on high, might in fact be no more than a sophisticated development of an ages-old fundamental awareness of the sorts of actions and behaviour that are necessary for our own survival as a group, or at least helpful for our survival as a group.
To continue with the example of the extinction of Neanderthal Man. That it was due to a failure to adapt to an increasingly cold climate is possibly the main reason, but probably not the only reason. It seems that Neanderthal Man lived in smaller and more isolated groups than Homo Sapiens did at the time, and they would have been at a disadvantage during any conflict with the larger Homo Sapiens groups who were probably more cooperative amongst themselves and better organized.
This gradual awareness and understanding, as language and thought processes developed, that cooperation within the group has a survival advantage, is probably the basis of the more recent moral commandments such as 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' and 'Love thine enemy', which one associates with Christianity.
Such moral concepts stretch back many thousands of years, probably before any written records were made. The original concept is often referred to as The Golden Rule, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. The phrasing changes according to different translations and different cultures, but the underlying meaning is the same in the many examples throughout history. The earliest written record, on Egyptian papyrus, goes back to 1650 BC. However, it's reasonable to presume that the basis of the moral concept of The Golden Rule, goes back much further than the earliest written record that has so far been unearthed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_RuleWhat I'm suggesting is that the sort of cooperative behaviour that groups of animals seem to instinctively engage in, within their own group, as when ants build an ant hill consisting of a maize of tunnels, is the basis for the later articulation of such principles which we describe as morals.
Of course, in order to strengthen such principles, and make them more effective, the chieftains or rulers of human societies sometimes invoke the concept of an Almighty God whom they, as rulers, claim to have some communication with.
Have I made a sound case?
