Try applying this to theoretical reason. I suppose the analogous statement would be something like: "our senses, reason, and our sense of truth/veracity developed because they help promote survival and reproduction."

Does it follow that theoretical facts (i.e. non-aesthetic or moral facts) should be judged in terms of survival and reproduction? That is, I judge a fact, like "Moscow is the capital of Russia," using faculties developed to aid in reproduction, therefore the fact itself should be judged in terms of whether it aids reproduction or not?

I imagine you can see the difficulty I am trying to get at here. It would be the same for aesthetic reason. We wouldn't necessarily want to judge a painting in terms of survival and reproduction, even though that's presumably the selection factor for our having eyes to see paintings.

Nonetheless, we might ask: "why does this seem somewhat absurd for theoretical and aesthetic reason, but plausible for practical reasoning?" And my suggestion would be that it's because the human good is related to what man is. What man is helps to define the good of man (the relationship of formal and final causality). Hence, how man came to be man, sheds light on man's ends. Indeed, this goes along with the intuition that organisms are equipped to seek the end proper to them.

That said, I do think this gets things somewhat backwards. Man has a moral sense to aid cooperation, perhaps, because this aids survival and reproduction. But it doesn't follow from this that the human good is limited to cooperation (or survival, or reproduction). Cooperation is not sought for its own sake, but rather as a means. Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so.

And almost all people, except psychopaths, have a moral sense that motivates them to act unselfishly in common circumstances, to punish immoral actions by others, and experience feelings of shame and guilt when they perceive they have acted immorally. — Mark S

I think this is not true. Certainly not true of me and a lot of people I know who are not psychopaths. If there is a moral imperative to care for, look after, and protect our fellow humans, I don’t see that it has any connection with a motivation to punish other people for behaviors we don’t like.

There has been a growing scientific consensus in the last few decades that, based on its explanatory power, it is provisionally true that past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist because they solve cooperation problems within groups. — Mark S

Can you provide some evidence of this growing scientific consensus? Can you provide some examples. The way you stated it sounds very simplistic to me - to the point of being trivial, almost tautological. Of course humans evolved to live in social situations. Of course social norms work to deal with problems in the community. Perhaps you can provide more detail.

That said, I do think this gets things somewhat backwards. Man has a moral sense to aid cooperation, perhaps, because this aids survival and reproduction. But it doesn't follow from this that the human good is limited to cooperation (or survival, or reproduction). Cooperation is not sought for its own sake, but rather as a means. Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am mostly on board with this, although I don’t think you go far enough. You should give us humans more credit. We treat others with kindness and compassion because we like each other. The fact that we came to like each other through the actions of natural selection doesn’t change that fact.

I see this as a well-considered version of an evolutionary explanation for morality. As such, I think we need to pose the usual objection: If morality equates, in some sense, to "what is beneficial for the species" -- its "universal function" -- why does that entail that I should care what is beneficial for the species, or regard that as in any way a good for me?

I don't think that's an idle or theoretical question. In my own life, I'm not aware of caring much about humans as such, or how we might fare in the future. It's implausible that the things I do care about morally are only tricking me, so to speak, into acting for the species' well-being. Or if that is in fact the case, it seems quite reasonable for me to reject this goal in favor of doing what good I can for the actual beings around me. That this in turn might further our generic human well-being would be morally irrelevant.

But your OP is complex, and if I've oversimplified or misunderstood, please say so.

We treat others with kindness and compassion because we like each other. The fact that we came to like each other through the actions of natural selection doesn’t change that fact. — T Clark

This makes a similar point.

Do you agree that the scientific hypothesis about morality as cooperation could be useful to moral philosophers without any need to derive an ought from an is? If not, why not? — Mark S

Why not? Moral philosophy comes attached to a range of worldviews. It's not unified, and it shifts over time. So there's room for all kinds of foundational justifications, from religion to secularism, scientific thinking to postmodernism. Most Western societies are pluralistic and have to balance competing views. They do so pretty well.

And almost all people, except psychopaths, have a moral sense that motivates them to act unselfishly in common circumstances, to punish immoral actions by others, and experience feelings of shame and guilt when they perceive they have acted immorally.
— Mark S

I think this is not true. Certainly not true of me and a lot of people I know who are not psychopaths. If there is a moral imperative to care for, look after, and protect our fellow humans, I don’t see that it has any connection with a motivation to punish other people for behaviors we don’t like. — T Clark

I agree. People are conditioned to feel certain ways, based on culture and upbringing, but I doubt it is innate. This is skating close to an essentialist account of human psychology.

But it doesn't follow from this that the human good is limited to cooperation (or survival, or reproduction). Cooperation is not sought for its own sake, but rather as a means. Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and we can certainly (and have) cooperated to achieve violent and oppressive goals which cause mass suffering.

As such, I think we need to pose the usual objection: If morality equates, in some sense, to "what is beneficial for the species" -- its "universal function" -- why does that entail that I should care what is beneficial for the species, or regard that as in any way a good for me? — J

Agree. And also, what constitutes 'beneficial to the species' is itself contested. Maybe it’s better to say that morality may have established itself as part of human cooperative ventures, but this still leaves us needing to have conversations about which values we wish to uphold and what constitutes beneficial (flourishing). So we're back at the beginning.

Man has a moral sense to aid cooperation, perhaps, because this aids survival and reproduction. But it doesn't follow from this that the human good is limited to cooperation (or survival, or reproduction). Cooperation is not sought for its own sake, but rather as a means. Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Count, I essentially agree and see my OP as consistent with your point. For example, I said:

Limitations:
The proposed moral fact about “morality as cooperation” only addresses the morality of interactions between people. It is a fact about moral ‘means’ and is essentially silent about moral ‘ends’. It will have only some relevance, and in some cases be irrelevant, to important broad ethical questions such as “How should I live?”, “What is good?”, and “What are my obligations?”. — Mark S

Also, when thinking about the relevance of reproductive fitness to the evolution of morality, I suggest you keep in mind that increased reproductive fitness is merely how morality was encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense. What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality.

I find it really hard to get through any arguments for/about morality that are not amorphous evolutionary claims (given it's an intangible, basically). Most claims to 'moral facts' rely on a shared acceptance of same. But that's not quite how facts work.
If morality is conceived as just that, sure. I don't think anyone means that when they speak about morality though. I mean, most people think it comes from Divine Revelation, so there's that spanner .

If there is a moral imperative to care for, look after, and protect our fellow humans, I don’t see that it has any connection with a motivation to punish other people for behaviors we don’t like. — T Clark

Hi T, the scientific claim about our moral sense is that the reason it exists is because it motivates cooperation strategies. Without punishment, free riders would destroy cooperation by exploiting others' efforts to “care for, look after, and protect” them. By “exploit,” I mean accepting help and not reciprocating. Punishment of exploiters is a necessary part of cooperation strategies.

Punishment’s necessary role in morality is an example of how science can illuminate morality.

Can you provide some evidence of this growing scientific consensus? Can you provide some examples. — T Clark

I am not satisfied with any summary of the state of the field, but Oliver Curry offers a useful, but much more complex, perspective in Morality as Cooperation: A Problem-Centred Approach
January 2016. You may be able to access a free pdf on
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281585949_Morality_as_Cooperation_A_Problem-Centred_Approach

Among recent workers in the field, he quotes:

Jonathan Haidt ‘Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfi shness and make cooperative social life possible’ (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010 )

Michael Tomasello ‘Human morality arose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives for cooperating with others’ (Tomasello & Vaish, 2013 )

Joshua Greene ‘[The core function of morality is to promote and sustain cooperation’
(Greene, 2015 )

Curry also quotes philosophers about cooperation and morality:

John Rawls ‘The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions
under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary’ (Rawls,
1971 , p. 126)

John Mackie ‘Protagoras, Hobbes, Hume and Warnock are all at least broadly in
agreement about the problem that morality is needed to solve: limited
resources and limited sympathies together generate both competition
leading to conflict and an absence of what would be mutually beneficial
cooperation’ (Mackie, 1977 , p. 111)

The Morality as Cooperation idea is way older than these references.

Protagoras, in Plato’s dialogue of the same name, patiently explained to Socrates that our moral sense exists to enable cooperation. Thereby, he implied how one can teach morality by teaching how to better cooperate in society. It seems to me that science can enhance our ability to cooperate.

What is new are advances in game theory that reveal powerful cooperation strategies encoded in our moral sense and cultural norms but not consciously understood. Game theory shows, for instance, the necessity of punishment and the role of marker strategies such as sex, food, and dress norms that increase cooperation by marking membership in a favored, more reliably cooperative, ingroup.

The long list of strange moral norms recorded in Leviticus were just a bunch of nonsense to me before I realized they were marker strategies.

↪Mark S I see this as a well-considered version of an evolutionary explanation for morality. As such, I think we need to pose the usual objection: If morality equates, in some sense, to "what is beneficial for the species" -- its "universal function" -- why does that entail that I should care what is beneficial for the species, or regard that as in any way a good for me? — J

As I said to Count,

Also, when thinking about the relevance of reproductive fitness to the evolution of morality, I suggest you keep in mind that increased reproductive fitness is merely how morality was encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense. What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality. — Mark S

You may not care about the species, but I expect you will find you prefer to live in a cooperative society.

If there is a moral imperative to care for, look after, and protect our fellow humans, I don’t see that it has any connection with a motivation to punish other people for behaviors we don’t like.
— T Clark

I agree. People are conditioned to feel certain ways, based on culture and upbringing, but I doubt it is innate. — Tom Storm

As I said to T,

the scientific claim about our moral sense is that the reason it exists is because it motivates cooperation strategies. Without punishment, free riders would destroy cooperation by exploiting others' efforts to “care for, look after, and protect” them. By “exploit,” I mean accepting help and not reciprocating. Punishment of exploiters is a necessary part of cooperation strategies.

Punishment’s necessary role in morality is an example of how science can illuminate morality.
— Mark S

Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and we can certainly (and have) cooperated to achieve violent and oppressive goals which cause mass suffering. — Tom Storm

From my OP

Limitations:

The proposed moral fact about “morality as cooperation” only addresses the morality of interactions between people. It is a fact about moral ‘means’ and is essentially silent about moral ‘ends’. It will have only some relevance, and in some cases be irrelevant, to important broad ethical questions such as “How should I live?”, “What is good?”, and “What are my obligations?”. — Mark S

And yes "we can certainly (and have) cooperated to achieve violent and oppressive goals which cause mass suffering".

Right. Our cultural moral norms and moral sense advocate and motivate cooperation with few restrictions on what people want to cooperate to do. Morality as Cooperation explains why this happens, why people can consider it moral, and why some descriptively moral cultural norms can have such horrific consequences.

That might be a useful understanding when you are trying to reason with someone who holds such views.

In science, facts (of science’s usual provisional kind) can be established by criteria such as explanatory power, simplicity, no competitive hypothesis, consistency with established science, and the like. That is the basis for claiming it is provisionally true that the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense is to solve cooperation problems.

Morality based on Divine command theory is also explained by Morality as Cooperation. Who better than an all-seeing, evil-punishing, all-powerful divinity to motivate people to act morally? Whether the divinity is real or not does not matter to believers' motivation to act morally..

Also, when thinking about the relevance of reproductive fitness to the evolution of morality, I suggest you keep in mind that increased reproductive fitness is merely how morality was encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense. What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality.

Right, and that might certainly be part of it, but does this ground the whole of morality or practical reason? For instance, we feel a strong moral commitment to our children. And yet often, we are not cooperating with them, but rather they are an unhelpful burden to us, one who returns little in positive cooperation. Indeed, in the toddler years (and surely after too), good parenting can seem more like a battle of wills than cooperation (I've always liked Charlotte Mason's remark here, that the "strong willed child" is really weak willed, because they are unable to overcome their impulses). So too for being a teacher who cares deeply about their students, and so works to overcome their bad habits rather than cooperating with them within the context of their established vices.

More to the point, when we do something out of love, we often want nothing in return. There is the desire to communicate goodness to the other for its own sake and for their sake, even if they are incapable of cooperating with us (e.g. care for the severely disabled), and even though we stand to gain no benefit.

Now, I suppose that the goal here is cooperation, in a sense, but it's a very broad sort of cooperation—the attainment of virtue and ability to participate in a common good. Man is more fully fulfilled in social roles—parts of a "good life" will tend to involve being a good father, wife, doctor, deacon, leader, citizen, etc. and so there is a benefit for the individual, but also the whole, through participation in the common good and the realization of freedom in the positive communication of goodness to others.

However, this sort of notion is generally much wider than the theories of evolutionary psychology allow (TBH, the field has always seemed to me to tend more towards Homo oecononimicus than Homo sapiens, at least in many tellings). If cooperation is understood as its representation in common evolutionary game theory models, or those of economics, it seems too shallow, precisely because it tends to focus on the individual reproducing organism or the utility maximizing (or satisfying) agent, and not the pursuit of any truly common good.

There is also the seeming counter example of genetic predispositions towards psychopathy, which is a sort of inherited tendency to game fellow humans' collective commitments. Hence, it does not seem that the evolutionary process by which man becomes more cooperative is itself necessarily oriented towards cooperation or the good, but merely whatever "works."

I suppose I am also somewhat skeptical of attempts to bracket off moral reason from practical reason. Both ultimately deal with ends, and so the Good, and they are often deeply intertwined. But practical reason involves the whole of the appetites, e.g. the good of food, or sleep, etc. as much as friendship and citizenship. Romantic love is a perfect example of where the two seem to become ineluctably bound up together. The Enlightenment idea of a sui generis moral good seems to make the Good itself strangely undesirable and alien to the world.

I mean, most people think it comes from Divine Revelation, so there's that spanner .

The theology of the largest denominations has both intrinsic and extrinsic groundings for morality. The good of man flows from man's essence, and in this sense man seeks the good by nature, and the good of man can be known by natural reason. So too, man has the telos essential to all rational natures, and so is oriented to the Good and True as such, through the rational appetites of the will and intellect respectively. God is involved in this intrinsic orientation as first cause and principle, not as extrinsic agent. However, God is also involved extrinsically, as the final end of man and, as you say, through revelation (this distinction is also why Saint Thomas' Fifth Way is actually very different from "Intelligent Design").

Hence the distinction between natural law, which can be understood by natural reason, and the divine law of revelation.




Well, I would say that man, in virtue of his rational nature, possesses both will and intellect and is thus oriented towards the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, as such, by their rational appetites, but that's a whole different case to make.

In terms of evidence for this, I would just point out that history is full of people eschewing cooperation, or all social contact, to pursue what they think is truly best. And this extends to the denial of all the appetites (asceticism), reproduction (celibacy, monasticism), accepting ostracism, forgoing social contact entierly (hermits), taking great risks and enduring great hardships for ideologies one will never benefit from (e.g. Marxist revolutionaries), and even accepting torture and martyrdom.

I'm fairly familiar with game theoretic interpretations of cooperation from economics, but as far as I can tell the thin anthropology they rest on would make much of human history unintelligible, unless the whole of "acting for higher principles," is rolled into the black box of "utility."

For instance, Socrates is the opposite of cooperative during his trial in the Apology, refuses to be helped in escaping in the Crito, etc. Rather, the gadfly annoys Athens into executing him (for their own good) and the only thing he cooperates in is drinking the hemlock.

I think you've picked up tihngs I didn't not intend from my post.

In the first instance, I was not suggesting that we can get anywhere on the facts we see. "that a lot of people agree" is simply no way to establish a fact. And morality has nothing better. In fact, it has worse, because that can only be applied 'locally' in most cases. The cases which aren't that specific (kicking puppies is wrong) speaks out an emotional response, not a fact of any kind. No one loves kicking puppies, but says it's also wrong.

In the second instance, No. It is explained by those individuals deeply-held belief that the Divine revelation is, inarguably, the only source of moral guidance and is infallible. This has lead to the least co-operative aspects of the entire human project, consistently.

I take almost everything here (and its underlying discussions in things like Boethius and Aquinas) as essentially post-hoc nonsense justifying what is self-evidently bad reasoning. These are all aspects of a belief system which relies on Divine command for its supporting structure. There is no kind of reasoning that can get us to a Divine morality without a Divine source. Otherwise, you're talking about something other than Divine Revelation as a basis for morality among hte religious. And that's fine too! Just not at all what I'm talking about. The vast, vast, vast majority of religious people are not theologians and base their morality on an instruction booklet written by morons.

Hi T, the scientific claim about our moral sense is that the reason it exists is because it motivates cooperation strategies. Without punishment, free riders would destroy cooperation by exploiting others' efforts to “care for, look after, and protect” them. By “exploit,” I mean accepting help and not reciprocating. Punishment of exploiters is a necessary part of cooperation strategies. — Mark S

A Hobbesian position. You're arguing that there is 1) morality and 2) it's implementation, which are made up of two separate domains - cooperation and coercion. Sure, you can argue that coercion is needed to ensure compliance by certain society members. But this is an entirely separate project from what constitutes morality. Whether punishment is necessary for morality to function effectively is a separate philosophical claim, isn't it? Morality can stand alone and whether people follow it or not is separate matter to identifying what morality is.

In the West, I would argue that what we have is a code of conduct derived from moral positions. These might also be described as community standards and they are enforced by penalties, fines and prison time (unless you can bypass these through discreet use of lawyers, usually based upon your personal wealth). It's the poor who tend to disproportionately cop the penalties.

What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality.
— Mark S
You may not care about the species, but I expect you will find you prefer to live in a cooperative society. — Mark S

I think you're suggesting that "cooperation strategies" is how we ought to fill in "universal function," above. The point of the evolutionary work is to inculcate these strategies. That may be so. But doesn't the standard objection still apply? Suppose I don't prefer to live in a cooperative society, or even actively prefer to do what I can to harm it? Is this immoral because it goes against our evolutionary imperatives, or because there is actually something wrong about it? I think it's clear at this point that we can't simply collapse the difference and say that "wrong" just means "against the evolutionary imperatives," yes?

Most claims to 'moral facts' rely on a shared acceptance of same. But that's not quite how facts work. — AmadeusD

I like that.

I’d say, mystically, human beings are the moral fact in the universe. Conscience is a sui generis, aspect of human being that exists nowhere else in the universe. The only reason to care what I think is because you are human too and might be able to see something similar as what I see. So a moral fact, that would work like other facts work, would only be derived from contact with other human beings and their consciences.

Eyes sense and organize light for the consciousness.
Conscience detects other human beings (minds), and compares what such human beings actually do (actions) with what such creature’s minds appear to be doing (intent) and finds ought in between them.

We can analogously say “that dog is being bad” but that is metaphor, because dogs don’t seem to have a conscience at all.

So finding moral conscience awareness in evolution or survival, finding moral facts outside of human beings, overlooks the fact that only a human mind can sense or detect the difference between what is and what ought to be.

Hi T, the scientific claim about our moral sense is that the reason it exists is because it motivates cooperation strategies. Without punishment, free riders would destroy cooperation by exploiting others' efforts to “care for, look after, and protect” them. By “exploit,” I mean accepting help and not reciprocating. Punishment of exploiters is a necessary part of cooperation strategies. — Mark S

I don't find this a convincing argument. You don't have to punish bad guys, you just have to stop them. There doesn't need to be a moral judgment to protect vulnerable people.

Michael Tomasello ‘Human morality arose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives for cooperating with others’ (Tomasello & Vaish, 2013 ) — Mark S

How the hell does he know? How would you possibly demonstrate that? Evolutionary biology is full of what Stephen J. Gould called "just-so stories" about how specific behaviors evolved for specific purposes. That's not science, it's just "seems to me," speculation.

Here's something you might be interested in. I think it's relevant. First, a link to a "The Moral Baby," an essay by Karen Wynn.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf

Also - a link to a 60 Minutes episode that discusses Wynn's work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU

When I first watched the show, it knocked my sox off. I guess it could be seen as an argument against my position. I'm not sure about that.

Well, I would say that man, in virtue of his rational nature, possesses both will and intellect and is thus oriented towards the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, as such, by their rational appetites, but that's a whole different case to make. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. You're talking about morality from an entirely different perspective than I am. We're using entirely different language. I think you and I have had this conversation before in other threads. I don't see any empty spaces where we can fit anything about evolution into your argument.

I don't see any empty spaces where we can fit anything about evolution into your argument.

Quite the contrary, you can fit evolution in via the "metaphysics of goodness" in Aristotle, the "Neoplatonic tradition," Thomism, Schelling, and Hegelianism in a number of interesting and satisfying ways. Charles Sanders Peirce and Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov represent two appealing directions (both being students of the Patristic/Scholastic tradition and German Idealism), although I'm more partial to the latter. David Bentley Hart is pretty good about this topic too.

Quite the contrary, you can fit evolution in via the "metaphysics of goodness" in Aristotle, the "Neoplatonic tradition," Thomism, Schelling, and Hegelianism in a number of interesting and satisfying ways. Charles Sanders Peirce and Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov represent two appealing directions (both being students of the Patristic/Scholastic tradition and German Idealism), although I'm more partial to the latter. David Bentley Hart is pretty good about this topic too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me if morality developed biologically through evolution then it could have developed differently than it did. How is that not relativism? Or do we have nothing against relativism?”

1. Facts are always about what is the case.
2. What ought to be the case is manifestly not inevitably what is the case.

The prosecution rests.

It seems to me if morality developed biologically through evolution then it could have developed differently than it did. — T Clark

Yes. And if one is content to say that morality "just means" whatever evolution equipped us with in terms of group behaviors, there'd be no argument; sure it could have been different, if conditions were different. But that is not what (most of us) want to know about morality. We want to know, in addition to any evolutionary facts, whether there is something actually good or right about the behaviors it encourages. Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations?

And if one is content to say that morality "just means" whatever evolution equipped us with in terms of group behaviors, there'd be no argument; sure it could have been different, if conditions were different. — J

I would say moral theory is more sociology than philosophy. Morals fill a social and political role. Then again, I guess that statement is moral philosophy.

Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations? — J

I’m not sure it’s foolish, but it does seem like people want to have it both ways.

Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations?
— J

I’m not sure it’s foolish, but it does seem like people want to have it both ways. — T Clark

The ones who like evolutionary explanations of morality, but also hold out for the traditional meanings, do want to have it both ways, yes. That's one reason I don't think we should spend much time on the evolutionary (or sociological) question. It will never get us the philosophical answers we're looking for. The same thing applies to the point @Count Timothy von Icarus was making earlier about theoretical reason: No doubt there's an evolutionary explanation for that too, but it doesn't actually explain any of the interesting problems about rationality.

That's one reason I don't think we should spend much time on the evolutionary (or sociological) question. — J

Do you mean we shouldn’t spend much time as philosopher’s, or in general?

Beyond that, I disagree. I think the sociological or biological explanation undermine the basis for some moral positions. I have stated several times here on the forum that I see most of what we call morality as a form of social control, meant to grease the gears.

Do you mean we shouldn’t spend much time as philosopher’s, or in general? — T Clark

Oh, as philosophers. The scientific questions are important and interesting, but best left to the appropriate specialists.

I think the sociological or biological explanation undermine the basis for some moral positions. — T Clark

Yes, this is the key question. If we did have a convincing sociological or biological (I'll just say "scientific" from now on) explanation for why people form moral beliefs, would that also show us that the content of those beliefs must be mistaken, or at least misunderstood by those who hold them?

Probably to get any further with that, we'd need to be more specific about which moral positions we're talking about. I notice you say some moral positions. Which do you think are most vulnerable to scientific deconstruction here?

If we did have a convincing sociological or biological (I'll just say "scientific" from now on) explanation for why people form moral beliefs, — J

I think we do have a convincing, or at least plausible, incomplete scientific explanation.

the content of those beliefs must be mistaken, or at least misunderstood by those who hold them? — J

A good question. Here’s my personal take. I see most public morality as a form of social control, there to lubricate the wheels of social interaction. There are good reasons to follow the rules of society 1) to show respect for our community, 2) to keep from being punished, 3) because we think the rules are reasonable and effective. But sometimes there may also be good reasons not to follow those rules, or at least to question them. When that happens, the difference between morality and social control is important. There’s a difference between doing what’s right, and doing what’s expected of you.

But sometimes there may also be good reasons not to follow those rules, or at least to question them. When that happens, the difference between morality and social control is important. There’s a difference between doing what’s right, and doing what’s expected of you. — T Clark

Yes, I think so too. So what we're asking is, Is that "difference" also something that can be subsumed under the same scientific explanation from which we derive the theory of morality as social control? Maybe I'm not getting exactly what you mean yet, but it seems to me that is impossible. Doesn't the theory have to account for all we want to say about morality? How can it leave an escape clause for things that are actually right, as opposed to learned or evolved rule-following behaviors?

We treat others with kindness and compassion because we like each other. The fact that we came to like each other through the actions of natural selection doesn’t change that fact. — T Clark

Exactly my view. And I think this is true for non-human animals as well. A walking horse will not step on this bird that is sitting on the ground along the path; the horse prefers to not kill that bird. One could call this behaviour "behavouristic". But that's no answer. Actions are accompanied by feelings. I think it doesn't matter whether the "mechnical reflex" is caused by the feeling or vice versa -- or if it's just a correlation. The feeling of "liking something" is just there and it's very powerful.