I don't see how. Why should we do as evolution says? — Banno

Why not?

Here are the reasons why I think we should follow these trends:

• They are powerful, and neither will they change, nor can we change them. It is better to accept them and adapt intelligently to the 21st century.

• If we aim to act in accordance with these trends, including using reason to put them into practice, we must behave in ways like those suggested by many philosophers who have addressed ethical principles.

• It is reasonable to have doubts about whether we should follow them or not, but I don't think anyone can prove they are harmful to humanity's future.

Recognizing these trends could be a way to spark some consensus among humanity, as they benefit many, are easy to explain and understand, and naturally encourage compliance. However, we should not expect power structures to contribute, as their interests often diverge from those of humanity

Candidly, evolution is appealing becasue it offers folk a way to avoid responsibility for their choices.

I do not think there exist any moral principles if an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true. This is because of a distinction - often missed in the moral domain - between appearances and reality. An evolutionary account of our development would include an account of how it was adaptive for us - or rather, our ancestors - to get the impression that some ways of behaving are called for, and others forbidden (and called for and forbidden by some external authority). But that is not an evolutionary account of how morality developed. No. It is an evolutionary account of how it conferred an advantage on our ancestors for reality to 'appear' to them to have a moral aspect to it. No mention is made of morality itself. And so an evolutionary account of our development makes no mention of any real moral principles or values, just the appearance of such things.

To suppose that an evolutonary account of our development somehow vindicates the reality of morality is, I think, every bit as confused as thinking that an evolutionary account of how it people got the impression there was a god or gods vindicates religious beliefs. That is to say, it does not vindicate them at all, but undermines them.

To elaborate further, consider the difference between the size, shape and location of physical things versus their colour. It would have conferred a reproductive advantage on our ancestors to develop faculties of sense that gave them fairly accurate impressions of the size, shape and location of physical things in their immediate environment. Why? Because if you make systematic errors in judgement about those things, then you'll be killed by those physical objects quite rapidly. Your reproductive career will be over before it began.

That account is vindicatory of the impressions of the size, location and shape of things (at least in our immediate environment). That is to say, such an evolutionary account explains why our sight and touch will be fairly accurate in what they tell us about the size, shape and location of things immediately around us.

But now consider colour. Although seeing things as coloured would aid in us being able to perceive their size, shape and location, it wouldn't matter what particular colours things are. What would matter is just that we perceive them to have some colour and that we perceive contrasts. Specific colours would not particularly mater. And thus, an evolutionary account of the development of our faculty of sight would give us reason to think that the actual colour of things in reality may not very reliably match the colours we perceive things to have.....in fact, parsimony would favour us concluding that in reality nothing has any colour at all and that colours are projections of our mind that enable our faculty of sight to work, but are not features of the things we perceive by means of them.

So that's a debunking account of colour: given an evolutionary account of our development, it is more reasonable to suppose colour is not a feature of reality but a projection of our mind.

Thus thought our sight gives us the impression there are coloured, sized, located and shaped things, it is acutally only the size, location and shape that we have reason to think are real features of teh mind-independent objects, not colour.

The impression there are moral principles and moral values is akin to the visual impression of a coloured world. It conferred an advantage on our ancestors to get the impression things were coloured, but not because things are actually coloured, but because that way they could get the impression of the actual size, shape and location of things (features things really have). And likewise, getting the impression there are moral principles conferred an advantage because it encouraged behaviour that was adaptive, rather than because there were actual moral pricniples there to be perceived and whose misperception would kill one.

The problem, as I see it, with this line of reasoning is that it will discredit too much. For everything I have just said about the impression there are moral principles, applies more generally to the impression there are principles of reason. Given an evolutionary account of our development, there is no reason to think there are any such principles in reality that the appearances reflect. Merely being disposed to believe in such things is what would have conferred the reproductive advantage on our ancestors.

But if we conclude that therefore there are no principles of reason in reality, then we are concluding that we have no reason to believe anything.....including that! Yet we only have reason to think an evolutionary account of our development is correct if we in fact have reason to believe it. And if there is in fact reason to believe it, then at least some principles of reason exist. And so something has gone wrong somewhere, it seems to me....though it is not entirely clear where..... The paradoxical situation this creates is that either an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true - in which case we have no reason to believe it is true (for there are no reasons to believe anything under those circumstances), or we have reason to believe an evolutionary account of our development is true, in which case we also have reason to think it is not the whole story, for if it were we wouldn't have any reason to believe it

I do not think there exist any moral principles if an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true. — Clearbury

Seems to me that that's becasue you pretty much have missed the point.

And so something has gone wrong somewhere, it seems to me....though it is not entirely clear where..... — Clearbury

Keep going.

There are times when we talk about what is the case. We talk about the meat on the grill, the beer in the cup.

But when the food runs out, after the conversation, it's time to actually do something. And here there is a fundamental difference, becasue we are no longer talking about how things are, but what we are going to do about it.

The direction of the conversation changes from making the words match how things are to making the how things are match the world.

How we are to change the world is a fundamentally different question to what the world is like. If you look for what you ought do out there in the world, of course you will not find an answer. Your hunger is not out there in the world.

We can do whatever we want. But what should we do?

This is what sits behind the is/ought distinction.

I'm sorry, but I don't think anything you just said addresses anything I said.

The color analogy is a good one.

I don't think anything you just said addresses anything I said. — Clearbury

Presumably you evolved so as to say that...

Cheers, though I can't really take any credit as others have made it and I too just find it to illustrate the point quite vividly.

I believe it was Locke who first argued that size, shape and location are objective features of things, whereas colour is not (things merely have a disposition to cause colour sensations in us, but the colour isn't there on the object itself). He didn't make an evolutionary argument for that, but I believe he's the first to have suggested that colour is projected onto the world by us, whereas size, shape and location are real features that we perceive (more or less accurately).

I think that's an open question. Depends on how the paradox is resolved.

evolution is appealing becasue it offers folk a way to avoid responsibility for their choices. — Banno

Sorry, no, this ignores that evolution gave us reason.

I think that's an open question. Depends on how the paradox is resolved. — Clearbury

Well, you would think that... it's what you evolved to think.

Sorry, no, this ignores that evolution gave us reason. — Questioner

Ah, reasons, not causes. Then we might choose to do otherwise than what evolution says?

Well, you would think that... it's what you evolved to think. — Banno

That's question begging. Whether that's the whole story or not is precisely what the paradox calls into question.

That's question begging. — Clearbury

I'm not sure how you are using that term.


But the paradox you speak of relies on much the same error you made in thinking that becasue you could not find moral principles lying around like rocks and chairs, they do not exist. Reason is also just not that sort of thing, not "found" but "performed". Sometimes badly.

Ah, reasons, not causes. Then we might choose to do otherwise than what evolution says? — Banno

I said reason, not reasons. The ability to think things through.

Our evolution did not produce an automaton. It produced a species with enormous imaginative and creative powers. We are a wonder! We are not simple. Evolution produced our ability to choose from an array of choices. Evolution produced our ability to weigh consequences. Evolution produced our ability to question. Evolution produced three pounds of grey matter that rocks.

By 'question begging' I mean the vice of assuming the truth of that which needed to be demonstrated.

You have strawmanned my argument. I gave, I think, a relatively detailed explanation of why we would have reason to conclude there are no moral principles in reality (just a widespread belief in such things) given an evolutionary account of our development. I did not merely point out that moral principles are not sized, located and shaped things and then conclude on that basis alone that they do not exist (as you're implying). I explained why a disposition to form approximately accurate beliefs about the size location and shape of things would confer a reproductive advantage if there actually are such things, whereas a disposition to form a belief about a moral principle would (depending on its content) confer a reproductive advantage even if the principle did not exist. And it is on that basis that I concluded we would have reason to think the principles themselves did not exist. (On parsimony grounds: if we do not have to posit any actual principles in order to explain how the belief in them would have conferred an advantage, then parsimony tells us not to posit the actual principles, just the beliefs in them...which are now all false, of course).

Note my comparison with religious beliefs. Presumably you agree that an evolutionary account of how adaptive it may have been to believe in God does not provide us with reason to think there actually is a God? it provides us with reason to think God does not exist, as we can explain why people are disposed to believe in God without having to posit God. That's the same argument. An evolutionary account of belief in God implies atheism, not theism; and an evolutionary account of our belief in moral principles implies moral nihilism, not moral realism.

I said reason, not reasons. — Questioner

Ah, so your reason doesn't give you reasons? Odd.

Evolution produced our ability to choose from an array of choices. — Questioner

Cheers. so we agree that evolution does not tell us what to do, but ethics is about what we ought choose.

By 'question begging' I mean the vice of assuming the truth of that which needed to be demonstrated. — Clearbury

Ah, good. So many folk think otherwise these days. what was the truth I presumed?

You have strawmanned my argument. — Clearbury

I don't think so. You said you could not find moral principles in an evolved world. I pointed out that you are looking int he wrong place.

I don't think so. You said you could not find moral principles in an evolved world. I pointed out that you are looking int he wrong place. — Banno

As I hope I have now clarified, that was not the argument I made. The point is not about where one looks, for it really does not matter by what mechanism we come to believe in moral principles (the same argument would go through even if moral principles were seen with the eyes). The point is about whether one needs to posit the actual principles in order to be able to explain why a belief in them would confer a reproductive advantage, or whether the belief alone would do the trick.

As for the matter under debate: well I take the paradox that an evolutionary account of our development to present us with is that if we are wholly evolved, then we have no reason to think we are. And so if we have reason to think we are evolved, we also have reason to think that's not the entire story. Whether that's really the situation we find ourselves in is the matter under contention. And so we are not entitled to take it for granted that we are wholly evolved, so long as that assumption generates the dilemma I described.

The point is about whether one needs to posit the actual principles in order to be able to explain why a belief in them would confer a reproductive advantage, or whether the belief alone would do the trick. — Clearbury

So you have given up on working out what we ought do, and decided that we only do what we evolved to do?

...I take the paradox that an evolutionary account of our development to present us with is that if we are wholly evolved... — Clearbury

Wholly? As opposed to partially? Or are you again saying we can only do as evolution dictates?

I guess you evolved to say that.

So you have given up on working out what we ought do, and decided that we only do what we evolved to do? — Banno

No, because it seems premature to conclude that there are no moral principles in reality until the paradox is resolved. Plus I am not sure how i can really reach the conclusion that there are no moral principles without assuming the reality of principles of reason, and those are just as much jeopardized by the evolutionary account as the moral principles are.

Given that at the moment I take this to be puzzling and do not see a clear way to resolve it, I continue to believe in the reality of moral principles.

Wholly? As opposed to partially? — Banno

Yes, as opposed to partially. An evolutionary account can be true and not the whole story. If we have evidential reason to think that there really are principles of reason given a wholly evolutionary story of our development, then a wholly evolutionary story wins, probably. But if we find that we have no reason to think there are any principles of reason given a wholly evolutionary story of our development, then it doesn't and we have reason to think it's only partial and not the whole story.

Yes, as opposed to partially. — Clearbury

Ah. teleology.

Not sure what you mean. If supposing a wholly evolutionary story is correct lands us with a reality bereft of principles of reason - something I am unsure it does, but that it at least seems to do - then exactly what kind of backstory needs to be supposed in order to restore them to the scene remains an open question. We can know that a wholly evolutionary story is false, without having to know what the true whole story is.

Plato thought that moral principles require Forms. I think there are good reasons to resist that view. But if moral principles do require Forms, then that's going to be true of principles of reason more generally. Forms do not feature in an evolutionary story of our development. The 'whole' story would therefore need to include them in some way.

I am not endorsing the Platonic view about the ontology of moral principles and principles of reason more generally, just pointing out that it's a view that does not seem correctly characterized as 'teleological', yet is in the mix and is, perhaps - coherence pending - part of the whole story.

Odd. Seems we haven't cleared up the word "whole". So do you mean "whole" as in evolved to an end point or "whole" as in only evolution serves as an explanation?

Whole as in 'entire'. What's odd?

Fucksake.

"Wholly evolved" as in having reached an endpoint or "wholly evolved" as in only owing to evolution and nothing else.

I'm losing interest quickly here.

What a rude person you are. I won't be responding to you again.

I won't be responding to you again. — Clearbury

Meh. You haven't yet.

@Questioner

We agree on many things, among others, that animal instincts are also within us; we share the same origin. However, humans have additional characteristics: intelligence, freedom, and consciousness.

The world is at a very complicated moment. We should all reflect on the end we might face if we continue this way. When something doesn’t work, we must change our approach. Philosophy should help us organize reason but also draw practical conclusions that shed light on solving today’s problems.
If we do not understand where we are, we cannot know where we should go.

We don’t know the cause, but the truth is that a long evolution following very specific tendencies has led to our appearance on Earth. We are free humans, endowed with intelligence, yet without preexisting knowledge, and with a consciousness that, if we choose, we can develop to perceive our self, our environment, and the role we are meant to adopt.

Whether we like it or not, we must make decisions continuously, thereby shaping our life and our world. What criteria do we use to decide? What our body asks of us? The fake news that reaches our phones? What the leader of our political party, in whom we trust blindly, suggests? What our religion or favourite philosophers tell us? Do we let ourselves be guided by the instincts embedded in our genes that stem from the animal world? It is crucial to reason and strive to agree on criteria for action.

You already know my stance: We have powerful and persistent evolutionary tendencies that influence us, and from them, through reason, we can derive permanent principles to guide our behavior. Our role is to ensure that the trends of evolution are intelligently implemented in our world.

Some of you may disagree, but in that case, you should explain what these ethical principles that humans should accept are, and where they come from. Can philosophy contribute to establishing ethical principles that could be easily explained and accepted by people of different beliefs and cultures?