Should You Feel Guilty When You Break the Law? Implications of Theory of Evolution on Morality

[VetLegion]

Filosofers throughout the ages have spent a lot of time pondering morality. What are the proper laws of conduct? Where do they come from, how do we know that they are proper? We feel right from wrong, but how, what, WTF?

Then comes Darwin and drops the bombshell. Evolution. We are all vessels built to propagate our genes to the next generation, make as many copies as possible (those are not his words, but it comes to that).

Astounding number of human behaviours is explained by this. Even weird ones, like altruism.

Right and wrong? Simple reciprocity, hardcoded during millions of years of evolution.

I mean, this isn't just another theory. It is huge. Immense. An elephant in the glass factory. Do you ever stop to think about the implications?

Take for example "rule of law". We are taught to obey the law, always, even when it is to our personal detriment.

Yet now we know the whole story of how it came to that. In the beginning we lived in small inbred groups of relatives. Helping them made a lot of sense since we shared a lot of genetic material. Obeying the rules ensured peace, peace meant cooperation and prosperity and furthering of genes.

Rule of law is still demanded... except, we don't live among relatives any more. I believe it still makes evolutionary sense to obey the law, although it may take some roundabout elaborating why it is so.

However, it is quite possible that one of the main enforcement mechanisms, guilt, is a misused remnant of our ape history. What do you think?

Come to think of it, is guilt even present that much? Or is it all fear? Do people always steal if they can be absolutely positive they won't be caught?

[Docfeelgood]

I did not do it!

[ZEE]

About 3 robberies a month, at least a dozen homicides a year average.

[Jon Miller]

That doesn't sound too bad.

JM

[Theben]

I think you're overlooking justification, which will determine one's actions. Morality is a component of this, but if the desire for a result that breaks the rule of law can be justified by some means that outweighs morality & other barriers (unlikely to be caught/punished), it'll happen.

[Dauphin]

I think people usually feel guilty more than fearful when they can experience any empathy with the victim.

An interesting study is the reasons why people lie. Most people lie most of the time, yet we say it is wrong to lie and generally dislike lying. It is a contradiction in our nature.

[ZEE]

people do not feel guilt only greed.

[Nugog]

It is fascinating living here in PNG.

Many of the things that I as a "westerner" are forgein to the PNG Nationals - any many differences are of a moral or right/wrong nature.

Many of my staff are polygamists. This is no big deal to them.

Certain regions sell women via "brideprice". This is not some cute ritual - it is a real market value mechanism to determine the value of your "meri pikinini" or girl child.

Killing someone- no big deal to many of the cultural groups here.

It has lead me to believe that the morals we have - we learn.

There is no inherent right or wrong.

There is a fear of getting caught - but again in this country - immediate need/impulse outweighs this.

[Nugog]

people do not feel guilt only greed.

Well - IMO - greed certainly usually outweights guilt.

[Traianvs]

In that respect, is our current system really that much different from the old one? Peace still means prosperity and a better chance to furthering our genes. Genes do not make distinction who it is you're living with, since they don't have a conscience. Family or no family, peace is still the way to go.

As long as the environment has abundant resources of course. I don't have to explain to you that if overpopulation (in terms of too many individuals per available resource units) occurs, peace is a bad strategy. War and egoism on the other hand...

Which in turn is why the most horrible atrocities happen mostly during wartime. It pays off

Diamond's 'Collapse' which I'm reading now is quite thought-inspiring about this btw

[Darius871]

Filosofers throughout the ages have spent a lot of time pondering morality. What are the proper laws of conduct? Where do they come from, how do we know that they are proper? We feel right from wrong, but how, what, WTF?

Then comes Darwin and drops the bombshell. Evolution. We are all vessels built to propagate our genes to the next generation, make as many copies as possible (those are not his words, but it comes to that).

Astounding number of human behaviours is explained by this. Even weird ones, like altruism.

Right and wrong? Simple reciprocity, hardcoded during millions of years of evolution.

I mean, this isn't just another theory. It is huge. Immense. An elephant in the glass factory. Do you ever stop to think about the implications?

Take for example "rule of law". We are taught to obey the law, always, even when it is to our personal detriment.

Yet now we know the whole story of how it came to that. In the beginning we lived in small inbred groups of relatives. Helping them made a lot of sense since we shared a lot of genetic material. Obeying the rules ensured peace, peace meant cooperation and prosperity and furthering of genes.

Rule of law is still demanded... except, we don't live among relatives any more. I believe it still makes evolutionary sense to obey the law, although it may take some roundabout elaborating why it is so.

However, it is quite possible that one of the main enforcement mechanisms, guilt, is a misused remnant of our ape history. What do you think?

Come to think of it, is guilt even present that much? Or is it all fear? Do people always steal if they can be absolutely positive they won't be caught?

Yeah, everybody broods over this crap at some time in their lives and it's pointless to expect a straight answer from anybody.

On a road trip last week three basic questions came to mind for me that no atheist or theist I know has been able to sufficiently answer except with blind faith in subjectively derived principles. If someone here can do better I'd be seriously impressed and grateful:

1) In the total absence of god (and by that I don't necessarily mean a humanoid with a flowing white beard; it could just as easily be some ethereal "force" for justice and balance in the universe), what possible explanation can the atheist come up with for anything resembling an objective morality? In other words, how can the atheist explain that to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, injure, rape, kill, hoard luxury amidst starvation of others, etc. etc. etc. is "wrong," without hypocritically resorting to the very same baseless faith of which they accuse the religious?

(If there is no answer to #1, skip to #3; otherwise proceed to #2.)

2) Can that explanation of an atheistic yet objective morality be simplified and condensed to a form that the undereducated masses can comprehend, accept, and use as an actual guide of their day-to-day behavior, with the same effectiveness as very simple religious commandments coupled with hell's deterrence? (Note: I'm talking about the people on COPS and Jerry Springer here, not exceptional people like yourself that contemplate these things at length.)

(If the answer to #2 is no, proceed to #3.)

3) Suppose for the sake of argument that 25% of any given group of people born are inherently selfish, amoral, hedonistic utility-maximizing sociopaths, i.e. they act morally ONLY insofar as they are compelled by [positive law's severity of punishment] multiplied by [the perceived probability of getting caught].

Starting with that premise, then suppose society X of 100 million people where 80 million have been conditioned by upbringing to believe in a god that does not exist, meaning A) 20 million (25% of that 80%) WOULD regularly take advantage of and harm others in myriad ways "but for" their religious belief, which purports a maximum conceivable punishment (eternal hell) multiplied by 100% probability of getting caught (omniscience), and B) that 20 million WOULD NOT engage in anywhere near as much volunteering, charitable contributions, and day-to-day "good Samaritan" deeds "but for" their religious belief, which purports a maximum conceivable reward (eternal heaven) multiplied by 100% probability of their good deeds being noticed (omniscience).

Even though their belief is in fact false, would the social benefit of that false belief's disappearance outweigh the social harm of "unleashing" those 20 million sociopaths on the rest of society?



Here's where I stand on these questions thus far:

1) Absolutely not, and nobody has ever neared convincing me otherwise. Some would say it might be found in nature, but unfortunately that's a terrible and downright dangerous gauge. Granted, the example of a cheetah downing a gazelle is less analogous in the human world to murder than it is to shooting a deer and making a burger out of it, so that doesn't violate what we regard as "right" (except vegetarians). However, consider also societal relations, like how the alpha male in a lion pride selfishly appropriates disproportionate reproductive resources for himself, and maintains this oppression through threatened and actual violence against weaker males. This is inconsistent with my baseless faith in the "moral" principle that "all men are created equal and should be treated as such" and "women should be free to chose their partners," and rather any attempt to draw a moral code from nature would logically bring the principle that "the strong shall dominate the weak" and "women are property," which neither I nor the vast majority of people would ever accept. Or consider sexual relations, like how male animals frequently grab and hump females that are obviously uncomfortable and try to get away. This is inconsistent with my baseless faith in the "moral" principle that "women must openly consent to any sexual contact," and rather any attempt to draw a moral code from nature would logically bring the principle that "men can rape whomever they want whenever they damned well please," which neither I nor the vast majority of people would ever accept.

Examples abound, but the point is clear enough. If anything, a moral code drawn from nature would more resemble social Darwinist or even Nazi ideology than the classical-liberal society we enjoy today. I'm adamantly partial to the latter, but I'm willing to admit that I have nothing more than baseless faith in what's "right" to back that up, not anything resembling the scientific method. If anyone can seriously point out a faithless, scientific basis for objective morality, I'll eat my hat. Until then it seems like the height of intellectually dishonest hypocrisy for one to be atheist on the one hand but on the other hand refuse to embrace purely situational ethics, the latter of which I find extremely dangerous.

2) I haven't read any significant atheist literature, but I'm guessing it fails this second test miserably. The fact that it makes sense to you or I has no bearing on its ability to guide day-to-day actions of trailer trash who NEED the simplicity of "don't do X or you roast in hell for eternity."

3) I'm kindasorta on the fence with this one. It all goes back to Carlin's bit about how religion was devised by elites as a control mechanism, which gave me the question: "even SUPPOSING it's both false AND a means to control people, SO WHAT? What if they NEED that control to act morally, in which case the end (net gain in morality across society) justifies the means (perpetuating an admittedly false belief), and therefore there's a reason to be a 'pro-religion atheist'"?

On the one hand, A) the argument that the scenario above omits the social "benefit" of ending violent religious fanaticism doesn't convince me one bit, because it accounts for only a miniscule fringe of that 80%, and I'm convinced that its adherents already suffer from underlying psychiatric problems (whether of situational or neurological origin) which would manifest themselves even in the absence of religion, whether by outbursts of purposeless antisocial crime like Columbine or in the name of purely secular ideologies (Communism, Nazism, anarchism, anti-globalization, environmentalism, take your pick), so ending religion brings little to no social benefit with respect to them, let alone one big enough to "outweigh" the social harm of unleashing upon innocents every "sociopath-but-for-religiously-inspired-deterrence." B) I also don't buy the argument that laws and police, even with better funding, would be a solution to the unleashed sociopaths, first because we all know most people laugh at the extremely low probability of getting caught, secondly because many people don't fear punishment even if caught, and thirdly because there are countless unquestionably unethical acts which are NOT illegal and couldn't practicably be made illegal.

On the other hand, C) this scenario ultimately boils down to the basic question of whether man is born inherently good or evil prior to conditioning by life, and this question is unknowable because we're all already products of conditioning, and because our life experiences and the pool of people we've individually met determine our impression of human nature. Maybe my hypothetical's 25% estimate is extremely low, in which case ending false religion could cause the collapse of society altogether, but maybe 25% is extremely high, in which case enough of society will be innately moral to keep the rest in line. Since there's no way of knowing either way with present science, there's little rational basis to fear the consequences of religion's demise. D) What's more, the increased social cost of victims' losses, increased police & court funding, etc. might be a small price to pay for a society that rejects an ends-justify-the-means mentality and values truth.


So bottom line, #3 concerns me so much that even if I took the leap from my current lukewarm agnosticism to vehement atheism, I would still AT LEAST be a "pro-religion atheist" no matter how oxymoronic that sounds, and I don't think I'll ever be convinced on #1-#2. Maybe it's just my semi-autistic LaPlacian determinist view of the world as an engine of pure causality in which all human beings are merely cogs inevitably conditioned by circumstance toward behavior indistinguishable from clockwork, changing of the tides, or revolution of planets, but I can't shake the idea that the fact that what I regard as "right" or "wrong" is identical to what the majority regards as "right" or "wrong" is only a coincidence inculcated by fortunate upbringing and nothing more, and that an upbringing in the most desolate ghetto would have ingrained an entirely different set of (or complete absence of) morals, meaning that no objective morality, extrinsic to the individual, exists absent god. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with lacking objective morality, since there'd have to be an objective morality to declare its lacking bad. And so on. [/tldr rant]

[Kidlicious]

I see one huge problem with this theory. That is, following the rules is not sexy.

[Theben]

1) If every individual was acting in this fashion society would break down and the result would be everyone was worse off. So it's in the vast majority's self-interest to follow rule of law, which are based off moral codes of conduct for the most part. Any 'moral' implication at the personal level would IMO be limited to how the person wanted to be viewed by others, say a family member... this could restrain their conduct.

2) There's no such thing as objective morality. That said, you could say, "Do [x] because it's in your self-interest/ right thing to do." The question is will people accept it as dogma the same way they accept religion. Religion having the added bonus of the threat of damnation, it would be a harder sell.

3) The 25% will or won't be cowed by the same factor that affects them today: might makes right. The 'might' in this case is the law, police, and society in general, which is much stronger than any individual.

[Darius871]

2) There's no such thing as objective morality.

If by that you mean "to rape, torture, and kill a child is not 'wrong' per se, but it's certainly not my particular cup of tea," at least I can admire the consistency. Unfortunately many avowed atheists I've known and read still believe that some things are "right" or "wrong" in an objective sense, which is patently hypocritical.

1) If every individual was acting in this fashion society would break down and the result would be everyone was worse off.

That was precisely the point I was trying to make throughout; namely that the presence of religion, even if false, may be a lesser evil than a potential societal breakdown in its absence.

3) The 25% will or won't be cowed by the same factor that affects them today: might makes right. The 'might' in this case is the law, police, and society in general, which is much stronger than any individual.

Already pre-empted, though maybe not well enough:

3)B) I also don't buy the argument that laws and police, even with better funding, would be a solution to the unleashed sociopaths, first because we all know most people laugh at the extremely low probability of getting caught, secondly because many people don't fear punishment even if caught, and thirdly because there are countless unquestionably unethical acts which are NOT illegal and couldn't practicably be made illegal.

I might add that 25% is a purely hypothetical number for the mind exercise. Since the fundamental question of whether man is inherently good or evil hasn't been sufficiently answered by silence, it's possible that the number could be much higher, to the point of overwhelming society's defenses. Or it could be less, though that doesn't correspond with my anecdotal experience. I admit the way we approach that question is mostly determined by who we've happened to meet, but there it is.

[Imran Siddiqui]

While we don't have close knit groups of relatives as existed early on in human history, we've been socially conditioned to believe that our country (or area) are something closer than just random strangers. So we feel something for them more than we do for others. So when Americans die in an accident along with foreigners, news sources in the US will always mention the American numbers because we in the US want to know that in this tragedy how many of our "national family" (for lack of a better term) survived.