GP, to answer your questions further, so that we don't bog down in semantics, we need a common definition of morality. Descriptive morality differs from normative definitions of morality. Religious
morality takes a different slant again to secular morality. Secular morality is how our behaviour affects others, religious morality goes further, claiming things like homosexuality, masturbation etc to be immoral.

My own view is this: We evolved as a social species, to include in our behaviour, traits which are good for the harmonious coexistence of our species and its survival. Not killing our own, empathy, altruism and reciprocal altruism, nurturing etc, are all grounded in biology and are the basis for normative definitions of morality.

Out of that we can then reason about so called descriptive morality,
one definition is: "Morality is an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behaviour that affects others, and has the lessening of evil or harm as its goal"

Based on those reasonings, your slaves would not be seen as moral and nor would your Mr X killer.

So what is your definition of morality?

Morality is about how we should live – there are normative moral facts that tell us that there are some things we ought to do and some things we ought not do. I believe these moral facts are objective and universal and given by God.

You say that you believe that our moral norms have evolved because they assist the survival of the species. I have a couple of problems with this. Firstly, it seems to require that there must be some sort of biological imperative for life to continue and flourish. But if materialistic evolution is true, then there are no imperatives at all. Life has just happened to occur and if life should happen to cease then that is neither here nor there – that is just what has happened to occur. ‘Nature’ neither knows nor cares whether there is life or not. We, human beings, might care but we are at the wrong end of the evolutionary tree.

Secondly, if you are correct, human beings may regard moral feelings as having been biologically useful in so far as they may have helped get us to this point in our evolution, but why should we care about them now? We know that they are not true – we don’t really have any moral obligations in an evolved materialistic universe – so why should we care about them? That again leads me to say that the wise man in your universe is the ethical egoist.

You finished saying, ‘Based on those reasonings, your slaves would not be seen as moral and nor would your Mr X killer.’ Is that what you meant to say – if so I’m not sure what you mean. As well, in the definition of morality you give you say it lessens evil. What do you mean by evil?

Bosk
Sorry to take so long, 24 hour limits, sleep and business.

Try: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html

"When the Semitic tribes settled in the cities of Babylonia, their tribal custom passed over into city law."
and
"Almost all trace of tribal custom has already disappeared from the law of the Code. It is state-law; - alike self-help, blood-feud, marriage by capture, are absent; though family solidarity, district responsibility, ordeal, the lex talionis, are primitive features that remain. "

"Based upon", not "literally embodied in", is my argument and you can read the rest for yourself.

Your assertion that administrative law, tax, law and corporate law are not based on 'mores' and norms of society seems to me a specious and false premise. Taxes were part of a range of tribal customs and societies - including Anglo Saxon. "A short history of the common law" is a must read if you doubt this point. Jacobs "Systems of survival" and various histories of mercantile practice also show how commercial law is based on customs and practices of different societies (like the Florentine merchants and proto double entry book-keeping).

Roman law is based on the customs and practices of the Etruscans, among others.

Codification of custom and practice as law removes it one step from the norms and 'mores' of the society, which often persist long enough to conclict with the evolving code interestingly. But this does not remove custom and practice (including norms and 'mores')as the basis of the law.

So, your QED may have been premature. And, while I respect Wikpedia as a source, sometimes it pays to dig a little deeper.

odsoc

GP, clearly we have different definitions of morality, but then its an ambiguous term.

I don't see why you think that there should be some biological imperative, simply conditions suitable or not for biological life.
Mars spins away, as a planet of rocks. Earth spun away for billions of years, with little more then algae etc growing. Conditions changed, radiation levels dropped, us mammals are quite late in the evolutionary scheme of things. If fighting with each other means that we cause radiation levels to rise again, perhaps our planet will spin with not much more then insects aboard. No, I don't think that
nature cares or feels.

I can't see why you think that in that case morals should not matter anymore. As long as people live as social beings, with others, wanting acceptance from others, they have to behave in ways to obtain acceptance from others. Would you have friends, if you tried to kill them, stole from them, cheated them? If you you showed no empathy, when your friends had problems, would they still be your friends? Clearly your ethical egoist would be a lonely being, all on his own and if he had no contact with others, then his morals would not affect them.

People do things for many reasons, including being "driven" by genetic attributes. Only a small part of the mind is for thinking, lots of other influences affect behaviour. Free will as we call it, is less free then we think.

Yabby, regarding a biological imperative, you said yourself – “We evolved traits which are good for the harmonious coexistence of our species and its survival. Not killing our own, empathy, altruism and reciprocal altruism, nurturing etc, are all grounded in biology and are the basis for normative definitions of morality.”

If there was no biological imperative for these things to evolve, then the only alternative explanation for them (other than God) is that they somehow incredibly just fluked into existence. If that is so then there is no sense of ‘ought’ about your morality. Why should we have any sense of responsibility to a ‘morality’ which came into existence through random, mindless processes and which has no inherent meaning or purpose?

What you seem to be saying is that we should be ‘moral’ because ultimately it will be in our own self-interest to do so. That though seems to go against the essence of what morality is normally understood to mean. Morality is about genuine selflessness simply because it is the right thing to do – not about acting selflessly because it will actually be good for me!

And please don’t misunderstand the ethical egoist – he goes around promoting ethical behaviour and everyone thinks he is a fine fellow because of that, but all the while he secretly acts in his own self-interest whenever he can get away with it. He does this because he believes there are no actual moral absolutes – he won’t ever have to give an account so long as he gets away with it – and it certainly makes his life safer and more orderly if everyone else is trying to behave morally. I think there are probably lots of ethical egoists out there.

Now if there is no genuine libertarian free will, there’s no morality at all!

GP, rather then looking at evolution as a fluke, you have to see it as a numbers game. Every time that copulation takes place and the dna of two individuals of any species join together, the random way in which that dna joins or is distorted, means it can be expressed as new and different genetic traits. In times gone past, with much higher radiation levels present, genetic mutations would have been far more common. Take a packet of seeds, irradiate them and even today, you will get all kinds of new and strange plants emerge. Its a technique used by plant breeders, even today.

99% may fail, but the 1% which thrives in a new evolutionaty niche,
will soon multiply to tell the tale. Intelligence, cooperation,
empathy, altruism, etc, were all evolutionary niches for primates,
for we could neither run very fast nor swim very well. So I still don't see the imperative, simply that species will occupy niches that are available. As long as a fox can run faster then a rabbit for instance, dinner and survival are assured.

You are defining what morality ought to mean, based on your understanding and defition of it. See it in evolutionary terms and it makes perfect sense to have evolved as it did. Those individuals with attributes that you define as moral, would clearly do better and have more offspring, amongst a social species of other individuals.

You are correct, ethical egoists exist. Social species respond. People gossip, compare notes, warn each other of certain individuals, these days they even produce tv programmes about them.
So the chances of your ethical egoist getting away with it all his life are not so good. Once he is exposed, he will become a social leper.

My 350 words are just about used up, I'll discuss your free will question in the next post.