Michael Ruse update: “Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction…

This is placed here because some may be interested and it too long for the current thread. It is about the origin of morality and more specific, the ideas of Cicero and Natural Law.

Lecture Eight The Stoic Idea of Natural Law. In his work the Republic the Roman statesman Cicero provides the first really thorough going treatise on natural law as such where the term is used and where we have both the components of a naturally based system of ethics and a sense that this is to be handled in terms of the category of law. A bunch of Cicero's work is dependent upon various Greek Stoics. So I'd like to devote this lecture some of that stoicism which articulated ideas which are crucial for Cicero and then to Cicero himself and some of his ideas. The Stoics are both Greek and Roman and they have some very interesting ideas and then when we turn to Cicero toward the end of this lecture will consider three of his works in which the idea comes out so clearly. The Stoics are a movement that begins in Greece after the time of Plato and Aristotle. We could date it perhaps to the philosopher Zeno around the year three hundred. And Zeno and his followers championed a notion of self reliance which was very very strong. In fact that very notion of stoicism as present today, I think emphasizes that self reliance that grittiness that we have a willingness to face pain and face difficulty with a stiff upper lip. It's a characterization of the modern period which certainly has its justification from the way the ancient Stoics conceived a proper form of life. In addition to that of the general approach to life what I'm interested in talking about with you today is there strong sense of right reason, right reasoning according to nature. This is the contribution they make to natural law theory. The Stoics generally tend to be materialists. That is a very very suspicious of any of these immaterial notions such as Plato had championed with this notion of the soul and yet they are extremely high minded and have no difficulty talking about high minded ideals like justice and even including god in their system. Zeno for instance at one point urges that right reason is something which he says pervades all things and is identical with Zeus, the lord and ruler of everything that exists. In articulating that notion of right reason that is identical, equivalent to Zeus, he is trying to bring together that long Greek tradition of thinking about god as the origin and source of the universe with the long traditions in Greece of thinking about human culture and ranging for a politics which will promote the virtues and the good living possibly and right the order culture. Notice even in that sentence that I just quoted that he is got there a connection between two ideas which are extremely important in the whole history of natural law. The first idea is the idea of the right reason. It's a sense that reason can operate rightly or wrongly. Reason will operate rightly when it's discerning the truth about things and when it's figuring out how matters that are open to our choice can be selected well so that we will achieve a kind of a harmony. It's not just a matter of purely instrumental reasoning; it's not just a matter of figuring out how to make out of everything else a tool to get to our end but a sense of right reasoning a sense of conforming ourselves to a basic pattern, to a goal that is built within us. He identifies this is equivalent to the notion of Zeus ruling over as lord and ruler, ruling over everything that exists. He is not one much for mythology but rather he takes this name of Zeus to be the very incarnation of what justice is. We see this continue in subsequent Stoics. We could mention for instance Chrysippus who lives later in the third century BC (232–206 BC.) To quote from Chrysippus, “for all beings which are social by nature the natural law directs what must be done and forbids what must not be done.” Here too we see not only the usage of the language of natural law but we see that strong sense of our human association with various kinds of animals. Not all animals are gregarious not all animals are social but some animals are. And Chrysippus in line with Zeno before him thought of our natural law as something that we share with lots of animals. The animals which are naturally social animals and which live in herds or animals which stand together for common purposes will have a natural law directing them. If they are going to cooperate on the hunt, if they are going to cooperate living peacefully together there must be something within them that inclines them to this harmonious way of life. So he suggested well for most animals it's going to be a matter of a spontaneous inclination, a natural directedness. For us it's going to be a matter of right reasoning about this, following out our inclinations toward living together, feeling our friendship with one another, feeling inclined to one another but figuring out how to do this so as to promote the harmony in matters of choice. This raises for the Stoics the question about whether civic orders should be promoted or whether one should be those staunchly defended personal Stoics with that sense of of self reliance above all. And while the Stoic cultivates self reliance they are also extremely strong in urging civic devotion. Panaetius(185-110 BC) later Stoic for instance argues that our social institutions are quite thoroughly natural and that they are never based on merely self interest but always have to be concerned with the common good and he takes up many of Aristotle’s argument for natural justice, claiming that here we see it originating in the Stoics in a way that we did not see originating Aristotle the claim that all human beings possess the same basic capacity to participate with this reasoning and a fundamentally equality in universal kinship among all human beings. To sum up then, the Stoics find themselves strongly urging self reliance as the key to virtue but strongly seeing self reliance as a suitable subject for promoting the common good. Everyone is self reliant and in particular if the whole society is devised in such a way as to promote that self reliance there can be a common happiness; there can be a real harmony in the human community like there is harmony in nature. The second point of emphasis with the Stoics is that they connected this idea of moral obligation this sense of right reasoning with god. And here too it is worthwhile for us to review for a minute what the Stoics have contributed to this discussion. As I was trying to paint the story of the understanding of god that the various pre Socratic, Socrates and Plato had suggested, increasingly it was an abstract vision of god that Thales and Anaximenes. Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides all of the pre Socratic tried to get away from those mythological gods of the ancient world. charming gods and goddesses who were often acting in ways that we humans would consider naughty. In the course of seeking a first principle of philosophical explanation what they tended to do was to treat that first principle as a deity. To treat it as a source and origin for all of physical nature for all of organic nature for all of humankind and yet they made it increasingly impersonal precisely in order to get away from the vagaries of human willfulness because those charming gods and goddesses of Greek mythology we're so willful and sometimes so extremely jealous and and doing things which seem to offend against morality. This strong sense of natural morality led the early Greek thinkers to a notion that the first principle the deity. And they did recognize the deity had to be an impersonal deity. One sees this in Plato when we were considering the Republic, the chief idea is the idea of the good and there are various other perfect forms like equality or the perfect form of human nature or the form of beauty and all of these forms of these ideas stand superior to the god who is busy creating the world. That the god has to be a a good reliable craftsman but it's not totally in charge. Aristotle too was a religious man has a notion of god but his god is the god who was pure mind, mind thinking itself and Aristotle’s god is not a creator. Devising plans for the world Aristotle's god thinks only of himself. Nothing else is quite worthy but everything else is moved by a kind of attraction to the god. They are I think perplexed by willfulness and to a certain degree their theories are influenced by this notion that god has to be so perfect we can't have god in anyway willful or in anyway subjective and then our morality has to respect that our morality has to concern itself with nature with that which we do not create, control or alter but that which we can discover as an eternal essence as an unchanging immutable structure of form. What we see in the Stoics it's a different picture we are now again seeing the language of god and god spoken up by a personal name Zeus in a way that Plato and Aristotle never did. And this move back to a personal god that is within the Stoic system. That does two things to their ethics. First thing it does to the ethics is now to let ethics be considered in terms of law rather than in terms of purely virtue. The Stoics still have virtues and they got lots of them but now there is another category and law can be all embracing category for considering ethics in a way that it never quite amounted to be the right category in Plato and Aristotle. The Stoics do that. Secondly the Stoics open up this dimension of personality in a way that we do not frankly see it opened up with Plato or Aristotle. Even though they are preparing the way by emphasizing nature, their sense is that politics is more important than ethics and that individual morality is something that is in service of political morality that the individual good must always yield to the higher common good. Granted that important theme what the Stoics managed to bring out by focusing in on individual self reliance and by focusing on this role of god in ethics is that there's opening the way for the development that will be very fruitful in the course of natural law history. The importance of person that will come when we see the development of that very notion of a person in Christian culture and a role for god as law giver which Christians will borrow heavily from the Stoics when they have a chance to read and consider their matter. But that’s jumping ahead of the story a little bit. So we’re reviewing the history of the Stoics for the sake of the contribution they make to Cicero because Cicero that Roman statesman of the first century uses these Stoic ideas for his own purposes in Roman culture. (Roman conquest of Greece was in 146 BC) Cicero (106-43 BC) was a statesman who was also a philosopher and both during the time of his greatest activity as well as all those periods of his life when he it was a more philosophical retreat he likes nothing better than to try to put the ideas about the common good about the political order into thoroughgoing philosophical form. We owe tremendous depth to Cicero for the communication of Greek ideas into the Latin speaking world. In particular I'd like to speak about three of Cicero's works the first is his book De re publica (54-51 BC) translated as the Republic or sometimes it is on the Commonwealth from around f54-51 BC. In this book we see him very directly borrowing from the Stoics on the connection between law and reason that will be central to natural law theory. For example in book 3 chapter 22 he says. There is a true law. right reason in accord with nature. It is of universal application unchanging and every lasting. It is wrong to abrogate this law and it cannot be annulled. There is one law eternal and unchangeable binding at all times upon of all peoples and there will be at work one common master and ruler of men, god, who is the author of this law and its interpreter and sponsor. This passage of Cicero enunciates what will be the main themes for natural law theory in the course of the rest of its history. this is an association between nature and right reason. We saw him picking that up from the Stoics with this concentration on reason not nearly as instrumental merely as figuring out how to get where we want to go but reason as discerning, reason as extremely receptive, reason as trying to be open so as to understand the truth about our natures and how those natures ought to develop. But secondly we see Cicero in this passage talking about reason as linked to law, what reason must especially discern, what reason must especially appreciate and be open to is a moral obligation that is of divine origin. If anything I think we see something that goes back to say the inside of Antigone in the play by Sophocles where she has a sense that there is a god who is behind all this, there is a god who has devised all these things, set them up and that what we must do is to appreciate this divine law if we intend to have personal harmony and political harmony. Likewise in that same message that I just read we also hear some of the other themes that natural law theory will make in its claims about the nature of this moral law. It says it is wrong ever to abrogate it and it cannot be annulled. A sense that even when we do do devise situations that are otherwise, the law will come back to haunt us. But there will be a kind of a natural law sanction. One sees this in something like drug abuse in the modern day. Namely that one can over ride what is really and truly good for our bodies but there will be effects and a kind of a natural sanction or punishment. No matter of how we may try by our wills to make it otherwise there is invariably something that is a law that we must respect and we cannot help but experience if we should violate it. He also says in the middle of the passage there is one law eternal and unchangeable binding at all times upon all peoples. This is that tremendous Stoic appreciation for the universal fraternity of all human beings, a fundamentally equality among them all because of their common nature and it's a strong sense that a kind of corrective to that Aristotelian sense of natural hierarchy in which there can even be natural slaves. Curiously, though there is a kind of a blindness in Cicero for even though he has such strong statements about universally equality he also tolerate slaves. It takes an enormous effort of the mind I think see the full implications of some of the principles that they're able to enunciate so clearly. Although Cicero does not articulate the details of the natural law in the course of his book the Republic, he does mention a few of them that are worth noting here for the influence that they will have in subsequent generations of natural law thinkers. He makes it clear in that third book that there are various duties of natural justice that we must respect the lives and the property of others and we have an obligation to contribute to society. I mentioned in particular the respecting the lives and the properties of others and I do so because he sees this as an insight about the nature of law and the nature of morality which stands as a corrective to any theory of human nature which puts human nature largely in terms of power. When one is asking as Callicles or Thrasymachus did in the course of our review of Plato. Aren’t some people just naturally stronger and if they're naturally stronger or naturally more clever well why shouldn't they have rule over those who are naturally weaker. Cicero entire and complete conviction is that the analysis of our nature will give a corrective to this incentive to use stronger power merely at our whim or merely at our will. And that there is an obligation on all part to respect the lives and property of others. Later on in the history of our review of natural law thinking and the history of ethics we'll see this articulated as the notion of right. We say for instance from our American Declaration of Independence that we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Or in the language of John Locke from which so much of the declaration is borrowed a right to life, liberty and property. The language of rights is a much later derivation. We do not find these ancient thinkers talking in terms of rights. What we find them talking is in terms of duties, that is we have various obligations because of nature. Rights and duties are always correlative. It's more a matter of whether the given authoring question at a given period in history finds a term, finds a way to express this correlation. In these ancient figures the emphasis is far more on duty and the very word right that is sometimes used, ius. This is sort of the basis of our and terminology about jurisdiction or jurisprudence. That initial phrase comes from the notion of right in antiquity with Cicero is strong on. But it's more that which it is right or correct for us to do. The very notion of law in antiquity can be spoken about in terms of the term, ius, this term which is the basis of jurisprudence or in the terms of lex which is the origin of our word legislation. legislature. (Ius or Jus (plural iura) in ancient Rome was a right to which a citizen (civis) was entitled by virtue of his citizenship. The iura were specified by laws, so ius sometimes meant law. As one went to the law courts to sue for one's rights, ius also meant justice and the place where justice was sought). Both of those terms suggest a law whether it's a law we create as in the word lex or law in which we are focusing on what he's already right and that's when we're speaking of ius. Cicero is very very strong on seeing our obligations seeing our duties to respect the lives and properties of others and to contribute to society and his strong sense of our duties in this respect will be enormously important for later articulations of rights in the sense of how we use the word in modern day. Also in book three of his book the Republic we see in chapter twenty three, references to just and unjust war. That's something I think it's very rare in antiquity. There was a sense that war was something that was hateful something that we have to do but more I think tended to be envisioned largely in terms of power. But with Cicero, war too is here being brought under moral circumspection. In chapter twenty three that there is a difference between just and unjust wars. And in response to the charge that states are simply the result of force and conquest sort of a realpolitik in the ancient world, Cicero argues that Rome has been much more careful. That Rome has waged wars only to repel invaders or to restore justice. That may be overlooking a few of the wars that Rome actually conducted but at least in theory Cicero is articulating a standard which he statesman felt the need to try to apply. And he insisted for war to be justified it has to be formally declared and then it may never be waged until an explicit demand has been issued for the redress of the grievances experienced. Unless that formal demand was made and rejected one may not go to war. This I think maybe Cicero the statesman trying to shape Roman policy, trying to inculcate a pattern of high virtue in Rome's political and military decisions. But he articulates it on the basis of this same approach to natural justice which he borrows from the Stoics. under the heading of natural law. A second book by Cicero, which we should look at for a few minutes is De Officiis (44 BC) translated On Moral Duties which he writes about the year forty four BC. Here the focus is on personal ethics to a much greater degree. Cicero is busy stressing the duties that we have to one another by virtue of being human and being social in our humanity, By invariably needing to live in one or another form of society. His stress about this book, De Officiis, is on the fact that we may not conduct our lives purely on the basis of self interest but always must be looking out for the other for the other is another self. In book three of De Officiis he says that chapter five the following. To take away wrongfully from another and for one man to advance his own interest by the disadvantage of another man is more contrary to nature than death than poverty, than pain than any other evil. One sees in a sentence like that certainly some rhetorical appeal to a sense of nobility to a sense of honor. I would urge us to consider it especially in light of the stoicism to which Cicero was so deeply devoted. And to which he wash so deeply indebted. The Stoics who Cicero so much loved had a strong sense of the need to make a very rigorous distinction between what we can control and what we could not. They would urge us to make a strong dividing line and to put on one side of that line anything that really is in our control and on the other side of that line anything that is outside of our control. When you start to make that distinction in that division well what is truly outside of our control. Well the economy is outside of our control we can we can have a certain influence upon it by the decisions we make but a lot of it's outside of our control. Our health is ultimately outside of our control maybe not immediately for we are able to have a good diet and do good exercise be restrained intemperate in our intake but none the less diseases can come and afflictions can common and certainly what we receive by genetic inheritance is outside of our control. How about the honor that we have? Well yes there's a little bit it's in our control if we act honorably we would expect to be treated honorably and yet I think we all know that even when we have acted most honorably it is quite possible for people even when they acted honorably to be sabotaged for or calumnies to be asserted and for things to be said that damage reputation which is extremely hard to defend oneself against. For all these things Cicero urges in his book De Officiis that we have that Stoic self reliance and that with anything that's on the side of being outside of our control what we have to do is cultivated kind of indifference we can't let ourselves be determined by what other people think or anything that we cannot thoroughly and completely control. Instead what we must do is to take note of what's inside our control and focus on that because only there are we the true masters and do we have that sort of self mastery that is so typically associated with virtue. But what is it that ultimately is in our control perfectly? And he like the other Stoics would insist the only thing that is perfectly in our control is our choices. If our decisions about how we act and about how we feel, that we can choose to repress a feeling we can choose to transcend a feeling and we can choose to act or not to act we can choose to act honorably even if others will mistreat us for that. We can choose to act honorably even in situations that are extremely dangerous or or overwhelming. In this book he urges that strong Stoic sense of self control and if I may read the passage again will see his sense of why this is the highest thing our nature is capable of. He says to take away wrongfully from another and for one man to advance his own interest but the disadvantage of another man. He says is more contrary to nature than death, poverty pain or any other evil. But to say that and to mean it requires that Stoic reliance. Namely that the most noble part of ourselves is that which is within our own self control and to do that and to cultivate honor he thinks is natural, is fulfilling the highest part of our nature. Were we to act dishonorably would be to act against that which is most important to us because that which is most human in us. Cicero of course in his focus on self reliance is still the statesman and in the course of this same book on duties he has enormous praise for public service, an enormous praise for political participation I personally suspect that the Roman Empire which was just at this point beginning to take shape at the end of the Roman Republic, Cicero lived in the days of the Republic. The Roman Empire was capable of such great civic things was capable of achievements around the world precisely because so many of the Romans statesmen, Roman administrators and Roman bureaucrats shared some of Cicero's ideas. This sense of doing what is good what is for the common good even if there will be some personal disadvantage some personal sacrifice that is required. Even if it will take me away from beloved Roman out into the provinces for years I can find ways that will be truly honorable and will build up the human community and will make it possible for others also to rise to the best of their nature. Later on when Augustine is writing his own book, The City of God, and commenting upon Cicero he has nothing but praise for Cicero even though he thinks that there is something the matter with the Ciceronian Republic namely that it doesn't seem designed to give praise and honor to the true god. Augustine nonetheless finds in Cicero something which is so high minded and so virtuous precisely because of this concentration upon that which is best in human nature and not best in terms of pure self interest. But best in terms of the common good focusing on patterns of institutional living which will provide others that same opportunity for real integrity. In a third work by Cicero, the book called De Legibus (On Laws, 43 B.C.) one finds Cicero articulating another important still with notion that I called attention to at the beginning of this lecture. Mainly the moral equality of all human beings on the basis of their common nature. This is a fundamental insight which natural law theories will never depart from and while we have earlier anticipations of it with Cicero we have a very clear and explicit teaching. And yet I notice cannot help but notice that cultural blindness can still remain. For just several chapters later after he has enunciated this wonderful praise about the common moral equality of all on the basis of their nature Cicero lapses into a defense of the institution of slavery. One finds it very very hard to understand except that sometimes we do not see the implications of the principles that we have enunciated. And yet earlier on in his book he gave one of those principles that I am so delighted and want to share with you. Book one chapter ten. No single being is so like another as all of us are to one another. Reason which alone raises us above the level of the beasts is certainly common to us all and though varying in what it learns at least in the capacity to learn it is invariable. This is I think is Cicero at his best. not when he is justifying the institution of slavery but when he is trying to think about that common human nature. As our lectures proceed from here I'm going to be making a diversion in the next two lectures to another tradition that is important mainly to the biblical tradition in which we start thinking in terms of create and/or creatures and how this plays out for morality. And then I'll consider early Christian teaching in the period that is called the patristic period. But in the lecture after that I will return to these Stoic ideas and the Ciceronian ideas as they enter into the realm of law and as we have the grand synthesis beginning to emerge. The tradition of nature from classical antiquity the tradition of creatures from biblical history focused in now on this notion of natural law as devised by a creator of our natures in the way that the god known to Judaism and Christianity can serve as this creator of our natures and founder of Natural Law.

jerry

March 5, 2021

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BA77

I plan to falsely defend the reality of fluffy pink unicorns dancing on rainbows someday.

It is always best practice to stick with your strengths. :)Ed George

November 21, 2018

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I plan to falsely defend the reality of fluffy pink unicorns dancing on rainbows someday. :)bornagain77

November 21, 2018

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BA77

Well goodbye and good riddance to Darwinian evolution, Welcome to Intelligent Design.

I support ID. But I prefer to play devil's advocate when people make statements or assertions. If these assertions can't stand up to scrutiny then they have to be re-thoughgt.Ed George

November 21, 2018

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Ed G states, "I never made any such claim" Well goodbye and good riddance to Darwinian evolution, Welcome to Intelligent Design.bornagain77

November 21, 2018

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BA77

Ed G claims that morality can be explained by the Darwinian principle of “do they outnumber” “because of demonstrating moral behaviour?”

I never made any such claim so the remainder of your response is irrelevant. Tilting at windmills. I merely asked a devil's advocate type of question.Ed George

November 21, 2018

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Morality is a biological adaptation...

Let us, for the sake of argument, grant that this is true. How does it then follow that the following must be the case? Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory.

Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction

Let us, for the sake of argument, grant that this is true. How does it then follow that the following must be the case? ...any deeper meaning is illusory. To this is just more atheist incoherent babble where they assume their conclusion.Mung

November 21, 2018

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Ed G claims that morality can be explained by the Darwinian principle of "do they outnumber" "because of demonstrating moral behaviour?"

"Very true. But do they outnumber those who have attracted “mates” because of demonstrating moral behaviour?"

If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most ‘mutational firepower’, since only they, since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and ‘mutational firepower’, would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here in this Richard Dawkins’ video:

Richard Dawkins interview with a ‘Darwinian’ physician goes off track – video Excerpt: “I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly — a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves — that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we’re stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html

In other words, since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful, and highly efficient reproduction, be realistically ‘selected’ for?

“every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;” – Charles Darwin – Origin of Species – pg. 66 The Logic of Natural Selection – graph http://recticulatedgiraffe.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/6/2/40627097/1189735.jpg?308

Any other function besides successful reproduction, such as much slower sexual reproduction, sight, hearing, thinking, and especially altruistic morality, would be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successful reproduction, and should, on a Darwinian view, be discarded, and/or ‘eaten’, by bacteria, as so much excess baggage since it obviously would slow down successful reproduction. Yet, contrary to this central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, instead of eating us, time after time we find micro-organisms helping each other, and us, in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest’’ concerns. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bbc-chimpanzees-show-empathy-and-altruism-just-like-humans/#comment-668342 Thus, Ed G's Darwinian principle of "do they outnumber" "because of demonstrating moral behaviour?" is actually a principle that proves that Darwinian processes are incapable of producing morality, (much less any other abstract immaterial concept such as say mathematics, personhood, justice, etc.. etc.. etc..). Moreover, I don't expect Ed G, since he is a Darwinist, to have the moral integrity within himself to honestly admit that he is wrong and that Darwinian Principles are completely antithetical to altruistic morality. Hopefully one day this changes for him before it is too late.bornagain77

November 20, 2018

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Latemarch

No it’s not hard to argue. Many a person have given their lives for principle or morality just as many have forgone reproduction for similar reasons.

Very true. But do they outnumber those who have attracted “mates” because of demonstrating moral behaviour?Ed George

November 20, 2018

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Ed@3

It is hard to argue that morality does not aid survival and reproduction.

No it's not hard to argue. Many a person have given their lives for principle or morality just as many have forgone reproduction for similar reasons.

The question is how our sense of morality arose. God given or evolved?

Nothing but chaos arises from a stochastic process let alone morality.Latemarch

November 20, 2018

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Ed G states

"It is hard to argue that morality does not aid survival and reproduction."

Really??? Just how moral are pathogenic microorganisms that are exceedingly excellent at survival and reproduction?? Yet not so excellent at 'loving thy neighbor'? The truth is that the 'survival of the fittest' morality of Darwinian Evolution could care less about altruistic morality, especially loving your neighbor as yourself, (much less loving God with all your being). In fact, Darwin himself offered this as a falsification criteria of his theory, "Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species"… and even stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”

"Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species; though throughout nature one species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by, the structure of another. But natural selection can and does often produce structures for the direct injury of other species, as we see in the fang of the adder, and in the ovipositor of the ichneumon, by which its eggs are deposited in the living bodies of other insects. If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection." - Charles Darwin - Origin of Species Nov. 2018 - Where is love, empathy, and altruism to be found in physics, chemistry, or especially in Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ maxim? Altruistic behavior of any type is completely antithetical to Darwin’s theory. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bbc-chimpanzees-show-empathy-and-altruism-just-like-humans/#comment-668342

Moreover, contrary to the ‘selfish gene’ concept, that is more of less directly based on Darwin’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking about competition, genes are instead best thought of as existing in a holistic web of mutual interdependence and cooperation, (i.e. mutual 'altruistic' behavior). Which is, needless to say, the exact polar opposite of being ‘selfish’. (And should, if Darwinism were a science instead of being the religion for atheists that it actually is, count as a direct falsification of the theory). https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/might-snakes-provide-a-way-of-testing-dawkinss-selfish-gene-hypothesis/#comment-667208 Altruism vs Darwinism – Nov. 2018 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bbc-chimpanzees-show-empathy-and-altruism-just-like-humans/#comment-668342 In fact there is a perverse anti-morality inherent within Darwinian evolution that was made readily apparent for all the world to see when the Nazis and Communists applied supposedly Darwinian morality to society as a whole.

Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao - Foundational Darwinian Influence - quotes - (Nov. 2018) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/historian-human-evolution-theorists-were-attempting-to-be-moral-teachers/#comment-668170

Ed George further asked,

The question is how our sense of morality arose. God given or evolved?

Since unguided Darwinian processes have never shown the origination of a even a single gene and/or protein, as these following references show,,,

Stephen Meyer (and Doug Axe) Critique Richard Dawkins's "Mount Improbable" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rgainpMXa8 Yockey and a Calculator Versus Evolutionists - Cornelius Hunter PhD - September 25, 2015 Excerpt: In a 1977 paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, Hubert Yockey used information theory to evaluate the likelihood of the evolution of a relatively simple protein.,,, Yockey found that the probability of evolution finding the cytochrome c protein sequence is about one in 10^64. That is a one followed by 64 zeros—an astronomically large number. He concluded in the peer-reviewed paper that the belief that proteins appeared spontaneously “is based on faith.” Indeed, Yockey’s early findings are in line with, though a bit more conservative than, later findings. A 1990 study of a small, simple protein found that 10^63 attempts would be required for evolution to find the protein. A 2004 study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and a 2006 study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2015/09/yockey-and-calculator-versus.html Dan S. Tawfik Group - The New View of Proteins - Tyler Hampton - 2016 Excerpt: Tawfik soberly recognizes the problem. The appearance of early protein families, he has remarked, is “something like close to a miracle.”45,,, “In fact, to our knowledge,” Tawfik and Tóth-Petróczy write, “no macromutations ... that gave birth to novel proteins have yet been identified.”69 http://inference-review.com/article/the-new-view-of-proteins

Since unguided Darwinian processes have never shown the origination of a even a single gene and/or protein,,, then it is very interesting to note that the gene expression of humans are designed in a very sophisticated way so as to differentiate between hedonic moral happiness and ‘noble’ moral happiness: The following paper states that there are hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.”

Human Cells Respond in Healthy, Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness - July 29, 2013 Excerpt: Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health,,, The sense of well-being derived from “a noble purpose” may provide cellular health benefits, whereas “simple self-gratification” may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found.,,, But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers. Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, “We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically,” she said. “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161952.htm

Moreover, and as would be expected if morality were objectively real as Christians hold, it is now found that atheists suffer physically and mentally as a result of forsaking the objective reality of morality in general and from forsaking God in particular. Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists states that 'The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally.',,, lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction…

“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100

Thus, morality has a very pronounced effect on our lives and yet Darwinists have no clue how our sense of morality could have possibly arisen. In fact, our sense of morality is completely antithetical to the whole Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' maxim. Verses and Video:

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words "The Lamb" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ

bornagain77

November 20, 2018

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It is hard to argue that morality does not aid survival and reproduction. The question is how our sense of morality arose. God given or evolved?Ed George

November 20, 2018

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ES@1

Any suspicion that Michael Ruse talks substance is illusory.

But he smiles when he talks....surely that must count for something.Latemarch

November 20, 2018

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Any suspicion that Michael Ruse talks substance is illusory.EugeneS

November 20, 2018

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