Marvin: It looks like you have a chance to win fame, but probably not fortune, developing this idea. As you know, the term evolutionary ethics can mean many things and has a past which is best not repeated from the political parties I mentioned earlier to Social Darwinists and the Eugenics movement to your apparently very different idea and perhaps perhaps other ideas. I would need to see the idea explored much more before I would embrace it. It remains that such an idea which comes to the same behaviors/attitudes as outlined in Scripture is a very interesting idea. Meanwhile I will continue to embrace Biblical ethics/attitudes (imperfectly, for sure) which should be functionally equivalent to what I think you are proposing. Blessings.
There appears to be two major schools of evolutionary ethics: descriptive and normative. I think descriptive evolutionary ethics is very interesting in that it looks at how evolution may have shaped human behavior, instincts, and biases.
“The most widely accepted form of evolutionary ethics is descriptive evolutionary ethics. Descriptive evolutionary ethics seeks to explain various kinds of moral phenomena wholly or partly in genetic terms. Ethical topics addressed include altruistic behaviors, an innate sense of fairness, a capacity for normative guidance, feelings of kindness or love, self-sacrifice, incest-avoidance, parental care, in-group loyalty, monogamy, feelings related to competitiveness and retribution, moral “cheating,” and hypocrisy.”–Wiki
Normative evolutionary ethics makes the claim that what evolved must be good, and I don’t agree with that at all. I agree with Hume in that one should not confuse an Is with an Ought, and by extension I would agree that what is moral is not determined by what is natural.
From a philosophical and theological point of view, it is interesting to see how Descriptive evolutionary ethics and Christian ethics can or do interact with one another. This probably moves us to long standing theological questions about the duality of the body and soul, the mind and spirit, and nature and supernatural. However, I don’t see why these two ideas have to necessarily be at war with one another. There might be places where one could inform the other.
I think we are blurring the line between ethics and morals here. I am guided by my morals - what I consider right and wrong. Society is guided by ethics, what we as a civilization will tolerate. My morals are based upon the 10 commandments in the Bible, “Thou shalt not kill” is therefore one of my morals. Society though, has decided that it is ethical to kill under certain circumstances - during war it is ethical to kill your enemy, it is ethical to kill an unborn baby, it is ethical to take the life of a criminal in some states and it is ethical in Canada to take your own life through euthanasia. My morals will not permit me to do any of these even though society says that they are ethical and perfectly legal. So there is a difference between ethics and morals.
Evolution itself is guided by the laws of nature, these laws are neither ethical or moral. If mans ethics ever become guided by what is allowed in nature then we would all be in trouble because nature is very cruel. A society that permits natural selection or survival of the fittest to play itself out among its members would not be very civilized by todays standards. Yes, thats how it happens in nature, but plants and animals do not have morals or ethics, nor has evolution been shaped by ethics and morals, with the exception maybe of human evolution, because we do have ethics and morals.
I think that Christians are personally called to be guided by a higher moral standard than society as a whole, but it is society that shapes and operates at the ethics level because not every individual in a social group recognize Biblical authority. Nor do Christians need ethics. This reminds me of the story in the Bible of when the Pharisees asked Jesus which of the ten commandments in the Bible are the most important. Jesus’ reply was that loving God and loving your neighbour were the only commandments that His followers need abide by because all of the other commandments are contained within those simple principles. So, love for God and others is the filter that christians need to use for everything they do, regardless of what society says is ethical.
In some translations of the Bible it says “Thou shalt not murder”, which is a whole other can of worms. In the OT, God ordered his people to visit war upon certain peoples, so I doubt that God would give orders that violate previous commandments.
One other commandment that has always intrigued me is how Christians see society with respect to morality, ethics, and human rights. One of the 10 commandments says that you are not to worship any other gods before Him, and yet in western society we believe that religious freedom is a human right. Another commandment says that you shall not take the Lord’s name in vain, yet we also cherish free speech which includes blasphemy. Another commandment says that you shall not worship idols, yet that is also protected under religious freedom. Is it moral to allow people the right to worship the deity they choose to worship, or is that under the banner of ethics within society? Is a just society one where religious freedom exists, or where the worship of other gods is prohibited? How does this fit into Christian morality?
I completely agree that morality is not determined by what is natural. At the same time, we must not forget that there are many social species that collectively protect one another. Species like ants and bees are the classic cases, and these altruistic and social behaviors are instinctual in these species. It is interesting to consider if some of human social behavior is also instinctual, be it moral or immoral.
Tough shall not murder is coherent with the moral that you shall not take someone elses life for deriving your personal advantage from it. To die in combat was not looked at as murder so there is no violation of commandments.
The command to worship no other God is one given to those who submit are the people of the book. It cannot be applied to those who are not of the book but the demand for freedom of religion is coherent with the requirement to submit to God out of free will. If you force people to submit to God as sometimes mentioned in the Koran you deny them the opportunity to love God as it requires free will and is a declaration of intellectual and emotional bankruptcy as you declare that you cannot convince others to follow your God willingly, e.g. you can not convince them either intellectually or emotionally by giving a better example.
That is only if you do not understand survival of the fittest, e.g. confuse it with physical fitness. Once you realise that survival fitness is in the ability to love thy neighbour you will find that is is a civilised as it can get. As animals do not have the ability to reflect upon their own benefit for their actions in the way humans can, you cannot make them morally responsible. Thus their actions cannot be judged based on them doing things for their personal advantage against others.
It is however funny to watch the hypocrisy of those who claim that behaviours observed in nature justifies their own, particularly when it comes to sexual conduct, but then complain when the presidents club run’s a men only meeting, whilst the species that have gender segregated lifestyles is quite regularly observed in animal species effecting far more more than a few percent of their population.They are as coherent as those “feminists” that declare wanting to be equal to men. How could they ever want to sink that low - but then they already have 
Commandments like the ones against blasphemy are not binding on people who don’t share our faith. Even the Qur’an says that there is no compulsion in religion.
I have no problem with that position at all.
In the post I was responding to there was a distinction made between morality and ethics. Specifically, there was a distinction made between Christian morals (e.g. 10 Commandments) and Social ethics. I was wondering where religious freedom sat on that spectrum. Don’t worry, I’m not looking for anything controversial or a gotcha question. I am just curious about how Christians view the interplay between human rights and theology.
Just speaking my own thoughts here, I think that most Christians see human rights as derivative from theism. We take them for granted now in western culture in the last couple of centuries (even if we have been atrocious in our failure to consistently apply). But we at least give it lip service now. Other cultures (far eastern?) don’t all take such things for granted like we do. So maybe Nietzsche was perceptive to accuse Kant (and all secular humanists) of being secret Christians. He apparently despised those who champion human rights as weak cowards still nursing theistic hangovers.
The OT (for all its horrors) was actually quite advanced in the notion of human rights compared to the laws of other ANE lands. And in our own time, Amnesty International was founded by a Roman Catholic of Jewish descent.
Are you just playing around here?
Please name me any sub-culture where “love” is characterized as “Survival of the Fittest”.
Even Monasteries… where love and patience and tolerance are highly esteemed - - can you really say the monastic world view characterizes “love” as a form of “survival of the fittest”?
I thought this is what I said - or not ?
Christianity - if you understand it as I do
Hmmmm… I see. I think I understand what you mean.
Marvin, I need to contribute to the difficult circumstances of a worthy man (me). Could I borrow your car… say … for about 2 years? I promise I’ll bring it back with a full tank of gas!
From the start, people are described as an honored creation of God, bearing the image of God. It follows that one should then be respectful of others , and self, because we bear this image. Justice is taught as part of this. In the Torah and certainly a theme throughout the Bible is a classless society where all (men, women, rich poor slave and free) are subject to and protected by the same laws. Deviations from this earn condemnation in the Prophets, see Isaiah for example. Punishment must be adjudicated, not done privately.
There are some ceremonial law and governing differences between men and women to be sure but a reading shows women in surprisingly prominent places . For example 1 Samuel 1, Samuel’s mother is seen praying intensely before the tent of the covenant. Eli the priest is unhappy with this not because she is a woman but because he thinks she is drunk. Her right to be there was not contested. There are several other examples.
By contrast look at the code of Hammurabi and for that matter the book of Esther which is in a pagan court ,
This is certainly true for free people.
[quote=“marvin, post:195, topic:35331”]
The problem of the idea of evolving ethics is the thought that morals are changeable. The most obvious case is our change in what is ethically acceptable in the light of the change of our sexual conduct. However if you look at the rise of multi-drug resistant STD’s you might figure that biological evolution does regulate our understanding of what is morally acceptable, but then the time-constants of the biological feedback loop are just a bit too long for the average human to grasp.
The sexual revolution was in full swing in the 1960’s when we were trying to guide our three teenagers in how to manage their burgeoning sexuality. Sure, parents should enlarge on what is taught in school, that promiscuity can lead to suffering from STDs or from unwanted pregnancy. That’s Morality Level 1: be bad and you will be punished. Apparently evolution does little to reinforce this advice: the koalas in Australia are in danger of extinction from widespread STDs. There is good evidence that several of the previous Homo species practiced an (almost) monogamous way of life, in order to secure the male parent’s continued help with raising offspring. That introduced the idea that monogamy could add pleasure to one’s life as well as contribute to gene survival. But in the 1960’s the advent of penicillin-type antibiotics and the Pill removed much of the fear factor of a hedonistic life style as promoted by Hugh Hefner, and advocating monogamy from a morality standpoint seemed somewhat hypocritical when young men were being drafted in our society to fight a war (and kill innocents) in Viet Nam. The best hope that my wife, Georganna, and I had to guide our kid’s sexuality was one of example: that exclusively sharing the pleasures of sex with a chosen mate could bring more exquisite joy to one’s life than a couple of decades of living in the Hefner Mansion with a sequence of delectable Playboy Bunnies. Could we prove it? Of course not. But too often the lessons of Scripture, as applied to sexual morality, are presented as: “seek not the pleasures of this life, but lay up your treasures in Heaven.” To a teenager experiencing raging hormones for the first time, that can be a tough sell. IMHO there are some of the best pleasures in this life are ones that God intends for us to have, and in no way do they diminish any happiness in store in the afterlife, whatever form that may take. Wishful thinking? Perhaps.
Al Leo
I think this type of thinking reflects more on our already existing views than it does in shaping them. We can contract deadly diseases from simply touching someone, or breathing in the particles they cough into the air. We can contract Norovirus from simply eating at the same restaurant as someone who is infected. We don’t view going out to eat or shaking hands with a stranger to be immoral. Rather, we already view promiscuity as something immoral, so if someone catches a disease we think they “deserve it”, or at least that’s my take on it.
As far as evolution and biology goes, we can see human pathogens using different strategies to help themselves spread most efficiently. Syphilis is a long term infection which makes it capable of spreading to tribes that only interact once in a while. This strategy worked well in the New World which was less urban than Europe. If we look past the questions surrounding morality, the evolution of humans and their pathogens is actually pretty interesting.
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