Tech | May 20, 2010 | 8 comments

Professor examines the complex evolution of human morality

source: http://www.physorg.com/news193472479.html

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Although the question of what makes humans different from other animals doesn't have a single obvious answer, one seemingly conspicuous human trait is morality. Darwin, in his book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, singled out "the moral sense or conscience" as by far the most important difference between humans and other animals. Darwin’s argument was, of course, strongly based on the concepts of biological evolution and natural selection. Now, upon further investigating the origins of morality, Francisco Ayala, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Irvine, has proposed a Darwin-inspired explanation of how human morality might have evolved.
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8 comments // Professor examines the complex evolution of human morality

  • freecrack
  • Almibry
    • +1
      Almibry  

    • This article is pretty weak. More like philosophy than science. No studies were conducted to come to these conclusions, it's just one guy thinking out loud.

    • 2 years ago
  • UtopianSky
    • +4
      UtopianSky  

    • Nothing in that article is new- actually, it seems out of date.

      The innate aspects of morality are Empathy and Altruism, and neither one are specific to humans. Both have been observed in mammals and birds.

      If anything, because we humans can think, we go against those instincts more easily than animals do.

      Plus, moral codes are culturally determined, while ethics are based on reason. Moral codes vary widely from one person to another, one culture to another, and one era to another- so much so that there is no trace of a common ground.

      It can vary from the Jains, who are vegetarians and constantly sweep the ground in front of them so they don't tread on any ants, to caniblal tribes who hunt, kill and eat people from other tribes.

    • 2 years ago
  • Fatalism
    • 0
      Fatalism  

    • You mean the complex "Devolution" of human morality. Bystanders will stand by and watch women joggers get raped in New York City.. Or causally sit by and watch a gang of the youth beat a 70 year old man to bloody pulp, and be unphased. In modern society the extinguishment of another human life is either a joke or entertainment. Murder and suicide are trivialized and placed on Dvds, such as faces of death, for entertainment of audiences.

    • 2 years ago
  • crispyfritters
  • UtopianSky
    • +2
      UtopianSky  
    • Image
    • Fatalism:

      That's not Devolution. It's not evolution. It's not even change.

      Nothing you described is new.

      People have been raped, beaten and murdered in front of oblivious bystanders since the dawn of time.

      In the past, murder WAS a form of entertainment- not just euphemistically, but literally.

      I'm sure you have seen plenty of westerns with the crowds gathering to watch a man hang from the gallows,
      or during the French revolution to see people being beheaded by the guillotine,
      or during the reign of the Catholic Church people being burned at the stake,
      or during the Roman empire people being tossed to the lions.

      In all of those cases people would gather- men, women and children, to see the gore and cheer when the person died.

      It always shocks me when people complain about how awful things are now, and how immoral people are, as if it's something new.

      Take off the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, and see the past for what it was- a hell of a lot worse than life is now.

      http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9955/guillotine5aa.jpg

    • 2 years ago
  • Einsam_Data_Old
  • freecrack
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