Guybrush

As I wrote earlier, science already has a brilliant answer to why most humans have a conscience. You should get into some evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology and evolutionary psychology. These are related subjects that I'm sure would answer so many questions in your life.

Does this explain animal behaviour as well, then? F.ex are dogs only nice to people because they subconsciously worry about their karma? Is a vampire bat that shares blood with its starving neighbour doing so out of fear of what might happen in the next life?

Also, shouldn't it automatically follow that people who f.ex smoke are on average less moral? After all, they know that there are bad consequences for smoking, both consciously and unconsciously, yet they still do it. You'd think they would also be less moral, even if they subconsciously know they would pay for it in the next life.

So in other words, you went into this with complete bias and your air-tight explanation isn't air-tight.


This is a statement which is not true. Evolution behaves predictably and so does not produce "any kind of moral code". Generally speaking, for a moral code to evolve, it has to make sense as a strategy to maximize the fitness of the individual who holds that moral code. Humans, being a social species, have generally evolved moral codes that promote cooperation which is an important reason why we are such moral beings. You can maximize your own fitness by cooperating with others. But it also follows that we have evolved exploitative behaviour.

When you have a population where the general behaviour can be described as "I scratch your back, you scratch mine", that cooperation may raise everyone's fitness and so it may be in everyone's selfish interest to be in on it. Behaviours (and morals) evolve that help us cooperate because it is a good fitness strategy. But it can be an even better strategy to be a parasite in that system by getting your back scratched, but not scratching anyone else back. After all, you would get the positives of being in a cooperative environment, but not the negatives - the cost of having to help the others. So, ironically, a cooperative environment in itself may reward more selfish strategies that exploit that willingness to cooperate. The more cooperation there is, the more rewarding it would be to exploit that. But if everyone was selfish and didn't cooperate, everyone would have lower fitness for it. The few who then learned to cooperate would do better than the selfish ones and so, ironically, a completely selfish environment could also promote cooperation by making cooperation a comparatively more successful strategy.

So basically, both the exploitation strategy and the cooperation strategy are kept in the population and there is a ratio of exploiters/cooperators were being one is as good as being the other, ex. 90% cooperators and 10% exploiters. If you move away from this ratio in the direction of a higher percentage of cooperators, being an exploiter becomes more rewarding. If you move towards more exploiters, being a cooperator becomes relatively more rewarding. Natural selection helps keep the ratio somewhat stable over time and, generally speaking, this ratio is when the majority cooperate and a minority exploit. You might think exploitation would be so good a strategy that the suggested 10% seems too small - and indeed it can be. However, it is also in the interest of every cooperator to increase the ratio of cooperators by making it more rewarding to cooperate and less rewarding to exploit. (The reverse isn't quite true; someone who exploits generally won't benefit from there being more exploiters). Defense strategies against exploitation evolves. The ability to judge whether or not an individual would reciprocate kindness on your part is an excellent counter strategy. So are laws - moral/social codes or otherwise - that further promotes cooperation and demotes exploitation. This moves the ratio in favour of the cooperators.

So humans are great at cooperating and generally make it so that it is rewarding to cooperate and not so rewarding to exploit, but that doesn't mean that humanity doesn't possess exploitative strategies to take advantage of our knack for cooperation. After all, such strategies would have evolved and we are very complicated animals. A capacity for exploiting others may arise in someone by various means. For example, someone who generally cooperates may become an exploiter if that individual's environment changes. The capacity for being an exploiter, or when that capacity should trigger, may also be coded for genetically and perhaps a lack of the "right" stimulation could lead to a general lack in the capacity to cooperate, for example resulting from a reduced ability to read others emotions, again leading to quicker resort to exploitative behaviours.

So how moral you are comes from a mixed bag. A lot of it comes from genes (in a sense, all of it), some come from environment; both what you've learned and as a reaction to the environment you find yourself in and some of it may be explained by your general health. For example, your general ability like memory, happiness and so on will affect how moral you are. In the most extreme example, a person who is relatively moral may become less moral with the right (or wrong) damage to the brain.

Bottom line is, morality is part of human nature (we know why) and you don't need a fear of karma and the next life to explain it.

I realize I've written quite a bit now, even if it is a drop compared to the ocean about all that can be said or written on the subject. Perhaps some of it is difficult to understand depending on your knowledge of evolution. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear.

Science studies humans as well as other things. Of course there is a scientific explanation to this. You just have to look it up.

The scientific finding that we don't have any idea is a "scientific" finding you've made up.

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