Atheism, Evolution and Moral Nihilism

[Adamoriens]

It is often argued by atheist and theist alike that evolutionary explanations for morality refute the idea that there are any "spooky" moral facts, and that therefore atheists ought to think there are no moral facts. But nobody on this board (so far as I have observed) has actually made a good argument toward this end. Here is the best I can come up with:

The moral beliefs of humans have been created and conditioned by, apart from cultural factors, the impersonal demands of evolution. Thus we find that our moral beliefs tend to facilitate reproduction and the passing of healthy genetic material onto the next generation. The universal tendency to especially value one's own immediate family, offspring and friends, the protection of children and women (chivalry, perhaps), the (general) disgust for murder, rape and incestuous sex, etc. are all explained by evolution's blind selection for adaptive behaviours. Assuming this is true, we can conclude that our moral beliefs are not sensitive to "spooky" moral facts, but rather to the impersonal pressures demanded by survival. And since knowledge requires a causal connection between facts and beliefs, it follows that none of our moral beliefs are knowledge; they have never tracked facts, only evolutionary pressures.

There are two points I'd like to make here. The first is that this challenge to moral beliefs must be met by theists as well; the evolutionary explanations are impersonal, which means that their success in explaining moral beliefs entails that the idea God has endowed us with reliable moral faculties is less probable (probably false). The second is that both the theist and the atheist can conceivably get around the challenge by positing that evolution happened to select for moral beliefs that actually correlate with moral facts; theists might come out in better shape here.

Any thoughts?

[Adamoriens]

Evolutionary psychology makes no hefty assumptions about the nature of mind that neuroscience does not.

This is an evasive and vague reply. You've jumped from your original idea, to evolutionary psychology, and now to neuroscience. We are going to have to agree to disagree.

There are a few things to say here. You criticized me for making "some hefty assumptions about the nature of the mind," and then you failed to tell me what those assumptions were. I can't very well be faulted for shooting into the dark in return. Will you clarify what illegitimate assumptions evolutionary psychology makes?

If no-one extended theories beyond their demonstrated scope, we'd have no progress.

This is both irrelevant to this discussion and a misunderstanding of what I've stated.
There is a difference between investigation/research and asserting certain ideas as true or likely. I am criticizing the notion that morality can be accounted for purely by evolution. I am not criticizing or condemning investigation/research into anything.

Indeed, my original postulate was that evolution can account for all significant moral intuitions. I took on that assumption just to see where it leads; I'm not actually arguing that evolutionary psychology can account for it all. However, I do find it plausible to think that certain important psychological traits in humans can be explained by their adaptiveness for survival, prosperity, and reproduction.

But as you can see from AquinasD's early response, whatever moral intuitions are not destroyed by evolutionary psychology are probably destroyed when one considers the sheer diversity of moral intuitions.

The inability to answer that question is devastating to any EP idea. It effectively kicks the legs out from under it. Without a mechanism then it is like arguing for evolution without natural selection.

Here's Edward H. Hagen on the subject:

In the three and a half centuries since William Harvey proved that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood, physiologists have revealed the functional organization of the body in blinding detail. Their discoveries demonstrate beyond question that the structure of the body serves survival and reproduction. Further, there is near unanimity among biologists that this functional structure is a product of natural selection. In our century, psychologists have developed powerful techniques that conclusively demonstrate that cognition, too, has structure. Evolutionary psychologists are betting that cognitive structure, like physiological structure, has been designed by natural selection to serve survival and reproduction.

1) Without an explanation about the precise mechanism that explains how genes and environmental pressures directly give rise to moral beliefs then this idea is untenable.

2) It is true that our minds are influenced by genetics and evolution had some role in that but genes do not account for everything. If they did then we would expect to see identical twins think, behave, and suffer from identical psychological disorders at very high rates. We don't. For example, if one twin is schizophrenic, autistic, or ADHD then the other only has about a 50% chance or less of having it. While this is substantially greater than the prevalence in the general population, it demonstrates that there is more than just genes at work. This is precisely where the OP goes wrong. It makes too much of genes and evolution while disregarding individual experiences and self reflective thoughts which directly mold the mind and higher cognitive functions.

I don't think that evolutionary psychology aims to offer unique evolutionary explanations for individual moral beliefs like, "you ought to have a single spouse for the duration of your lifetime." Rather, there is a selection for "empathetic" cognitive structures that must be explained by the sorts of adaptive moral beliefs it tends to cause. And this involves going beyond genetics and into the environment in which these empathetic cognitive structures act.

The rest of your criticism is probably best answered here (from The Origins of Morality by Dennis L. Krebs):

Evolutionary psychologists attribute an important role to the environment at all levels of the evolutionary process. At an ultimate level, the environment plays a key role in the natural selection of inherited traits. Indeed, the nature in natural selection refers to the environment. As explained by Edward Hagen and Donald Symons ( 2007 ), organisms evolved to reproduce in a particular environment; if nothing is known about that environment, almost nothing can be said about what it takes to reproduce in it (p. 43). Hagen and Symons argue that accounting for the evolution of traits is like deciphering the relation between keys (adaptations) and the locks they were designed to open (environmental problems). You cannot understand one without understanding the other. It follows that one of the most important challenges for understanding the evolution of morality is to identify the environmental problems that the mental mechanisms that give rise to moral judgments and behaviors evolved to solve, which as I have argued, were primarily social in nature. (p. 68)

[Adamoriens]

I don't see that anything but humans (in our evolutionary line) has had minds.

It appears that certain animals can pass pretty much any metric of cognition you can throw at them: memory, self-recognition, rational decision making, arithmetic reasoning, introspection etc.

[GiddyUp]

But? Your a Canadian? Aren't we at the same line of Gulf Stream, and etc. I think we are and your lakes are nothing compared to ours, so what can anuone do.

[AquinasD]

It appears that certain animals can pass pretty much any metric of cognition you can throw at them: memory, self-recognition, rational decision making, arithmetic reasoning, introspection etc.

Any way they manage to do so can be replicated by a computer.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 58:

I 'preciate that AquinasD didn't object to my sorta misquoting him through a not very creative use of the quote function. It indicates to me he knows where he stands and he ain't shamed of it.

There are substantial differences between what the reductionist is trying to do and what theists are trying to do.

1) Theists are not trying to "explain away" anything by God

2) Theists don't use God as an explanation of every particular thing

That's kinda my point. The god concept is the container for all that which is unknown or unconfirmed. Where the theist accepts a given "non-god" answer, well how 'bout that.

Where there is no answer, where an answer is unconfirmed (in anything but a theological context), the god concept walks right on in without so much as knockin', and ya know he's got his muddy boots on, trampin' across the carpet the old lady just sat there and used the steam cleaner on. In this Georgia red mud. And whoya think hadda pay to rent it? And if that ain't enough, he gets in on your Sund'y whiskey.

I'd agree the term "explaining away" is more harsh than I prefer. To me it implies "dismissing what is known". To say that anyone who uses the best they have is explainiatin' away" what they know to be true and factual, is a bit uncivil - not that I'm the I'm the Pope o' civil.

That said, my perception is that many a theist will reject confirmable data that goes against their particular god notions. Their rejection seems, if only to me, based solely on the notion a given deal there goes against what they're gettin' outta the Bible. And that Bible deal there is as unconfirmed as the child support a man pays a whore.

For me, the ultimate in reductionisticivisimisms is to place a god at the end of the trail. "Beats me" seems so much more proficient. Most 'specially when gettin' at the end of that trail leads us to, "And he ain't happy 'bout how you carry on".

[Autodidact]

Do you have some empirical support for this bald assertion, or are we expected to accept it on your word alone?

A bald assertion? I thought the difference between semantics and syntax were well understood. There is a sign, and then there is its meaning; the sign represents the meaning but is not itself the meaning.

Are you saying that it might be otherwise?

Here is what you said:

In order for there to be truth, there must be true propositions. But our ability to form and express propositions (which happen to be true) requires that we are minds with a nature to understand (semantical) significance. (Materialistic) evolution can only help put in place syntactical engines, Chinese rooms operated by blind, dead computers.

The last sentence is a bald, and also false, assertion.

[Autodidact]

Here's what I was hinting at:

There is a correlation between complexity of brains and complexity of minds. As we progress from the past to the present this correlation begins with simple minds and brains and progresses to complex minds and brains. So, this suggests that as our brains evolved, so did our minds. This doesn't commit us to identifying mind states as brain states, so I take your complaint to be overstated.

I don't see that anything but humans (in our evolutionary line) has had minds.

Really? On what basis do you not see that?

[Autodidact]

Nope, because I don't think it is possible to have empirical evidence for things that are merely conceptual, rather than grounded in reality.

You clearly don't understand the nature of my request, because here you would be saying that your call for empirical evidence is arbitrary. For as stubborn as you are, I wouldn't expect it. Allow me to try and explain what I'm pointing out.

Do you accept this as a true proposition?

1) If something is true, there would exist empirical evidence for it

If not, could you submit a proposition (1') that you accept as true that states your belief about the necessity of empirical evidence?

No, I don't. What I do assert is that it is best not to accept as true empirical propositions without evidence to support them.

Many propositions are true but not empirical, as mathematical propositions.

Even many empirical propositions may turn out to be true, although we have no evidence for that.

However, without empirical evidence, we have no way of judging the truth of an empirical proposition. Unless you want to start believing any old random thing, a very difficult way to live, it usually works out best to base your empirical beliefs on evidence, don't you agree?

[AquinasD]

That's kinda my point. The god concept is the container for all that which is unknown or unconfirmed.

You keep saying this, but I fail to see what you mean in the least.

I don't know whether Goldbach's conjecture is true or false. But I don't stuff Goldbach's conjecture into "the god concept."

So what do you mean by the god concept being "the container for all that which is unknown and unconfirmed?" I've provided an example that seems to discount what you mean, so unless you mean something specific and definite, then my suspicion is that your postulate about what "the god concept" serves as is your own little deus ex machina that does whatever work you want it to do. A kind of Sonic Screwdriver, as it were. You pull it out in any situation where you don't have some other ready answer.

Where there is no answer, where an answer is unconfirmed (in anything but a theological context), the god concept walks right on in without so much as knockin'

Care to give an example of just what you mean?

I already spoke about Goldbach's conjecture, and I reckon that no god concept is walking in.

How about what happens at the end of the book series I'm currently reading (John Dies at the End by David Wong, aka Jason Pargin)? I don't know what happens, but I don't see any gods introducing themselves to give me an answer.

What about a final and perfect physical theory? I don't see any god here.

How many atoms am I composed of? I'm looking, but there doesn't seem to be any god hiding around under the furniture in this department, either.

That said, my perception is that many a theist will reject confirmable data that goes against their particular god notions.

Do you have an example? Specifically, something which is in fact plainly confirmable and not an example of question-begging?

[AquinasD]

The last sentence is a bald, and also false, assertion.

Okay, how do you get from matter to semantics?