The Darwinist Case for Moral Universalism
An Evolutionary Theory of Morality
Where Does Morality Come From?
Philosophical questions of ethics have proven themselves to be some of the most confounding puzzles in human intellectual thought. Other major philosophical fields, particularly metaphysics, have successfully marshaled aid from scientific research to uncover facts and gather data to advance itself. The uniquely subjective nature of ethics, by contrast, has hitherto shielded its most important questions from scientific elucidation. Due to its focus on human value attribution, rather than objective quantifiable data, moral questions can hardly be settled through the kind of empirical evidence offered by scientific research.
Specifically, the fundamental ethical question of the existence of moral universals has been hotly debated in religious, philosophical, and lay circles for centuries, and remains among the most befuddling Gordian knots in intellectual thought. Today, there are several predominant competing theories, which fall under two main camps. Moral objectivism presupposes the existence of universal moral laws to which all ethical behavior is bound. The second is moral relativism, which denies such universalities, and posits that moral disagreements among different cultures are far too deep and widespread to allow for the existence of universal moral principles. These are the two chief camps by which the nature of morality has been contested in the last century. However, due to the absence of compelling evidence and the presence of critical flaws found in both ideologies, neither one has been able to decisively establish itself as the prevailing paradigm in ethical thought.
However, new research in the field of anthropology may have uncovered a path toward a “third way” of considering morality. In this groundbreaking study, Anthropology researchers from Oxford University have gathered evidence that humans throughout the world may share a genetically inherited underlying schema of moral impulses that promote pro-social cohesion and function to develop and preserve communal organizations. This revelation can perhaps pave the way for the settlement of the age-old philosophical debate between moral objectivism (also known as moral universalism) and moral relativism.
Moral Objectivism and Moral Relativism
For us to understand the full scope of the Oxford study’s impact, it’s important to have a general working knowledge of the current ethical debate as it stands today. In the first camp, there are the moral objectivists. These thinkers posit that there is a clear and objective moral standard –either through natural or supernatural forces— assigns “good” or “evil” to our actions. According to them, moral principles are universal. Moderate objectivists agree that these universals represent underlying guiding principles, and this offers some flexibility in varying situations. In many cases, this tendency trends toward ethical situationism, which acknowledges the need for people to negotiate between different moral principles in a given situation. On the other hand, the more extreme objectivists, the moral absolutists, exhibit a more extreme line of thinking. They argue that moral dictates are unexceptional and nonoverridable. Adhering to the right code of conduct is therefore objectively good, while diverging from it is objectively bad. Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and moral religious doctrines all represent versions of moral objectivism.
The main problem that moral objectivists contend with, is the existence of apparently irreconcilable moral attitudes throughout society. This conundrum serves as the very foundation of the second view, moral relativism. Moral relativists argue against the existence of moral universals, believing that concepts of good and evil are essentially human constructs developed over the history of humankind. Such value systems vary far too greatly and fundamentally across cultures and eras to presuppose any “true” moral code. Branches of moral relativism include cultural relativism, which endorses the belief that moral principles are based on cultural acceptance, rather than intrinsic “goodness” or “badness”. Ethical subjectivism states that moral judgments are only binding to the individual who holds them. Finally, ethical nihilism rejects the entire idea of morality as pure fiction.[1]
While some moral relativist thought has roots in Ancient Greece, moral objectivist views were historically dominant in Western Thought until the 19th century, when conflicting reports from Anthropologists studying different non-Western cultures first reached Europe. The expansive variations in moral systems they observed challenged the various objectivist presumptions in Europe and ignited a longstanding moral debate that has endured into the 21st century. As moral relativism developed, it also integrated the West’s growing awareness of the changing criteria of morality in cultures over time.[2] For example, it was once considered morally acceptable to arrange marriages while the bride and groom were still children, and slavery was, until recently, considered perfectly fine. Both forced labor and child marriages fell out of favor as Western society evolved, demonstrating the ever-changing and relative nature of moral standards. It is worth noting that both of these practices are still accepted in other cultures, demonstrating clear differences in moral thinking. Evidence like this provides relativists ammunition to argue that human morality is the product of human constructs in response to environmental pressures without any observable “objective” properties.
The Third Way: Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory
Objectivism and relativism dominate moral discourse and represent a spectrum through which ethical standpoints can be situated. Proponents in either camp, however, both fail to land a decisive blow, locking the two sides in a philosophical stalemate. Fortunately, there is another way to approach the question of moral foundations that is not only backed by scientific research (lacking in both the above perspectives), but also offers a way to reconcile the two opposing sides, validating their strong points while stripping both of their flaws. This theory is the oft-overlooked evolutionary theory of moral origins first posited by Charles Darwin.
To be clear, I am not talking about Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism, which is really an anti-morality which I plan to write about more later on. I am referring specifically to the moral theories Charles Darwin himself introduced in his work, The Descent of Man. Drawing on evolutionary theories first laid down in his prior work, On the Origin of Species, Darwin posited that natural selection favored the development of human moral sense because it facilitated the level of social cohesion that allowed humans to develop and maintain social organizations. He noted that moral behavior was the synthesis of emotive impulses and rational moral judgment. He also believed that this quality was unique to the human species.[3]
While Darwin’s theory is rather general and has historically suffered from a lack of elaboration, this is largely due to scholarly neglect rather than any inherent weakness. In fact, it is a revolutionary theory that deserves enthusiastic attention. It explains human moral origins and behavior as justified by practical advantage rather than arbitrary or dogmatic reasons. Rather, it suggests that our morality is a product of nature in the same sense as our sight and opposable thumbs. In this theory, “Good vs. Evil” doesn’t factor in other innate categorizations of behavior that increase the human species’ survivability. This frees it from the universalist snag of intrinsic or self-evident moral character along with the need for doctrinal or divine authority. Dogma simply does not factor into the equation. At the same time, however, it does point to a common source of human morality that can be evidenced by human behavior. In this way, it aspires to do away with the relativist view of morality as a mere social construct untethered to any common root. According to the Darwinist Theory, moral behavior is neither uniformly dogmatic nor unmoored and arbitrary. Instead, moral impulses are practical characteristics of human behavior with clear real-world advantages. However, until recently, there has been a woeful lack of trustworthy, peer-reviewed cross-cultural studies attempting to identify a common human sense of morality that could substantiate the Darwinist moral theory.
Until now.
The Seven Universal Moral Guidelines
Researchers, Methods, and Scope
Anthropologists at Oxford University completed a groundbreaking study that was recently published in Current Anthropology. They believe they have successfully identified seven universal moral rules across sixty different social organizations throughout the world. These rules are 1) help your family, 2) help your group, 3) deference to superiors, 4) fair distribution of resources, 5) reciprocity, 6) courage, and 7) respect for prior possession (property rights). They note that, while not completely universal in practice, the majority of these rules were present in the majority of groups, which included the American Iroquois of North America, Scottish Highlanders of Northwestern Europe, the Chuuk people of the Pacific Islands, and the Kurds of the Middle East. It is worthy to note that while all seven principles were clearly represented in all cultures, every one agreed that such behavior was at least not bad.[4]
Implications: Evidence of Evolutionary Roots, Natural Phenomenon
These findings can be interpreted as evidence that morality itself is an evolutionary product of our pro-social nature. Whenever humans organize themselves into groups, they tend to run into common problems like equitable distribution of resources, effective teamwork, and properly functioning hierarchies. The success of any social organization thus relies on humans’ instinctive partiality to corresponding values that hold groups together. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any functioning society that lack the majority of these rules, and, likely, the decline or absence of too many of them in any social organization is a marker of social decay. Therefore, humans developed a common moral framework because the cooperation within groups that it fosters is advantageous for the survival of the species. Without these traits, there is little chance that any organized society would last for any significant amount of time.
I should emphasize that while none of the traits listed above were deemed bad by any culture, it must be noted that, as mentioned earlier, it was common for researchers to find one or two values absent from the social mores of many groups. If we accept that moral impulses are universally shared throughout humanity, how can this be explained? The answer lies in cultural mutability. As mentioned before, moral impulses are adaptations to social problems in human groups. Therefore, they are essentially just tools to promote good social health. If a certain principle is not needed, it is not used. Conversely, if another tool proves to be a critical necessity, it is utilized, and often even reinforced to the point of ascending to a chief value. Consider the subculture of the modern military, for instance. Given its status as warrior community, the moral characteristic of courage is beefed up to a cardinal virtue. The necessity for immediate and unquestioning obedience to orders in the face of wartime situations also demands adherence to the principle of deference to authority. Outside the military, these traits take a back seat. Courage is tempered by prudence and people in general tend to be more passive and less confrontational. The relatively egalitarian character of civilian society also tempers and informalizes and deference to superiors.
Morals cannot exist in a vacuum, and it’s hard to conceive of the ethical standards of a lone human that do not stem directly from self-interest. In fact, the restrictive and sacrificial morality would likely be counterproductive for non-social animals. Therefore, moral conduct is fundamentally advantageous to social organisms. Since morals generally dictate how we interact with other people, it follows that it is ultimately an evolutionary trait that stems from our need to develop and maintain social organizations. It is largely due to our unparalleled ability to apply these principles in practice that our species has been able to generate the massive social structures we live in today.
Implications: Reconciles Universalism and Relativism
It’s abundantly clear to anyone with even cursory knowledge of different cultures to know that the specifics of moral codes vary greatly throughout the world. This has long been a chief argument in favor of moral relativism and those who view morality as simply a human construct divorced from any primal aspect of human nature. Yet this new study identifies the core fundamentals of groups on a global scale. As the results suggest, the human species appears to share a universal capacity for constructing moral codes based on a core criterion hard-wired into our nature over the course of our evolution. However, morality’s function as an adaptation for improving survival, also negates the requirement for establishing the intrinsic universals and leaves room for a degree of moral flexibility and variability required for survival in a wide variety of conditions. The practical nature of morals, therefore, dismisses the need for intrinsic justification of moral universals, the main of objectivists. Thus, the evolutionary theory of morality manages to accept the valid observations of both relativists and objectivists, while integrating relevant scientific data into its premises. If we view cultures’ ethical values and practices as unique products of the rational mediation of human moral impulses against variable environmental pressures, it follows that it is not only possible but overwhelmingly likely, that moral standards would superficially vary from culture to culture, yet still stem from a ubiquitous core. The result is a well-grounded theory that synthesizes relativism and objectivism, while simultaneously negating them.
Perhaps just as important, the mutual validation of this interpretation successfully negates both the arbitrary nature of morality asserted by relativists, while the implied practical utility of moral variability undermines the ahistorical, rigid, and ultimately self-righteous viewpoints of moral objectivists. It rejects both the cynicism of the relativist and the arrogance of the universalist. Those who hold the views reinforced by these findings can agree that humans are essentially moral beings while acknowledging that ethical perspectives can and do differ depending on environmental and psychological variables.
Conclusion
The idea of cognitive universals is not totally new. Noam Chomsky’s Theory of Universal Grammar suggests that humans share a universal framework for developing language based on a certain number of fundamental rules. This means that although there is an abundance of languages with different syntaxes, grammar, and rules, they all stem from an intuitive root structure. This theory both attempts to explain humanity’s universal capability to create language and suggests that an intuitive International Language based closely upon these fundamentals can be relatively easily accessed by people around the globe.
It now appears the same may hold for morality.
It is plausible that human social groups draw codes from the same key fundamentals across the board. The odds of this being mere coincidence given the evidence seem to be slim to none. Thanks to the fastidious anthropologists at Oxford University, we have a promising lead in the search for a definitive answer to a key question in ethical debates. As for myself, the research reinforces my own convictions that human morality is a product of evolution and is therefore a shared human trait ingrained in our nature. For me, it simply identifies the specific criterion. The roots of morality, therefore, do not spring from a fear-driven historical process, as Nietzsche claimed, nor is it a purely rational response to the environment, as claimed by Marxists and associated schools of thought. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest it is something granted by God or any divine or supernatural force of any kind. Most, if not every, moral code is a human construct derived from a set of innate principles shared by the entire human race instilled by evolutionary processes.
Works Cited
2. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/701478
3. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
6. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/63/7/513/288827
[1] https://webcontent.indianhills.edu/_myhills/courses/PHI105/documents/lu03_moral%20objectivism_relativism.pdf
[2] https://iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#:~:text=Moral%20relativism%20is%20the%20view,uniquely%20privileged%20over%20all%20others.
[3] https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/63/7/513/288827
[4] Is It Good to Cooperate? : Testing the Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies | Current Anthropology: Vol 60, No 1 (uchicago.edu)