Q&A: The Argument from Morality and Evolution
The Argument from Morality and Evolution
Question
Hello Rabbi,
You wrote in the fourth notebook that the refutation of the argument from morality based on evolution is riddled with so many flaws, but I didn’t see that you listed them all, only a few of them (I’d be happy to hear all of them).
One of the arguments you made against the refutation from evolution is that it is not plausible that evolution would need to activate such a complex mental mechanism in order to direct desirable behavior. But one of my students challenged this claim. He said that it is intellectually very clear why I need to eat when I’m hungry—food = strength = survival. The connection between survival and food is self-evident. Likewise, I am not required to sacrifice anything in order to satisfy my hunger; on the contrary, I fulfill my desire and eat. That is exactly the opposite of the moral demand. First, the connection between morality and survival is very remote from the individual person—it is something more abstract. Second, it requires a great deal of sacrifice on the part of the person not to fulfill his immediate desires! Therefore, only people in whom morality was so deeply ingrained that they would suffer over not observing it were in fact the ones who survived. And therefore that is the reason for the heavy mental burden of morality—only someone who believed he was truly doing wrong really obeyed morality and survived.
I would be happy to hear the Rabbi’s opinion.
Answer
The fundamental flaw is that evolution cannot serve as a basis for moral obligation. It is an explanation of why the “moral” tendency arose (the desire to do good/help), but that is not morality. Someone who acts because he has a tendency is not acting morally. A moral action is an action done out of decision, not because of a tendency. It is done for a reason, not because of a cause. It is the result of choice.
As for the flaw you described, you’re missing the point. If a person had been programmed to act morally as a mechanical action, without calculating why to do so, that would have fully achieved the survival outcome. Moral consciousness, thought, and deliberation are evolutionarily / survival-wise unnecessary. So why did they arise? Because a moral act is an act done through deliberation and not mechanically (as I explained in the previous passage). Therefore, the whole discussion about pangs of conscience, abstractness, and motives is irrelevant to this discussion. It assumes that a person acts according to deliberation, and therefore he will not do something abstract, etc. But I am asking why deliberation arose in the first place—why a person weighs what to do and what not to do, and whether it is hard or easy for him. Evolution could simply produce a mechanical person who acts morally. That is what would survive, and that’s it.