Q&A: An Attempt to Refute the Explanation of Morality Through Evolution
An Attempt to Refute the Explanation of Morality Through Evolution.
Question
Hello Rabbi, I support the argument for the existence of God from morality, and I heard a counterargument that I would like to refute.
The counterargument is that the purpose of morality is the evolutionary success of the human species, and things like murder, theft, and so on would interfere, from an evolutionary standpoint, with human beings, and so objectively all of that would be problematic. There are many arguments against this. One argument I thought of against it is that if that were so, we would view nomads who do not want to live in groups, or people who willingly remain illiterate, as very immoral, since from an evolutionary perspective these are very important things.
Answer
This is an evolutionary explanation of morality, and it is based on the naturalistic fallacy. That explanation does not say that one ought to behave morally; it only explains why in practice we do so. The question is what the basis is for the demand to act that way, and for the underlying assumption that this is how one ought to act. If someone thinks there is no such demand and that one ought not act this way, then he does not believe in morality, and as far as he is concerned, the argument from morality really has no force.
Yes, but what I specifically said was that if the evolutionary explanation of morality were correct, we should be expected to view a nomad as very immoral. From the fact that we do not view him that way, one can see that the basis of morality is not evolutionary utilitarianism.