Evolution and Morality

Does evolution have moral implications?

It is taboo to discuss the implications of evolution for human nature and society. It is dismissed as “discredited”, “pseudoscience”, “bigoted” or simply “evil”. We are not supposed to think rationally about the implications of evolution for human beings. This taboo exists because evolution seems to conflict with established moral and social views. In particular, evolution conflicts with the moral value of altruism: the belief that we ought to be nice to one another.

Evolution has no direct moral implications. Evolutionary theory is a truth theory. It tells us how the world is. Morality, on the other hand, is a value theory. It tells us how we should act, or how the world should be. Evolution is on one side of the is | ought gap, and morality is on the other. There is no way to reason from an “is” to an “ought”, or vice versa. Evolutionary theory doesn’t tell us how we should act, any more than physics does.

However, like physics, evolutionary theory has implications about the consequences of our actions. Logically, value does not depend on truth, but pragmatically it does. We might want a building with a certain design, such as an upside-down pyramid, but if physics tells us that it will collapse, there is no point trying to build it. Likewise, there is no point trying to create a social utopia if evolutionary theory predicts that it will fail. Our choices are not just based on what we value. They are also based on what we believe that we can do. Like physics, biology is a major constraint on what we can do.

Evolutionary theory also gives us a better understanding of ourselves. Evolutionary theory constrains psychological theory, because the brain is a biological form with a biological function. Biology has many implications for psychology, and those implications might conflict with our myths about ourselves.

Having said that, I will argue that evolutionary theory conflicts with morality in three important ways:

• It implies that altruism cannot evolve. We are not actually altruistic. Society is not based on altruism. Professed altruism is a pretense. In other words, morality is a lie.
• It implies that altruism is self-defeating. Altruistic social policies, such as welfare, undermine society. In the long run, they will produce dystopian outcomes and/or social collapse.
• It implies that nature is not morally good. Nature is a struggle for finite resources between selfish reproducers. Life is selfish and violent.

These implications are not moral claims, but they have a devastating impact on moral beliefs.

The belief that morality is a lie has a profound effect on moral beliefs, even though it is not a moral claim, but rather a truth claim about the nature of moral beliefs. If you understand that your moral intuitions are just internal conformity and obedience, not awareness of objective good and evil, then you no longer believe in good and evil.

Evolutionary theory doesn’t imply the non-existence of God, but it does lead people toward atheism, because it conflicts with religious explanations and narratives. It provides an alternative theory of life that fits the evidence and doesn’t depend on the notion of God. Likewise, evolutionary theory doesn’t directly negate moral values, but it does lead to moral nihilism, because it conflicts with moral explanations and narratives.

Some try to resolve this conflict by claiming that altruism can and did evolve, and that human beings are naturally altruistic. Many people, including some famous biologists, have tried to derive altruism from evolution. Such attempts are not driven by the desire to explain what we observe. They are driven by the desire to eliminate the conflict between evolutionary theory and morality, in the same way that creationism is driven by the desire to eliminate the conflict between evolutionary theory and religion.

The simplest way to eliminate the conflict is to reject morality as untenable and unnecessary. There is no logical or empirical reason to believe in objective good and evil. However, for most people, moral beliefs are deep assumptions that cannot easily be discarded. So, there have been many attempts to fit altruism into evolutionary theory.

Kin selection theory is one attempt to make altruism consistent with evolutionary theory, although it only predicts altruism among close relatives. It invokes “kin selection” to explain every apparent instance of kin altruism (such as worker bees caring for their sisters). However, it is somehow not falsified by the far more abundant examples of kin competition (such as queen bees killing their sisters). This is a type of cherry-picking fallacy. The theory cannot explain the former without being falsified by the latter. Kin selection theory has no predictive or explanatory power.

Scientists are not immune to ideological bias and blindness.

As a general rule, living beings invest energy in their own offspring, not in other individuals, even close kin. There are a few exceptions, such as worker bees, but those exceptions have exceptional explanations and are not explained by kin selection. (See Bees are Not Social.)

Evolutionary theory also implies that altruistic social systems are self-defeating. If a society subsidizes reproduction, it will accumulate a large population of unproductive and/or destructive people, who reproduce at the expense of the society. This free-rider population will eventually destroy the society. The modern welfare state is self-defeating.

Evolutionary theory implies that charity isn’t really altruistic in the long run. Charity might allow a large population of unproductive people to survive and reproduce, but that population will eventually perish when society collapses or changes to be less altruistic. Charity is futile, unless it has a compensating mechanism to limit free-rider reproduction. We understand this principle well enough when it applies to geese or ground squirrels (“Don’t Feed the Wildlife”), but we ignore it when it applies to human beings. Even if you accept the premise that we have altruistic moral obligations, charity fails because altruism is self-defeating.

The term “social Darwinism” is often used to dismiss such claims without argument, as if there is some fallacy involved in applying evolutionary theory to human beings. However, the fallacy is on the other side. It is irrational to dismiss the implications of evolutionary theory for human nature and society.

Evolutionary theory conflicts with morality in another way. Evolution, nature and even life itself would be judged evil by an altruistic moral standard. If altruism is good, nature is evil.

Of course, strictly speaking, nature would not be considered evil, because nature is not a conscious agent. However, if a conscious agent did what nature does, most people would judge that agent to be evil.

Nature is not kind to its creations. Nature brings sentient creatures into existence to fight over limited resources, and most die without reproducing. Life is necessarily selfish and violent. There is no karma in nature. Selfishness is rewarded, and altruism is punished.

You could say that this is irrelevant, because what is natural is not necessarily good, and vice versa. To conflate “natural” and “good” is the naturalistic fallacy, or (in the opposite direction) the moralistic fallacy. It is a fallacy because it leaps over the is | ought gap.

However, the conflict is not resolved by distinguishing between nature and morality. The harsh reality of nature poses a profound challenge to morality. If life is evil, how can altruism be good? What is the point of helping others or preserving lives? It would just be rewarding and perpetuating evil. Even if I were somehow an exception to the natural order, how could I do good in a world that is fundamentally evil?

An accurate understanding of nature is devastating to moral beliefs.

Rather than rejecting morality or evolutionary theory, there is a third option: reject life. Efilism is a philosophical position that rejects life, or at least sentient life. It retains the moral value of altruism, but inverts its implications. For efilists, the greatest moral good would be the complete annihilation of life.

The simplest solution is to discard morality. We are not compelled by logic or evidence to believe in objective good and evil. However, moral beliefs and intuitions are very resistant to change. For most people, it is easier to reject the truth about life than to reject morality.