Greg explores the limitations of Darwinism in accounting for moral beliefs, arguing that if morality is merely a product of evolution, it leads to relativism rather than objective moral truths.
Transcript
The pushback is the Darwinian model: “Well, Darwinism can account for morality.” Now, this is where we have to define our terms carefully. If what you mean is Darwinism can account for our feelings of morality, our common understanding of what is good and what isn’t good, then maybe. I’m not convinced that any system of natural selection working on genetic mutation has the capability of building belief systems in a conscious mind, partly because there is no way to demonstrate that consciousness can emerge from material matter. Right and wrong are features of consciousness. This is why Daniel Dennett, one of the “new atheists,” says consciousness is just an illusion. Well, if it’s just an illusion, then the beliefs we have are too—beliefs which, according to them, regarding morality, were caused by Darwinian evolution. So, evolution is not going to get you out of the gate there, it seems to me, because beliefs are part of consciousness, and evolution can’t explain that. And if it’s an illusion or whatever, then that’s even worse.
Let’s just say it could give the whole human race certain common beliefs that end up serving our survival as a species, helping us to effectively get our genes into the next generation in a productive way, not just willy-nilly creating a bunch of kids here and there, but, rather, building a functioning society that allows, in an ordered way, for us to increase the population. Well, that may be true, too. Even if I granted that, where is the locus in that way of looking at good and evil?
Now, I think when most people think of, let’s just say racism, people think racism is evil in itself. Even those who believe it’s good, they’re still wrong because the locus of the moral quality is in the action itself. It’s outside of us. But, if we have merely a belief that racism is wrong because of evolution, where is the locus, then, of the morality? It’s inside of us in our belief, not outside of us. And, had we evolved differently, our morality would be different. On that view, again, even conceding that Darwinism could create our moral beliefs, it still would amount to nothing more than relativism. That’s it. That’s all it would be. That’s the inside-outside distinction I talk about. The moral code is inside.
Okay. How about this? If Darwinism is true, why should I be good tomorrow? Now, there’s no answer to that. The presumption is—I mean, I could hear the answer in my head—”Oh, because this helps us survive as a group.” But there’s a presumption there that helping us survive as a group is a good thing in itself. What makes it good in itself? The long and short of it is, if Darwinism explains our view of morality, then we have nothing more than relativism because biology cannot make anything bad in itself. It might be able to make us believe it’s bad for the benefit of evolution, but it can’t make the thing actually, objectively bad, and things have to be objectively bad for there to be a problem of evil.
Now, having said that, I’ve got some pushback from some who have said, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There is an objective standard in evolution. It’s genetic mutation and natural selection.” That is an objective state of affairs that creates, as the idea goes, the beliefs within us. So, we have moral beliefs about things that are grounded in an objective state of affairs—natural selection working on genetic mutation. Well, that is an objective state of affairs. There’s no question about that. I’m just presuming that it works that way, but still, these are objective things. But what is it creating? That’s the point.
You can have all kinds of objective measurements that determine certain beliefs, at least in principle, or maybe even certain behaviors, but what is it that makes those behaviors, dictated by these objective standards, actually right or wrong in themselves? That’s the key. Just because you have objective standards to measure certain behavior does not tell you whether the behavior itself is objectively good. It just means that the behavior is objectively attainable by certain standards. This is nothing more than consequentialism. You want to make really, really, really good spaghetti. Then you go A, B, C, D, E, and you have really good spaghetti. So, there are objective standards for something like that. Or maybe that’s not a good illustration, because food is subjective. Some people don’t like spaghetti. So, if you could really, really do good math—that is, you get the equations all correct—there are objective standards for good math, at least when I went to school. But that doesn’t mean the answers that you get through some objective means are morally good. They are merely accurate. There is a difference between getting something accurate and accomplishing something that is morally good.
So, this is the problem. Pointing to objective standards like natural selection and mutation to accomplish a belief about morality doesn’t mean that the beliefs themselves, the moral quality of the beliefs, are grounded objectively in an objective moral standard.