Moral Origins

Many people regard morals and moral values as imperatives given to us by God and not subject to human choice. Others, usually with a philosophical bent, replace God with a rational derivation from first principles or from some similar logical starting point, but usually agree that we can’t just choose our moral principles. A few deny the legitimacy of any moral principles and argue for total personal freedom.

Without challenging any of those views directly, I attempt, in this series of blog posts, to present an alternative perspective on the origin of the particular values that various people consider to be essential guides to moral behavior today. Specifically, I am searching for the origins of these values in our evolutionary prehistory, as modified or fine-tuned somewhat by subsequent cultural influences. In fact, I view morality as a very fundamental and necessary part of human culture that we and our predecessor species developed in response to needs and opportunities encountered in our life experiences.

Here Come Da Genes

There is substantial evidence that, through natural selection and its variant known as sexual selection, our genes have been modified, in response to competitive demands, to shape not only our physical nature but our intellectual and psychological nature as well. Along the journey from single-cell organisms to highly rational beings whose male members tie rags around their necks to indicate high professional status, we gradually acquired, among other attributes, a sense of right and wrong.

We frequently disagree, however, on specifically what is right and what is wrong. While we all pretty much agree that theft, violence, and dishonesty are wrong under most circumstances, we can’t seem to agree on, for example, social issues such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality, premarital sex, divorce, male and female roles in society, methods of parenting, and obedience to traditions or divine laws.

Nor can we agree on less-personal issues such as the role of government in general, the regulation of business vs. free enterprise, the acceptability of large differences in wealth among the populous, whether money is more properly considered “the root of all evil” or the rightful measure of success of a productive member of society, whether to arrest flag burners and pot smokers, and so on.

Divided We Stand

In fact, it often seems that our moral sense divides us more than it unites us. Maybe, just maybe, we should try to understood better the sources of our differences in moral values, as well as in their expression as political values. Maybe it just isn’t good enough to say that the only important difference is that I am moral and all those who disagree with me are either immoral or just plain wrong. The purpose of this Weblog is to explore the sources of our moral and political values and why we so often disagree on what is right and wrong. Surely even those who fervently believe they are absolutely right can’t object to discussing the sources of disagreement.

In the last couple of weekly posts, I have discussed a plausible theory on the evolution of economic liberalism, which I maintain is characterized by above-average compassion for the poor and powerless. (I don’t include as liberals those who support liberal policies only because they benefit personally from them.)

This week I’ll turn to economic conservatism. As I asserted in the first issue of this blog, economic conservatives are, in general, supporters of free enterprise, competition, and the right of the winners of that competition to keep and enjoy the fruits of their efforts. They accept the validity of economic self interest as a primary motivation, but set limits on the tactics that can be used, disallowing violence and theft, for example.

I have pointed out that most of us feel compassion toward some small circle of people, usually our own family, and will willingly make sacrifices for the members of that small group (an economic “liberal” relationship). Then there are one or more larger circles of people we trust enough to enter into agreements with and compete with (an economic conservative relationship). And finally there are the outsiders, whom we don’t trust. The difference between the liberal and the conservative is the size of their circles. The liberal’s circles are larger, more inclusive, than the conservative’s.

Viva La Difference

While we are all motivated in large part by self interest, what differentiates the economic conservative from the economic liberal is what impetus offsets self interest to allow us to get along with one another in a society beyond one’s own family. The liberal relies, or would like to rely, primarily on empathy and compassion, with rules only as a backup, while the conservative characteristically relies primarily on rules — seldom on compassion. Violence is against the rules, as is not just theft, but more generally any violation of property rights.

Property, according to the economic conservative, belongs to those who earn it through their productive or commercial activity or who buy it in a free market. The poor aren’t entitled to it just because they have so little. But since we all have a mix of liberalism and conservatism, even conservatives will sometimes show their liberal (compassionate) side by donating voluntarily to the poor, usually while insisting that it’s a gift, not an entitlement, and they don’t have to do it.

It’s worth noting that the anti-violence and pro-property-rights rules emphasized by the economic conservatives all favor those who succeed in business. In a state of nature, by contrast, with individuals interacting purely as unrestrained competitors, success usually goes to the physically strong and intimidating. Theft and violence or the threat of violence are the natural routes to competitive success in the absence of a social structure. Many people today are still better equipped for this kind of physical competition than for intellectual and economic competition, but the rules of society preferred by economic conservatives disarm those people while allowing the free-marketers themselves to outwit their opponents, marshall economic resources against them, cooperate with fellow free-marketers in redrafting the rules to further advantage their own strengths, and generally live in a highly-competitive world in which the rules of competition favor themselves. By contrast, the economic liberals would prefer to live in a less-competitive, more cooperative world in which wealth is distributed more equally.

The latter sounds “nicer” to a liberal, but the economic conservatives argue that the former is more “fair” and leads to more economic progress, more productivity and more wealth for almost everyone, and a better life even for those near the bottom of the ladder. My purpose is to illustrate the essential difference, not to argue which is better. And the essential difference is that economic liberalism in its pure form relies on compassion and cooperation to offset self interest and make the world safe for social groups, while economic conservatism in its pure form relies on “rules of the game” to channel self interest into useful directions that benefit society.

At The Heart of It

Now it’s true that we are all motivated by both compassion and self interest and that we all recognize and obey certain rules. But what distinguishes economic liberalism is the emphasis on compassion (considered a good thing) as the preferred alternative to self interest (a bad thing) in order to help people to work together and gain the benefits of community. What distinguishes economic conservatism is the emphasis on rules of competition to channel self interest (for the most part a good or at least neutral thing if properly channeled) so that people can work together and gain the benefits of community. Compassion doesn’t enter into the workings of economic conservatism, although it exists on the side and can be invoked to moderate some of the potentially cruel outcomes of pure economic conservatism. It is considered to be basically a good thing, too, but if invoked too frequently it can interfere with economic incentives and become a bad thing.

Some readers might sniff a bit at my use of the technical terms “good thing” and “bad thing,” but hey, we’re talking morals here, aren’t we?

So the econ libs and the econ cons differ fundamentally in their moral values (compassion vs. competition) and the manner in which they believe individuals can and should be “socialized” (teach them compassion and cooperation vs. teach them to compete vigorously within the limits of rules).

But they differ also in the evolutionary events that gave rise to their moral sense. As described in Issues 2 and 3, the econ libs (and others) owe their compassion to the genetic changes that became necessary to support the nurturing of offspring, which itself became advantageous in order to allow the young to delay the full development of the neural connections in their brains until after they had been able to experience life.

The econ cons (and others) developed their reliance on rules of competition as a result of banding together into groups, particularly large and complex groups, and that banding together resulted from the advantages it offered for defense and, later, the division of labor.

There’s a lot more to explore with respect to both these types, but next week we’ll shift our attention to the social dimension — the social liberals and the social conservatives. Friday morning, OK? It’s a date?