Does Evolution Supply Sufficient Foundation For Morality?

The moral experience is a part of what truly distinguishes mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom. When a lion rips the throat out of a gazelle, where are the screams for justice? When a squirrel steals the winter supply of another squirrel, from where come the cries for restitution? It’s apparent, though the animal kingdom shares in the experience of suffering, no sheep has inquired how to avoid it, and no goldfish ever peeks its head out of the aquarium to ask why. Yet, if mankind is nothing more than higher orders of beast along the evolutionary chain¹, what kind of coherent explanation can we understand regarding the origins of morality? I would say none.

The contention of theists, and more specifically Biblical theists, is that objective morality only makes sense if it is anchored to something solid. We posit that anchor to be God. The argument goes something like this;

1. Objective morals exist
2. Objective morals cannot exist apart from an objective moral law giver (i.e. God)
3. Therefore we conclude that since objective morals do exist, God necessarily must exist.

While I am asserting this as the starting premise from which all moral discussion should follow, it does not go unchallenged. I don’t wish to debate that in detail at this time, however I will briefly entertain some of the challenge to strengthen the foundation for objective morals, so that I may better be able to give sound argumentation against the claim that morality is a byproduct of evolution.

Some might dispute the objective nature of morality, and instead argue that morals are relative. This claim is easy to refute, as it refutes itself. The statement “there are no absolute moral values” is in itself a moral value which must be objective in order for all other moral values to remain relative.  The claim of subjective morality has been endlessly pointed out as self-refuting by theists and apologists the world over, yet some still contend that morals are relative, or subject to the whims of individuals.

This brings me to my next point. Subjective moral living is unlivable. The very language of such individuals gives them away. When theists stand and speak about sexual ethics for example, the relativist will often stand and respond; “we all choose our own morals; you can’t tell me how to live my life!” That begs the question; can we not do so because it is wrong, or because the relativist doesn’t like being told how to live life? If it is wrong, then objective moral values do exist, but if it is just personal preference, than in fact I can tell others how to live life and there is no-one who can rationally or justifiably tell me otherwise. In this view of the good, nothing can be said to be more than personal preference or what happens to be fashionable and unfashionable.

Here is a fitting analogy; imagine stopping at a red light somewhere with your feet firmly pressing the breaks. A second vehicle stopped beside you begins to gently roll backwards as the driver releases pressure from their breaks, giving the appearance you are moving forward. You know you are still pressing the breaks, yet what is the first thing you do? For fear of colliding with the traffic in front of you, you quickly search for landmarks to measure against, such as a traffic sign, or a light post. It is precisely the same effect when interacting with people in everyday life. When something has occurred worthy of praise or punishment, all mankind must appeal to a standard, a landmark if you will, to justify labeling the action as praiseworthy or blameworthy. If morality is subject to the desires and whims of humanity on either a personal or societal level, it is similar to what would happen if the light posts or traffic signs were moving along with you. One could never tell motion from non motion in that traffic scenario, just as one could never tell praiseworthy from blameworthy in every day life. Mankind intuitively knows the posts are fixed, regardless of any philosophy to the contrary, and lives accordingly. Even the most ardent evolutionists understand the implications…

“Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings. We seek it in our friends and mates, nurture it in our children, advance it in our politics and justify it with our religions. A disrespect for morality is blamed for everyday sins and history's worst atrocities. To carry this weight, the concept of morality would have to be bigger than any of us and outside all of us.” ² (Italics and emphasis mine)

In spite of morality’s objective and inescapable nature, which by extension suggests the existence of God, many alternate explanations are offered. The explanation I wish to tackle in this article is that morality evolved, but what kind of rational explanation can evolutionists give regarding the origins of morality? I would contend they can give none. Consider the following…

“…conscience, the seat of our moral sense, evolved as a survival mechanism. When… we feel guilt because we have harmed a sibling, it is because we have thereby imperiled the proliferation of our genes. When we feel guilt because we have harmed someone outside the family circle, it is because we have potentially damaged our own (survival enhancing) status.” ³

Having read this, let’s go through this line of reasoning and consider what is actually being said.

First off, the evolutionist tries to push off the problem of an objective moral by appealing to a higher objective moral imperative. Evolution has, or so is being said, somehow understood the need for the proliferation of our genes. What is being told to us is that morality is actually just a mechanism which has evolved in order that the objective moral good of survival and gene proliferation can be accomplished. The evolutionist, be he a materialist or naturalist, is attempting a slight of hand with his explanation. The question is “how did morality originate?” And the response we are given here is “moral goodness evolved in order to satisfy a moral good.” In other words, morality is said to have evolved for the purpose of accomplishing something already deemed morally good, that is, gene proliferation. While it may make for interesting reading in an anthropology textbook, it only begs the question and pushes the problem of the origin of morals one step further away from us. All the astute person has to ask is; where do we then find the origins of the good of survival and the passing on of our genes?

Interestingly enough, do you notice that evolution must somehow be deified in this view in order to grant some semblance of rigidity to an otherwise flimsy explanation? How did evolution come to be granted the powers of a prophet? When did evolution become sentient in that it knows its own goals, chiefly gene proliferation and survival? (That’s odd considering genes weren’t discovered until the late 19th century). Where did evolution receive the education to be a teacher that it might instruct humanity to this end? Notice in addition to all this, evolution must sit comparatively elevated to mankind since we are only discovering these supposed truths in the last century, while it has known them for much much longer. The fact that such deification is hinted at, if not smuggled in, should also serve to hint at the existence of some supreme mind behind all of creation. There is no other way to make sense of anything with out such a being.

In continuing the discussion, the next major flaw in such an argument is the ability to appropriately label actions as moral or immoral, as good or as evil. In attempting to label gene proliferation as the ultimate good, the evolutionist has tipped his hat. While vocally decrying morals as subjective byproducts of an inefficient process, intuitively he has shown morals must stand independent of and objectively to mankind. Here is why…

When I want to frame a wall, for example, I take the wood in hand, and what do I do? Do I wedge the wood into the frame, and then declare it eight feet six inches; after all, I made it fit? No, that would be absurd. If the beam is too big, it might be wedged into the frame, it may even work, but that in no way informs us of its dimensions. If the beam is too small, no matter how hard I try, I wouldn’t be able to wedge it into the frame. In order to know both the size needed and whether the beam fits, I have to take two unknown measurements with a known standard of measure. I use the measuring tape to see what is needed, and then I have to apply it to the wood and see where it must be cut to the appropriate size. It is no different for the evolutionary moral of survival. In order to declare survival and gene proliferation good, the evolutionist must take these concepts and measure them against something else independent of the concepts themselves. The standard must precede the thing being measured. In affirming the things they do, the evolutionist presupposes to know the end goal, and then looks for whatever works to achieve that goal, (i.e. ramming the stud into place without measuring). In the end they declare they have figured out the origins of morality because they have found something that works toward their subjectively chosen goal, but that in no way tells us whether something is actually good or evil.

As stated, the standard must precede the thing being measured. This truth makes it quite impossible for evolutionists to explain morality. By definition, to say an act is good, is saying it is what it ought to be, and to state an act is evil, is to say it is one which ought not to be. Just as in measuring a beam to frame a wall, the tape measure must be in hand in order to measure the correct length. So it is with being able to discern the moral measure of a thing. Morality is, in this light, prescriptive; that is to say morals are things understood to exist in advance of the actions taken. With evolution this cannot be so. In attempting to look at the universe and, through observation, explain what is moral and what is not, the evolutionist at best can only describe what they see, and speculate what they preferentially and subjectively believe to be moral or immoral.

Any scientific observations must fall into categories in order to be able to be systematized (“big”, “round”, “red”, “heavy”, etc). This is the essence of scientific study, and as such acknowledges that there must be standards of measure prior to the scientific researcher’s categorization of the facts in question. “Good” or “bad” are categories which must precede the researchers recording of the data. In this way, the evolutionary scientist can at best only offer a descriptive morality in recording what they see. That type of a morality is no morality at all. Describing a past action can in no way tell us how we should have acted. How we should have acted can only be discerned, in retrospect, if we know what the desired outcomes should have been. In matters of moral conduct, science is impotent to tell us such things. This is precisely why science can never have sufficient grounding to declare morals to mankind.

That thought paves the way to my next line of reasoning. In a universe comprised purely of molecules in motion, how could we be said to know anything, let alone be able to distinguish its truth or moral good. If the great cause of all things is a collection of blind chemical reactions, then our thinking is also the sum of blind chemical reactions. Humanity would have no justifiable means by which we could judge an idea or course of action better then another. The chemicals colliding in a person’s brain and the subsequent reactions negate that possibility. Under these conditions, in order to rectify the difference in thought between individuals, a third party would have to add the appropriate chemicals making the balances match. Presto, we would then have the magic of producing like thoughts and beliefs amongst people. However, we know that this is not the case in the real world.

There is a school of evolutionists today who would deny the mind is meant for truth.

The idea that the mind is designed for truth is not completely wrong. We do have some reliable notions about the distribution of middle-sized objects around us and the quotidian beliefs and desires of our friends and relatives. But the statement that the mind is designed to ‘find out truths’ would seem to be a rather misleading summary of the past fifty years of research on human reasoning.⁴

The idea put forward here…research has taught us that reason has evolved not as a means for discerning truth, but as a means to achieve something else. Why then do the research at all? This idea begs the question, is it true? If it is, truth is knowable, the mind is adapted for truth, and the belief is now false. If the mind is not adapted for truth, how could we be certain the contradictory thesis is misleading in any way? Granting the veracity of such nonsense, applied to moral truths, if thought is a byproduct of evolutionary processes, we could no longer be able to say anything with certainty. Morality would not be knowable or distinguishable from immorality.

The next logical question in my mind is why ought we to stop at thinking? According to the materialist, all we are in totality is just molecules in motion; not just our brains but our bodies as well. In like manner, if our thoughts and ideas are the sum total of chemical reactions in our brains, then why are our actions and behaviors any different? If we have no true ability to think and reason, we also have no ability to choose courses of action. In this the evolutionists have also completely undermined their ability to enter the debate on morality. As well known evolutionist has stated, “DNA just is, and we dance to its music”.⁵  Is this true? I have argued to this point that evolution leaves us with no prescribed morality and with no standard to measure something as moral or immoral. If it is true we are subject to the whims of our genetic code, we also leave ourselves with no justifiable means to judge the actions of individuals with rewards or punishments.

Play out a couple of scenarios; In 1969 Charles Manson, along with some of his followers, committed nine gruesome murders. Apply the view he was only dancing to the song his DNA was playing. How can he be held responsible, under the evolutionary worldview, for any of the actions he took? I believe Manson did something horrific. Anyone with even an inkling of moral sensibility would agree, but evolution can never inform us to that end. If we are all subject to the whims of our genes, then humanity is strictly determined in all it undertakes. We have no justifiable way to appeal for, nor do we have sufficient reason to seek, justice.

In contrast, take the lifelong work of someone like Mother Teresa. For over 45 years she cared for orphans, widows, and those in poverty. She was a hope for the hopeless. She embodied much of what is the highest order of goodness toward her fellow man, and yet in the eyes of such strict determinism, it all adds up to nothing. In that light, Charles Manson and Mother Teresa are different only in preference, and not in value of their conduct.

We decry the actions of Charles Manson. His incarceration is at least a good start toward justice. Mother Teresa ought to be honored, her actions were worthy of praise. Their actions are measured by more than what is fashionable or unfashionable. An appeal to the heart must be made. The evolutionist leaves us, wittingly or unwittingly, in that very position whereby all action is merely a consequence beyond our control. How could someone be held accountable if in such a world we must dance when the dirge is played?

The consequences of pain and suffering which result from immorality affect us all. Less extreme are the questions and examples of everyday life. Assuming the impossibility of the inefficient processes of time and chance, there are some practical considerations which must be explored, and the questions they pose must be answered.

Why, if we act to maintain the progression of our genes into the future, do the simple things hurt us so? Why for example do words hurt? A word can do no damage to a gene. Somehow we know to, and do act against verbal abuse. I am not talking about ending verbal forms of abuse because of what it may lead to, but for the words themselves which hurt completely disconnected from any other actions. Why do words hurt, and what’s more, why do we attempt to justify fighting against them.

If there is no God, then there is no meaning in life, and we can assert the fullness of freedom to express our sexuality^6,7, then why are we angered when a man has a wife and keeps a mistress? This seems incongruent to me. I freely admit we are entering a day and age where we have begun to sear our consciences to such actions, but the reality remains that we initially react negatively.  In such instances, are the people involved not aiding in the passing of our genes? How about the evils of abortion; why is the freedom to murder the unborn upheld and applauded when we are most definitely damaging our survival enhancing status, or imperiling the proliferation of our genes? Further still, why is it that sexual purity is intuitively looked upon as more valuable than its opposite? In context of the argument the one most desired should be the one of whom it is known they have no trace of reproductive infertility. Such knowledge can’t be discovered if purity is maintained.

We must also respond to the guilt we feel when injuring another species.  Granting the explanation we are given pertaining to injuring a family member, or that of another family of the same species, we are hard pressed to explain such guilt. Living in light of the supposed axiom “survival of the fittest”, such remorse towards another species seams misplaced and incongruent. That opens the floor to questioning why some evolutionists are dogmatic toward protection of endangered species, and others are avowed vegetarians. These things make no sense under the umbrella of such ideology.

Narrowing down further still, if we are locked into the struggle for survival, I could understand sorrow at the passing of someone dying of a rare bacterial infection. But we must look at this and ask; why is that bad? The weakness of such a gene shouldn’t be passed on, but what of the germs and bacteria? It stands to reason they are also locked into the same struggle. I would suspect a certain understanding, if not a touch of ambivalence toward such events. Why are we so special that our survival must be at the expense of the genes and bacteria?

All these above questions ought not to be met with the emotions they invoke when death and mutation are the potters, life as we know it is the clay, and if the grave is all to which we can look ahead. Under evolution, the only logical response should be cold indifference. The fact it is not is proof positive humanity still has a hope, but that hope is not in itself, but in someone. Morality must be anchored in God’s existence. It is complete and utter nonsense if it is not. Evolution cannot be a suitable foundation upon which to build a moral culture.

Founded upon God’s existence, that which is immoral is rightly then understood as that which affronts and offends Him. Justice ultimately makes sense in this light and under no other. If God is eternal, His moral goodness from which morality flows is eternal. If we offend His moral sensibility, than His justice must also be eternal. In this way and in this way alone we can have a morality which is prescriptive, we can have a means whereby we can measure actions, thoughts, and ideas, and we can justifiably hold those accountable for not living according to such a standard.

The hope for humanity is not that it can save itself⁸, especially if humanity is the problem. The sole hope is in the One who served our sentence for our immorality, that God might be able to grant grace and mercy. Our sole hope is in Jesus Christ.

1. It is interesting that the objection atheists hold, mainly the suffering in the world which they abhor, is the same creator they worship.  “…thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species…,  p. 243

2. Seven Pinker, “The Moral Instinct” posted Jan 12, 2008, http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2123,The-Moral-Instinct,Steven-Pinker,page6
Reposted from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html?ref=science

3. Sara Lippencott, LA Times, September 1994, Book Review Section; condensing the arguments set forward by Robert Wright, “The moral animal- Why we are the way we Are: The new science of evolutionary psychology.” Pantheon Press.

4. Steven Pinker, “Mind & Language”, Vol. 20 No. 1 February 2005, pp.19, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.  Malden, MA. This was in response to Jerry Fodor’s work, “The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way”, which is a rebuttal to Pinker’s earlier work, “How The Mind Works”, where Pinker States; “Our brains were adapted for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not… we are apt to want our version of the truth, rather than the truth itself, to prevail.” W.W. Norton & Co, New York, NY, 1997.

5. The complete quote is as follows; “DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” “River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, 1995, pg 133, Basic Books, New York, NY.

6. "For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust. The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our political and erotical revolt: we could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever." Aldous Huxley, “Ends and Means”, (p.273)1937, (emphasis mine). The meaninglessness of which he speaks is directly resultant from, and furnished by, evolutionary theory.

7. The Humanist Manifesto II, Tenet six states- “In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults.” It must be noted that it is prohibitive and limiting to keep sex purely between consenting adults. While I agree, and would add consent between one husband and his one wife, on what basis can the limitations of the Manifesto on sexual activities be enforced? It has no foundation to do so. That said, it must also be noted the tone and manor in which sexual conduct was included in the Manifesto. All of this contradicts the notion of gene proliferation as the great good.

8. The humanist Manifesto II, Tenet 1 ends with this clear affirmation “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”